Vihal, an Angel

"Vihal, you…! You've gone and failed again, haven't you!"

"I—I'm so sorry, God…!"

The door had flown open with a *bang*. The one called God—and a personage it certainly was, with a question mark after it—came bursting through it, and that was what he said, short of breath.

It was a strange place. There was no wall to be seen anywhere, and yet a single door stood alone in the middle of a wide room.

Across the whole floor lay something like a blue canvas, and just in front of the door a bucket had been knocked over, its white paint spilled out across it…

Two winged figures stood before the mess.

One was an old gentleman with a very long white beard, white hair, and white brows, dressed in a noble, loose-fitting robe of white, embroidered with just enough gold to be rich without being loud. This was the one they called God.

The other was a young angel with blue eyes and short, curling hair, shrunk small under the scolding.

"Well, never mind… It's about time, as it happens. Until Edwin comes to relieve you, go and work the spot furthest from here."

Edwin was a veteran of this trade. The young angel had learned a great many things from him already, and had had his failures covered by him more than once.

"Before you take your rest, you will watch how that veteran angel of ours repairs this. …I must go and apologize to the division that governs the weather below."

The long hair hid most of the old man's expression, but his weariness was plain enough. To him the young angel, Vihal, bowed deeply and said,

"…I am so sorry…!"

"Watch Edwin's work, and learn from it."

God went out through the door with his shoulders slumped; and the door vanished behind him, leaving the blue canvas, the bucket Vihal had knocked over by accident, and the white paint spilled across the floor.

"And I'd worked so hard to paint this much of it, too…"

It had been his own doing, but looking at the spill, he could do nothing but sigh.

Day after day, by shifts that never stopped, this work went on: by the pictures they painted, the weather of the world below was governed.

It was a trade that prized two things—an eye for painting, and speed. Vihal had cleared the first of those two hurdles early on; and ten days ago, at last, his speed had reached the required standard, and he had come as far as a one-month trial period.

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