Banished Divinity: Learning to be Human

A few Saturdays later, the night air was cool and the house was quiet. Mum and Dad had gone to bed early, exhausted from a busy week at the restaurant. Mina was in her room, her pencil scratching against paper in the rhythm of someone trying to meet a deadline that was rapidly approaching. And I was sitting at my desk, staring at an economics textbook that had, over the past several weeks, become the bane of my existence.

The window creaked open.

A small green shape tumbled through the gap, bounced off my bed, rolled across the floor, and came to a stop against my foot with a soft squeak.

"Moo," Moo Moo said weakly.

I reached down and scooped him up. He was lighter than before. Thinner. His fur, usually bright and springy, was dull and matted. His eyes, always wet, were swollen with tears he had been crying for hours.

"Moo Moo," I said, setting him on my desk. "What's wrong?"

He looked up at me. His little body trembled. His mouth opened, closed, opened again. And then the words came out in a rush of "Moo"s that I had to piece together like a puzzle made of sorrow.

Lily stopped eating. Three days now. The doctors say— He paused. His voice cracked. The doctors say it's close. She's so tired, Sera. She's so tired, and she won't eat, and she won't talk, and I don't know what to do. I just sit with her. I just sit with her and I don't know what to do.

I listened. I held him. I let him cry into my palm, his tears soaking into my skin like tiny drops of rain.

"You just be with her," I said finally. "That's all you can do. That's all any of us can do. You be with her, and you let her know she's not alone."

"Moo Moo."

"Then you be with her for that too. No excuses."

Moo Moo looked at me. His eyes were huge, swimming, reflecting the lamplight like two small moons. And then he launched himself at me, his small arms wrapping around my thumb, his face burying itself in the crook of my finger, and he cried.

I let him.

After a long moment, his sobs subsided to hiccups, then to sniffles, then to the occasional shudder that passed through his tiny body like a wave through still water. He was still clinging to my thumb when Human Sera floated through my closed door.

She saw Moo Moo in my hands. She saw his tear-streaked face. Her expression softened.

"Hey, little guy," she said, floating closer. "Rough night?"

Moo Moo nodded weakly. He lifted one paw in a wave that was more exhaustion than enthusiasm.

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I get it." She looked at me. "Is it time?"

I glanced at the clock. It was nearly eleven. The textbooks were open on my desk. The practice problems were waiting. The equations that made no sense were sitting there, on the page, daring me to try.

"It's time," I said.

Human Sera grinned. It was not a nice grin. It was the grin of a general who had been waiting for this battle for weeks and was finally, finally ready to engage. "Excellent. Open your book. Page one hundred forty-seven. The section on monopolistic competition. We're going to go over it until you understand it, even if it takes all night."

I sighed. I set Moo Moo down on my desk, where he curled into a small green ball and watched us with tired, patient eyes. I opened my textbook. I found page one hundred forty-seven. I stared at the words that had, for weeks, refused to arrange themselves in any order that made sense.

"Okay," Human Sera said, settling into the chair beside me. "Monopolistic competition. It's like—"

"I know what it is," I said, with the weary dignity of a celestial being who had been beaten down by mortal concepts. "You have told me. Many times. In many ways. With many hand gestures. Some of which were frankly unnecessary."

"Then explain it to me."

I opened my mouth but could not make a sound. The words were there, somewhere, floating in the fog that had taken up permanent residence in my celestial brain where economic concepts should have been. But every time I reached for them, they slipped away like minnows fleeing a particularly confused bear.

"It's... when there is a monopoly. But also competition. But not perfect competition. It's—" I stopped. The words had slipped again. "It's in the middle."

Human Sera stared at me. "It's in the middle."

"Yes."

"That's your explanation."

"It is a spatially accurate explanation. It is in the middle of the spectrum. That is correct. The middle exists. I have identified it. That is more than some beings could do."

"It's correct in the way that saying 'water is wet' is correct," she said flatly. "It's technically true and completely useless. I asked you to explain monopolistic competition, not describe its geographic coordinates."

"I am a celestial being," I said haughtily. "I deal in absolutes. Light. Dark. Victory. Defeat. The crushing weight of eternal judgment. Not... shades of market share."

She leaned forward, her ghostly hands gesturing wildly. "Monopolistic competition is when many sellers offer similar but not identical products. They compete on things like quality, branding, marketing. Not just price. Like restaurants. Like—" She pointed toward the window. "—like Mum and Dad's restaurant. It's not the only one. There are other restaurants. But people choose theirs because it's theirs. Because it's special. Because it's different."

I stared at her. At her face, lit up with the force of her explanation. At her hands, moving in patterns that were almost like the diagrams in the book. At her eyes, bright with something that was not just knowledge, but love.

"That's not in the book," I said.

"What?"

"The book doesn't say it's special. It doesn't say it's because people love it. It just says—" I looked at the page. At the dry, sterile words that described a concept without ever explaining why it mattered. "—it just says the words. Not the meaning. This book has the emotional range of a spreadsheet. I have faced demons who showed more personality than this paragraph."

Human Sera was quiet for a moment. Then she said, very softly, "That's what I was good at. Finding the meaning. Mum used to say I could explain anything. She said I could make the most boring subject sound like a story."

"You can," I said. "You do. You made depreciation sound like a tragedy. I almost cried. Almost. But it doesn't—" I stopped. I didn't want to say it. I didn't want to admit that after weeks of her explaining, after hours of her patience, after all her stories and her diagrams and her ghostly hands drawing pictures in the air that only I could see, I still didn't understand.

Human Sera narrowed her eyes. "You don't get it, do you?"

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