Good Omens

plans.”
    â€œSorry?” said Aziraphale.
    â€œWell,” said Crowley, who’d been thinking about this until his head ached, “haven’t you ever wondered about it all? You know—your people and my people, Heaven and Hell, good and evil, all that sort of thing? I mean, why ?”
    â€œAs I recall,” said the angel, stiffly, “there was the rebellion and—”
    â€œAh, yes. And why did it happen , eh? I mean, it didn’t have to, did it?” said Crowley, a manic look in his eye. “Anyone who could build a universe in six days isn’t going to let a little thing like that happen. Unless they want it to, of course.”
    â€œOh, come on. Be sensible,” said Aziraphale, doubtfully.
    â€œThat’s not good advice,” said Crowley. “That’s not good advice at all. If you sit down and think about it sensibly , you come up with some very funny ideas. Like: why make people inquisitive, and then put some forbidden fruit where they can see it with a big neon finger flashing on and off saying ‘THIS IS IT!’?”
    â€œI don’t remember any neon.”
    â€œMetaphorically, I mean. I mean, why do that if you really don’t want them to eat it, eh? I mean, maybe you just want to see how it all turns out. Maybe it’s all part of a great big ineffable plan. All of it. You, me, him, everything. Some great big test to see if what you’ve built all works properly, eh? You start thinking: it can’t be a great cosmic game of chess, it has to be just very complicated Solitaire. And don’t bother to answer. If we could understand, we wouldn’t be us. Because it’s all—all—”
    INEFFABLE, said the figure feeding the ducks.
    â€œYeah. Right. Thanks.”
    They watched the tall stranger carefully dispose of the empty bag in a litter bin, and stalk away across the grass. Then Crowley shook his head.
    â€œWhat was I saying?” he said.
    â€œDon’t know,” said Aziraphale. “Nothing very important, I think.”
    Crowley nodded gloomily. “Let me tempt you to some lunch,” he hissed.
    They went to the Ritz again, where a table was mysteriously vacant. And perhaps the recent exertions had had some fallout in the nature of reality because, while they were eating, for the first time ever, a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.
    No one heard it over the noise of the traffic, but it was there, right enough.
    IT WAS ONE O’CLOCK ON SUNDAY.
    For the last decade Sunday lunch in Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell’s world had followed an invariable routine. He would sit at the rickety, cigarette-burned table in his room, thumbing through an elderly copy of one of the Witchfinder Army library’s 57 books on magic and Demonology—the Necrotelecomnicon or the Liber Fulvarum Paginarum , or his old favorite, the Malleus Malleficarum . 58
    Then there would be a knock on the door, and Madame Tracy would call out, “Lunch, Mr. Shadwell,” and Shadwell would mutter, “Shameless hussy,” and wait sixty seconds, to allow the shameless hussy time to get back into her room; then he’d open the door, and pick up the plate of liver, which was usually carefully covered by another plate to keep it warm. And he’d take it in, and he’d eat it, taking moderate care not to spill any gravy on the pages he was reading. 59
    That was what always happened.
    Except on that Sunday, it didn’t.
    For a start, he wasn’t reading. He was just sitting.
    And when the knock came on the door he got up immediately, and opened it. He needn’t have hurried.
    There was no plate. There was just Madame Tracy, wearing a cameo brooch, and an unfamiliar shade of lipstick. She was also standing in the center of a perfume zone.
    â€œAye, Jezebel?”
    Madame Tracy’s voice was bright and fast and brittle with uncertainty. “Hullo, Mister S , I was just thinking, after all we’ve been through in the last two days, seems silly for me to leave a plate out for you, so I’ve set a place for you. Come on … ”
    Mister S? Shadwell followed, warily.
    He’d had another dream, last night. He didn’t remember it properly, just one phrase, that still echoed in his head and disturbed him. The dream had vanished into a haze, like the events of the previous night.
    It was this. “Nothin’ wrong with witchfinding. I’d like to be a witchfinder.