Banished Divinity: Learning to be Human

The next three hours were, without question, the most humiliating of my existence.

I dropped things. I spilled things. I stood in the wrong places and moved in the wrong directions and asked questions that made Mum stare at me like I had grown a second head. I did not know how to hold a tray. I did not know how to wipe a table without smearing the water into streaks. I did not know how to take an order without writing down the wrong thing, or the right thing in the wrong handwriting, or the wrong thing in handwriting that was illegible even to myself.

And through it all, Human Sera floated beside me, narrating every mistake with the enthusiasm of someone watching a particularly entertaining disaster.

"Not like that. Like this. No, you're holding it wrong. The tray goes on your palm, not your fingers. No, your palm. The flat part. Yes, that part. Now balance it. No, don't—oh, that's going to—yep. There it goes."

The tray clattered to the floor. Cups rolled. A napkin drifted through the air like a leaf falling from a tree.

Mum appeared at my elbow. Her face was carefully neutral. "Sera. Why don't you let me handle the trays. You can—"

"I can wipe tables," I said quickly. "I can wipe tables. I am very good at wiping tables."

Mum looked at the table I had just "wiped," which now had more water on it than when I started. She looked at me. She opened her mouth. Closed it.

"Tables," she said. "Yes. You can wipe tables. I'll just... get you a different cloth."

She disappeared into the kitchen. Human Sera collapsed against a booth, her ghostly form shaking with suppressed laughter.

"You are terrible at this," she wheezed. "Absolutely terrible. I've never seen anyone worse. And I once saw Mina try to cook ramen and set the kitchen on fire."

"I am a celestial being," I hissed, grabbing a cloth from the counter and attacking a table with more force than was strictly necessary. "I have mastered concepts that would shatter mortal minds. I have—"

"You can't wipe a table."

"I can wipe a table."

"You're wiping it wrong."

"I am wiping it in the celestial way."

"There is no celestial way to wipe a table."

"There is now."

She laughed again. I ignored her. I wiped the table with the fury of a thousand suns, which was, I discovered, not the correct technique. The cloth left streaks. The water beaded. The table looked worse than when I started.

From the kitchen, I heard Mum say something to Dad in a low voice. I heard Dad laugh. I heard Mum shush him. I heard Dad laugh harder.

I paused. I looked at the cloth in my hands. I looked at the table. I looked at Human Sera, who was watching me with an expression that was no longer amused.

"Show me," I said.

She blinked. "What?"

"Show me how to do it. Properly. The way you would do it. If you were here. If you could."

She stared at me for a long moment. Her form flickered. Her hands, translucent in the morning light, hovered at her sides.

"I can't," she said. "I can't touch anything. I can't—"

"Show me with words. Tell me what to do. Step by step. The way you would explain it to someone who had never done it before."

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. And then, slowly, she began to speak.

"Fold the cloth into a square. No, smaller. Like a pocket. Yes, like that. Now wet it—not too wet, just damp. Wring it out. Good. Now start at the top corner. Move in circles. Small circles. Not big ones—small. And overlap them. Each circle should touch the one before it. Yes. Yes, like that. Now move down. Keep going. Keep the circles small. Don't press too hard. The cloth should glide, not scrape. Yes. Yes, that's—that's exactly right."

I moved around the table, following her instructions, letting her voice guide my hands. Small circles. Overlapping. Glide, not scrape. It was not celestial magic. It was not power or fire or the force that had once made demons tremble.

It was just a cloth. A table. A ghost telling me how to wipe it clean.

When I finished, the table gleamed.

I stepped back. I looked at my work. I looked at Human Sera, who was standing by the booth, her hands clasped in front of her, her face wet with tears she could not feel.

"That's how Mum taught me," she said. Her voice was small. "When I was little. She stood behind me and guided my hands. She said 'small circles, Sera, small circles.' I must have wiped a hundred tables before she let me do anything else."

I looked at the table. At the clean surface, the streaks gone, the water absorbed. "It's a good method."

"Yeah." She wiped her face with the back of her hand, even though she couldn't feel the tears either. "It's a good method."

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