This Diary Is Going On A Short Break 'til Next Week.

Phone, delete contact "Aziraphale"!

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Aziraphale.... 😭😭😭

My internal monologue, at any given time

Trying to talk to Maggie and to Muriel – Attempt Nr.2

Hi Maggie, please tell Muriel to come over to the record shop, so that I need to say this only once: Stop trying to talk to me, the both of you. Stop sending me notes, stop trying to call me, just stop doing anything about me. I am not your friend and never will be.

There, you have it. Nice and short.

The only problem is, if I put it like that, Maggie will probably cry and Nina will give me her angry face again. And Muriel will look at me with those big brown eyes and think it’s their fault. And perhaps cry, too.

Enough! No more crying. I’m sick of blowing my nose all the time. It gets all red and blotchy. Why do noses always have to run when you cry! Major design flaw if you ask me. But I forgot, you are not asking, @the-almighty-god. You’re just playing your ineffable game. Next time, please play Dungeons & Dragons with us. At least that one has uhm…. dungeons and dragons and elves and Bags of Holding in it. I would quite like a Bag of Holding, then I could’ve kept all of my plants when Hell kicked me out of my flat.

Okay, next try: Hi Maggie and Muriel. I can’t be your friend because I don’t do friendships. Bye.

That one’s so short, I could actually write it on a card. Maybe I should, then I don’t have to talk to them. But Nina was very specific about this one. If you don’t want friends, you have to tell people to go away and you have to do it in person. Writing will not do, texting will not do, and simply going away until they forget about you will not do either. That one least of all.

Nina says, the truth is painful, but at least they’ll have a clean cut and they can start to heal. They can’t when I just leave them hanging. No closure.

Hi Maggie and Muriel. I don’t want to be your friend because I’m scared. Scared that I’ll get hurt when I open up to someone. Scared that you’ll get hurt, when Heaven and Hell start doing their thing again and we all get caught in the crossfire.

No, by ‘the truth’ I didn’t mean ‘that much truth’.

Just the clean cut. The one we never got to have. First, I walked out, then he walked away. We never sorted anything out. Did he leave because he chose Heaven over me? Did he leave because he chose Heaven for me? Did we break up? How can we break up if we aren’t even together? Are we still friends, or is everything over for good?

What does he want with Heaven? Does he truly believe, he can make a difference? Was it just an excuse to get away? Why did he kiss me back and then told me, he forgives me? Did he even listen to anything I said?

Why suddenly dance with me at the ball when he refused to dance with me back in 1941 when I asked him to? Why does he want me to be an angel again? Am I not okay for him the way I am? Does he even want to be “an us”, or did he at least want it before everything went down the drain? Does he still think about me as he is up there, doing God knows what?

Is he thinking of me right now? Perhaps this very moment?

I slam on the brakes and let the Bentley spin to the right, so the car behind me passes by without hitting me. The driver yells something rude, but I’m not listening to him. My mind is full of questions and I can’t answer a single one of them.  

No closure. No clean cut. Just pain.

I can’t heal because I’m left hanging. I can’t move on with my life because I don’t know what’s there to move on to and what there isn't. Is he still a part of this life or is he gone for good?

I’m on hold. I’m on hold like a human on a phone who doesn’t know if they should hang up or if they should wait for the conversation to continue. When Beelzebub came to talk to me about Gabriel, I understood immediately what was going on with them. Why can I not understand what is going on with us?

Again Nina’s words: “But then, other people’s love lives always seem so much more straightforward than our own.”

I start the Bentley’s engine again, but before I can bring my foot down, I freeze.

“Hello, traitor.”

 No literal freezing. Just a jumpscare.

“I was going to pull you down to my new office, as it seems befitting for my new position. But you’re so miserable already, I didn’t want to drag you out of your safe space. Besides, Hell doesn’t need to know about our little talk, do they?”

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@aziraphalesdiaries @muriel-not-the-dim-one

Things to Do Tonight

Drink

Get drunk.

Get very very drunk

Don't want to sit in a pub. Pub's full of people and if I miracle-shoo them all out, I will just draw attention to myself. Don't need that now. I draw enough attention as it is. I'm taking out the bottle, walk over the bridge and look at the Thames.

Pretty little stars in the water. Not the real thing, but still pretty. Glittering like anything.

Why does everyone always seem to know where my car is? I keep driving the Bentley around, don't want to stay in one place for too long. Other demons can spot me, of course. But these little notes and letters from Maggie and Nina and Muriel keep finding me, too.

Bla bla bla coffee. Bla bla bla talk. Bla bla bla we're here for you bla bla bla you don't have to go through this alone.

Go away. Just go away.

I've been on my own for 6000 years, I don't plan on changing that now. And least of all with humans who shouldn't be dragged into this. Friendship with humans never ends well, someone always gets turned into pillars of salt.

Or killed. One minute Kain's a baby pulling my hair and puking all over my robes, next thing, you know, he's an angry teenager smacking his brother with a stone. Broke Eve's heart. Should've stayed away.

And Muriel keeps writing about all the books they've been reading and keeps asking stuff about customers and taxes and stockkeeping and why would I know any of this? Nina and Maggie run shops, too, they're far better with these things.

Do you actually want to get in trouble with heaven, little bee? Can you even imagine what they could do to you for hanging out with a demon?

'M not stupid, you know, I know it's you trying to reach me from the bookshop's number. I can only hope Shax was too stupid to read any of your little notes, when she put my mail under the wipers. I don't think she has back channels to rat you out to heaven, but you never know.

Did the real stars look as glittery as their reflection in the water?

Whatever. You don't miss what you can't remember, right? If I wanted to see stars, I could just go watch a Disney movie.

Now where did I park the Bentley? Why does everyone always seem to know where my car is, except for me, myself and I?

"Hello Crowley."

No no no no no no, not you. Not you, too.

Why can't you just all go away and let me wallow in my misery?

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Where we left off:

Nina, purveyor of coffee, whirling into the scene like a thunderstorm, woke our hero from his precious sleep (and a weird dream) to give him - me - another telling-off.

She's quite scary when she's angry. Not demon scary, but most definitely human scary.

"Do you even understand how all of this affects Maggie?" I'm not surprised at the burst of emotion in her voice as she says the name.

"She's been worried sick about you! Trying to write to you, trying to call you, and some days even waiting by your car for you to wake up, so she could make sure you're all right."

"I'm not." How does she even find me? I drive around and park the Bentley in different places every couple of days.

"We KNOW. Do you think none of us has gone through breakup before?"

Well, maybe you have. I certainly haven't. I don't do relationships and I have no idea how to process this. Except for drinking, sleeping and curling up in a little snake ball of pain.

"Of course it's bad. It hurts like hell..."

Worse. Speaking from experience here.

"... and you have every right to be sad and mopey and angry, but stop shutting out your friends. Talk to us! At least let us know where you are and what's going on."

"I don't have friends. Never wanted friends. Completely friendless person, me."

She sighs. "Yes, you're a devil and you're evil, blah blah blah, real man solves his problems on his own. Heard all of that before, except maybe the devil part. But you've got to realize that your actions have consequences for others. You're not alone in this world."

But I am.

I've always been alone. For 6000 years on this godforsaken planet, doing the bidding of my ridiculous headoffice and trying not to go completely insane. Using every excuse to be close to my angel and every excuse not to get too close, so we wouldn't be in trouble. Missing him after every encounter, every meeting, every conversation. Sometimes positively yearning for his presence, but never ever being able to act on it.

Because that's just the way things are.

I was alone the last time I hit rock bottom. Healing one step at a time, slowly piecing myself together after my 33 years of torture. Because I allowed myself to save one human soul and got caught at it. One. Single. Human. Soul.

No good deed goes unpunished.

I never had anyone to talk to because angels are my enemies, demons are my rivals and humans wouldn't be able to shoulder all this bullshit that's been going on with me. And God doesn’t answer to any of us.

And yet, Nina has the nerve to come here, shake me awake and tell me that I'm not alone? That I’m supposed to 'talk about it'? Throw overboard all my harshly earned survival skills because now apparently, I have friends?

No, absolutely not. I don't make 'friends' with other people. It's not something demons - the word is demon, not devil - do. You can stop pretending to care now and walk away.

She doesn’t.

Instead, she throws my very own words back at me. “For once in your life trust somebody!”

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One last day to go at Leipzig bookfair.

Until I continue the diary, I'll leave you some very cute pics of Crowley and Aziraphale cosplayers whom I saw walking by our booth.

There even was a big cosplay meetup of about fourty to fifty people, which I unfortunately couldn't attend 'cause I was working. Well, maybe next time. 😁

"How many decent writers do you lot even have up there? Because Neil Gaiman's one of ours. 😎

Terry Pratchett? One of ours. Oscar Wilde? Definitly ours. Shakespeare, Goethe, Hesse, Virginia Woolf and Mary Shelly? So very definitely ours. 😈

Have yourselves a merry little eternity with C.S. Lewis and Stephenie Meyer! 😇"

You’ll pay for this, Neil. Writers’ Hell awaits

Things To Do Today

Be angry at Nina for making things so difficult. Instead of talking to me, she could’ve just written more notes for me to ignore.

Ponder on Nina’s words

Overthink

Go back to sleep because my brain hurts from overthinking

Wake up and work up the courage to speak to Maggie and to Muriel

Have a few drinks to be more courageous

Sober up because I can’t very well talk to them drunk. Maggie would probably not take me seriously and Muriel would be really confused or even scared. They haven’t experienced me in full drunk mode yet.

Yell at plants to let off some steam

Drive around, not necessarily in the right direction.

Nina says that Muriel thinks it’s their fault that I’m not talking to them, not visiting the bookshop anymore and not responding to any of their notes and cards. I was so shocked I almost dropped my shades.

I can’t wrap my head around it. I couldn’t even wrap my entire body around it if I was in my snake form.

I mean, we all messed up in some way or other. The angels messed up, the demons messed up, Gabriel and Beelzebub messed up, Shax messed up, Aziraphale messed up, Floating-Head-Coffee-Or-Death-Guy messed up, Maggie und Nina messed up, and I have been walking chaos since I started walking on legs. (Might have been crawling chaos before that). The only person who really didn’t have anything to do with any of this, was former-inspector-constable, now bookseller-to-bee.

Why do they think it’s their fault? I don’t understand it at all. I know that humans sometimes feel guilty for something they’re not responsible for, but Muriel is an angel. They should think that they’re always doing the right thing.

But then, Aziraphale has experienced guilt before. Even then when things weren’t his fault. Perhaps guilt is an angel thing after all.

I wish I could tell Muriel that this has nothing to do with them. It's a good thing that they keep the bookshop safe.

I just can’t be in there at the moment because everything reminds me of him. But I can't talk about that to Muriel. I can’t be on Whickber Street, I can’t talk to Maggie and Nina, I can’t deal with this, I can’t process it. And I’m sorry for causing them pain. I don’t want any friends because I don’t want to cause others pain.

It was my damn job to cause others pain for so long.

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@aziraphalesdiaries @muriel-not-the-dim-one

So, last time I showed you the amazing Crowleys, now we move on to the beautiful Aziraphales at Proud Nerd Con.

I don't know what's worse...

That he doesn't lo... doesn't want to be with me or that he would want to be with me if I was an angel.

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