Banished Divinity: Learning to be Human

8:00 AM.

The alarm went off.

It was not a gentle alarm. It was not the kind of alarm that eased you into wakefulness with soft birdsong and calming melodies. It was a blaring, screeching, industrial-strength siren that Mina had set as a prank three months ago and I had never figured out how to change.

BRRRRRING! BRRRRRING! BRRRRRING!

I slammed my hand on the snooze button.

Nothing happened.

I slammed it again.

Still nothing.

"WAKEY WAKEY!" Human Sera's voice cut through the noise like a celestial battle cry. She was floating directly above my bed, her form at maximum brightness, her arms spread wide like she was conducting an orchestra of chaos. "WAKEY WAKEY! IT'S TIME FOR ROMANCE AND LOVE AND GOODNESS AND EVERYTHING!"

I pulled the pillow over my head. "Go away."

"IT'S D-DAY, SERA! THE DAY OF DAYS! THE ICE CREAM OFFENSIVE!"

"Call it that again and I'm cancelling."

"YOU CAN'T CANCEL! YOU SAID YES! IT'S IN WRITING! OR TEXTING! WHICH IS BASICALLY WRITING!"

I groaned. The alarm was still going off. Human Sera was still screaming. Moo Moo had left in the wee hours in morning—he said Lily seemed to be doing better these days, and he wanted to leave early so he could be there when she woke up. I felt so proud to have such a companion, one so small but with such a big heart. I knew I hated the Tribunal for doing this to me, but occasionally I did send up a prayer to ask them to at least look after Lily, not break this little green fluffy's heart, and let him have the courage to support Lily more.

"Turn off the alarm," I mumbled.

"I CAN'T! I'M A GHOST! I HAVE NO PHYSICAL FORM!"

"Then stop screaming."

"I'M NOT SCREAMING! I'M ENTHUSIASTIC!"

I reached out blindly, slapped the alarm clock with all my celestial might, and finally—blessedly—it went silent.

I closed my eyes.

I went back to sleep.

"OH NO YOU DON'T!"

Human Sera started singing.

I did not know, until that exact moment, that Human Sera could not sing. I had assumed, perhaps naively, that all humans had at least a baseline ability to carry a tune. I had been wrong. Terribly, catastrophically wrong.

Her voice was... there were no words. It was the sound of a cat falling down a flight of stairs while holding a bagpipes. It was the sound of a dying whale trying to communicate with aliens. It was the sound of every wrong note in the universe being played simultaneously at maximum volume.

"🎵 THE HILLS ARE ALIIIIIVE... WITH THE SOUND OF MUUUUSIC... 🎵 I love this old song. It irritated the hell out of Mina whenever I needed something from her.. And im doing it to you now….. 🎵 "

I sat up straight. "STOP!"

"🎵 WITH SONGS THEY HAVE SUNG FOR A THOUSAND YEARSSSS... 🎵"

"I WILL SMITE YOU!"

"YOU CAN'T SMITE A GHOST! NOW GET UP!"

"I AM UP! I AM UP! JUST STOP SINGING!"

Human Sera stopped. She looked immensely pleased with herself. "That's what I thought. Now look at the clock."

I looked at the clock.

8:05 AM.

I nearly cried. "It's eight in the morning. The date isn't until three."

"Yes. And we have seven hours."

"Seven hours of what?"

"Seven hours to turn you from... this..." She gestured vaguely at my entire being. "...into someone a nice boy would want to share ice cream with."

"I am a celestial being. I have fought demons across seventeen dimensions. I have—"

"You have mismatched socks again, Sera. I can see them. One is purple. One is orange. It's eight in the morning and you've already failed at basic sock coordination."

I looked down. She was right.

"Damn," I whispered.

"Damn is right. Now GET OUT OF BED."

---

After what felt like a thousand years of fashion torture—shoes that pinched, shoes that slipped, shoes that made me look like a clown, shoes that made me look like a grandmother, shoes that made Human Sera scream "ABSOLUTELY NOT"—I finally settled on a pair of simple white heels.

"High heels?" Human Sera asked, floating beside me.

"I am a celestial being. I can walk in anything."

"Famous last words."

"I have never fallen in my entire existence across seventeen dimensions."

"Today is a day of firsts, then."

I ignored her. I looked at myself in the full-length mirror. The light purplish-blue dress. The delicate heels. The makeup that—after seven hours of practice—actually looked presentable. My hair fell in soft waves around my shoulders, courtesy of Human Sera's surprisingly good hair advice.

"You look beautiful," Human Sera said.

"I look acceptable."

"You look like me. The me I wanted to be."

I didn't know what to say to that. So I didn't say anything.

"Now," Human Sera said, clapping her ghostly hands together, "go downstairs. Show your parents. And try not to fall."

"I will not fall."

"You're going to fall."

"I am a celestial—"

"If you say 'celestial being' one more time, I will push you down the stairs myself."

"You can't push me. You're a ghost."

"I can try. Enthusiastically."

I took a deep breath. I opened my bedroom door. I walked to the top of the stairs.

And I descended.

---

2:15 PM. The Living Room.

Mum was in the kitchen, pretending to clean. I could see her watching me from the corner of her eye, a dish towel clutched in her hands like a security blanket.

Dad was in the living room, reading the newspaper. He was not actually reading the newspaper. He had been on the same page for maybe more than twenty minutes or was it 2 hours. I knew this because I had checked.

Mina was at the coffee table, sketching something in her notebook, her pencil moving in quick, confident strokes.

I reached the bottom of the stairs.

Mum looked up. Her eyes went wide. Her mouth fell open. The dish towel slipped from her fingers and landed on the floor with a soft thump.

"My goodness," she whispered. "My baby is so pretty. I can't believe she has grown up so much."

Her eyes glistened. For a moment, she looked like she was about to cry.

Then her expression shifted. Her eyes narrowed. Her head tilted.

"Wait," she said slowly. "How did she even manage to wear a dress? And heels? Who taught her? Did someone teach her? Sera, did you watch a tutorial? Did Mina help you? Did—"

"I helped myself," I said. "I am capable of dressing myself."

"You put your shirt on backwards last week."

"That was a fashion statement."

"It was inside out, Sera. And backwards. And also—"

"Thank you for your support, Mum."

Dad turned the page of his newspaper. Then he looked up.

He stared at me.

His face went through a series of emotions: confusion, recognition, surprise, and then something that looked like the dawning horror of a man realizing his daughter was no longer a child.

He covered his mouth with his hand.

Then he burst out of the kitchen sobbing like a schoolgirl.

I could hear him in the backyard, the screen door slamming behind him, his muffled cries carrying through the open window. "SHE'S ALL GROWN UP! MY BABY! MY LITTLE GIRL! SHE'S WEARING HEELS! HEELS, MAMA! WHERE DID THE TIME GO?!"

"He's crying in the garden again," Mina said without looking up from her sketch. "Nice dress, by the way."

"Thank you."

"The colour suits you. Makes you look less like a confused alien and more like a confused human."

"That is the nicest thing you have ever said to me."

"Don't get used to it."

I started walking toward the front door.

And then I slipped.

My heel caught on the edge of the rug—the rug that had been there for years, the rug that had never betrayed anyone before, the rug that had apparently been waiting for this exact moment to exact its revenge.

I fell.

Flat on my face.

The sound of my body hitting the floor echoed through the living room like a small explosion.

Mina burst out laughing. "HA! I knew it! I KNEW you couldn't walk in those!"

Mum rushed over, her hands fluttering. "Sera! Are you okay? Are you hurt? Can you move?"

Dad appeared from nowhere—literally nowhere. He had been in the backyard. The backyard had no door to the living room. And yet, there he was, kneeling beside me, his face pale with concern.

"Observation log #81," I mumbled into the carpet. "Dad's supernatural teleportation abilities. Confirmed."

"What?" Dad said.

"Nothing. I am fine. I have fallen from greater heights. Literally. I once fell from the Celestial Spire and landed on my feet."

"You can't even land on your feet from a rug, Sera," Mina said, still laughing.

"The rug attacked me. It was unprovoked."

"The rug has been there for ten years. It didn't suddenly develop sentience."

"You don't know that. You're not a rug expert."

Mina wiped a tear from her eye. "Man, can you even know how to walk on those things? I mean, you walked professionally like a supermodel before you hit your head. You used to strut around here like you owned the place. But now?" She gestured at my crumpled form. "Now you look like a newborn sad wrinkled giraffe trying to stand for the first time."

"Ssshhh!" Mum and Dad said at the same time.

Mina just laughed and walked away, still shaking her head.

Human Sera floated down beside me, her face a mixture of guilt and barely contained laughter. "Well," she said, "I didn't think you'd have trouble in heels. But what Mina said is right. You do look like a newborn giraffe trying to stand. A very pretty newborn giraffe, but still."

"I hate you," I whispered.

"No, you don't."

"I hate this dress."

"The dress is lovely."

"I hate heels."

"Heels are the enemy. I concede that point."

Dad helped me to my feet. My ankle was fine. My dignity, however, was in critical condition.

"Sera," Mum said, her voice gentle. "I think you have some flat ballerina shoes that you can wear. Why don't you try those? They're in the shoe cabinet. Under the stairs."

"What?!" Dad looked horrified. "You're encouraging her? To change shoes? To downgrade from heels to flats? MaMa, this is a betrayal of the highest order!"

"Daniel, we have been through this. I was about her age when I met you."

"No, you were younger. And I know my rights during that time."

"What rights?" Mum put her hands on her hips. "What exactly were your rights, Daniel Lee?"

"The right to be the only man in your life who made you feel like wearing heels was worth the pain."

"That's not a right. That's an insecurity."

"It's a constitutional right! I read about it!"

"There's no constitution that covers heels, Daniel."

"There should be! I'll write to my congressman!"

"You don't have a congressman. You have a city councillor who doesn't even know your name."

"He'll learn it! He'll learn it when I present my case for the Protection of Heels in Romantic Settings Act!"

Mina called from the other room, "Dad, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, and I once heard Sera explain why she thought potatoes were secretly monitoring our conversations."

"They are!" I shouted back. "Potatoes have eyes! It's right there in the name! No one is talking about it!"

"SEE?" Mina laughed. "Ridiculous!"

Dad ignored both of us. He was locked in an intense stare-down with Mum, his arms crossed, his jaw set.

"Janet," he said. "She is wearing heels. Pretty heels. Heels that make her look like an adult. An adult who could theoretically date. And I am not ready for that."

"Don’t you call me by my name, Daniel. She's meeting a friend. For ice cream."

But mum called Dad his name. This is so confusing.

"That's how it starts! Ice cream leads to dinner! Dinner leads to holding hands! Holding hands leads to—"

"DANIEL!"

"I wasn't going to say anything inappropriate! I was going to say holding hands leads to more ice cream! What did you think I was going to say?"

Mum's eye twitched. "I have no idea what you were going to say. But I was prepared to smack you if necessary."

"Violence is not the answer."

"Neither is overprotecting our daughter."

"She's not overprotected. She's appropriately protected. There's a difference."

"Daniel. She. Is. Meeting. A. Friend. For. Ice cream."

"For now."

"For always. Because she is not dating anyone. She is not interested in dating anyone. She is focused on her studies. Isn't that right, Sera?"

All eyes turned to me.

I was still standing in the middle of the living room, one heel in my hand, my hair slightly dishevelled from the fall, my dignity in tatters.

"I am a celestial being," I said. "I do not date. I engage in social engagements with frozen dairy products."

Mum nodded triumphantly. "See? Social engagements. Dairy. Nothing romantic."

Dad squinted at me. "You're wearing a dress."

"Celestial beings wear dresses." I replied flatly.

"You're wearing makeup." Dad spoke with a stern voice.

"Celestial beings wear makeup," I replied flatly.

"You look pretty." Mum smiled. An actual smile that didn't involve the twitching of her eye or some She-Devil laser beam coming out of her eyes. This was an actual smile. How interesting—She-Devil could do that.

"I am celestial. Pretty is in the job description," I said, as if it were a matter of fact.

Dad stared at me for a long moment. Then he sighed, the fight draining out of him. "Fine. Wear the flat shoes. But if you change your mind, the heels will be waiting for you. Right here. In this spot. I will guard them with my life."

"That's very dramatic, Dad."

"I'm a dramatic man. It's my brand."

Mum rolled her eyes. "Your brand is 'cries at dog commercials,' not 'dramatic man.'"

"The two are not mutually exclusive." Dad yelp.