Monster

"Paint?" he said.

Crowley nodded.

"What're they playing at?" said Aziraphale.

"I don't know," said Crowley, "but I think it's called silly buggers." His tone suggested that he could play, too. And do it better.

---

It was a game. It was tremendous fun. Nigel Tompkins, Assistant Head (Purchasing), squirmed through the undergrowth, his mind aflame with some of the more memorable scenes of some of the better Clint Eastwood movies. And to think he'd believed that management training was going to be boring, too . . .

There had been a lecture, but it had been about the paint guns and all the things you should never do with them, and Tompkins had looked at the fresh young faces of his rival trainees as, to a man, they resolved to do them all if there was half a chance of getting away with it. If people told you business was a jungle and then put a gun in your hand, then it was pretty obvious to Tompkins that they weren't expecting you to simply aim for the shirt; what it was all about was the corporate head hanging over your fireplace.

Anyway, it was rumored that someone over in United Consolidated had done his promotion prospects a considerable amount of good by the anonymous application of a high-speed earful of paint to an immediate superior, causing the latter to complain of little ringing noises in important meetings and eventually to be replaced on medical grounds.

And there were his fellow trainees-fellow sperms, to switch metaphors, all struggling forward in the knowledge that there could only ever be one Chairman of Industrial Holdings (Holdings) PLC, and that the job would probably go to the biggest prick.

Of course, some girl with a clipboard from Personnel had told them that the courses they were
going on were just to establish leadership potential, group cooperation, initiative, and so on. The trainees had tried to avoid one another's faces.

It had worked quite well so far. The white-water canoeing had taken care of Johnstone (punctured eardrum) and the mountain climbing in Wales had done for Whittaker (groin strain).
Tompkins thumbed another paint pellet into the gun and muttered business mantras to himself. Do Unto Others Before They Do Unto You. Kill or Be Killed. Either Shit or Get Out of the Kitchen. Survival of the Fittest. Make My Day.

He crawled a little nearer to the figures by the statue. They didn't seem to have noticed him.

When the available cover ran out, he took a deep breath and leapt to his feet.

"Okay, douchebags, grab some sk-ohnoooeeeeee . . ."

Where one of the figures had been there was something dreadful. He blacked out.
Crowley restored himself to his favorite shape.

"I hate having to do that," he murmured. "I'm always afraid I'll forget how to change back. And it
can ruin a good suit."

"I think the maggots were a bit over the top, myself," said Aziraphale, but without much rancor.

Angels had certain moral standards to maintain and so, unlike Crowley, he preferred to buy his clothes rather than wish them into being from raw firmament. And the shirt had been quite expensive.

***

Good Omens - Wednesday