Good Omens

you have to be a fool.
    The table in front of the two of them was covered with bottles.
    â€œThe point is,” said Crowley, “the point is. The point is.” He tried to focus on Aziraphale.
    â€œThe point is ,” he said, and tried to think of a point .
    â€œThe point I’m trying to make,” he said, brightening, “is the dolphins. That’s my point.”
    â€œKind of fish,” said Aziraphale.
    â€œNononono,” said Crowley, shaking a finger. “’S mammal. Your actual mammal. Difference is—” Crowley waded through the swamp of his mind and tried to remember the difference. “Difference is, they—”
    â€œMate out of water?” volunteered Aziraphale.
    Crowley’s brow furrowed. “Don’t think so. Pretty sure that’s not it. Something about their young. Whatever.” He pulled himself together. “The point is. The point is. Their brains.”
    He reached for a bottle.
    â€œWhat about their brains?” said the angel.
    â€œBig brains. That’s my point. Size of. Size of. Size of damn big brains. And then there’s the whales. Brain city, take it from me. Whole damn sea full of brains.”
    â€œKraken,” said Aziraphale, staring moodily into his glass.
    Crowley gave him the long cool look of someone who has just had a girder dropped in front of his train of thought.
    â€œUh?”
    â€œGreat big bugger,” said Aziraphale. “Sleepeth beneath the thunders of the upper deep. Under loads of huge and unnumbered polypol—polipo—bloody great seaweeds, you know. Supposed to rise to the surface right at the end, when the sea boils.”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œFact.”
    â€œThere you are, then,” said Crowley, sitting back. “Whole sea bubbling, poor old dolphins so much seafood gumbo, no one giving a damn. Same with gorillas. Whoops, they say, sky gone all red, stars crashing to ground, what they putting in the bananas these days? And then—”
    â€œThey make nests, you know, gorillas,” said the angel, pouring another drink and managing to hit the glass on the third go.
    â€œNah.”
    â€œGod’s truth. Saw a film. Nests.”
    â€œThat’s birds,” said Crowley.
    â€œNests,” insisted Aziraphale.
    Crowley decided not to argue the point.
    â€œThere you are then,” he said. “All creatures great and smoke. I mean small. Great and small. Lot of them with brains. And then, bazamm.”
    â€œBut you’re part of it,” said Aziraphale. “You tempt people. You’re good at it.”
    Crowley thumped his glass on the table. “That’s different. They don’t have to say yes. That’s the ineffable bit, right? Your side made it up. You’ve got to keep testing people. But not to destruction.”
    â€œAll right. All right. I don’t like it any more than you, but I told you. I can’t disod—disoy—not do what I’m told. ’M a’nangel.”
    â€œThere’s no theaters in Heaven,” said Crowley. “And very few films.”
    â€œDon’t you try to tempt me ,” said Aziraphale wretchedly. “I know you, you old serpent.”
    â€œJust you think about it,” said Crowley relentlessly. “You know what eternity is? You know what eternity is? I mean, d’you know what eternity is? There’s this big mountain, see, a mile high, at the end of the universe, and once every thousand years there’s this little bird—”
    â€œWhat little bird?” said Aziraphale suspiciously.
    â€œThis little bird I’m talking about. And every thousand years—”
    â€œThe same bird every thousand years?”
    Crowley hesitated. “Yeah,” he said.
    â€œBloody ancient bird, then.”
    â€œOkay. And every thousand years this bird flies —”
    â€œâ€”limps—”
    â€œâ€”flies all the way to this mountain and sharpens its beak—”
    â€œHold on . You can’t do that. Between here and the end of the universe there’s loads of—” The angel waved a hand expansively, if a little unsteadily. “Loads of buggerall, dear boy.”
    â€œBut it gets there anyway,” Crowley persevered.
    â€œHow?”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter!”
    â€œIt could use a spaceship,” said the angel.
    Crowley subsided a bit. “Yeah,” he said. “If you like. Anyway, this