The way the world works is, every once in a while, a Good Angel and a Bad Angel fall to Earth from on high. They are sent down to rule the planet. One of them is male and one of them is female (it doesn’t matter which is which), so what usually happens is that they fuck and make Medium Angel, and that Angel rules the world as a compromise. Except this time there’s a glitch at the angel factory so that Good Angel and Bad Angel are both female. I am Good Angel, and Bad Angel is much stronger and more attractive than I am. She says, “Since we can’t make Medium Angel, we should just go ahead and fight to the death and whoever wins gets to rule the world.” I’m like, I got a bad feeling about this.
So, we fight for a while, Japanese-animé style, hurling balls of lightning at each other and leveling cities and such. Bad Angel is clearly kicking my ass. I am lying there in a pool of my own blood trying to gather the last shreds of my energy for a desperate suicidal onslaught when Bad Angel pities me and says, “Don’t bother, it’s useless. You think that even if somehow you win, human beings will stop hating and killing each other just because they have a Good Angel to watch over them? Just give up. They’re all mine. The world was made for me.”
I look up at the Bad Angel, absorb what she said, realize that she is right, and pass out.
When I wake up, I am covered in brambles and crap. It’s fifty years later and the whole planet is a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Nobody remembers the battle I lost; nobody even remembers there was ever a Good Angel. I am weak and miserable and I don’t know why I bother being alive, alive forever to wander the Earth and watch the human race degrade itself while the Bad Angel laughs, laughs, laughs.
Other suggestions welcome for the lead actress… Who else does badass pathos?
Elena Mauli Shapiro 