“Archangel Migraine,” by Wesley Durham

Oct 20th, 2007 | By | Category: Prose

When I first found out I was a prophet I was super pumped. I mean who wouldn’t be. One day I’m the stockroom manager at Smart and Final and then, out of nowhere, I’m an instrument of the living god. That’s a hell of a promotion. He did a really good job explaining it to me. He said that not everyone would believe me or understand why I was chosen, but that didn’t matter because I was special. Out of six billion people wandering the planet, I am one of fourteen who are able to withstand his awesome voice. The thing is, after that first day, I never heard his awesome voice again. Since then he’s done all his talking through his divine messenger, the archangel Michael.    I don’t know how much you know about the archangel Michael, but he is a fucking douche bag. You could study theological texts to see if they mention what a world class dildo the archangel Michael is, but if I were you I wouldn’t waste the time.

I try really hard to be patient with him. I was sure I would like him. I was. I mean, he’s a personal friend of the man upstairs, who if I didn’t emphasize it before is really charming. He’s funny, and for a deity, not at all arrogant or conceded. With Michael it was like how did the two of them even meet? What did he do to become Seraphim? He must be a double legacy or some kind of shit.    In fact, more and more I’m starting to think that God came up with this “me being a prophet thing” just so the archangel Michael wouldn’t be hanging around him all the time. But I can’t hold it against God, anyone would do the same.

The archangel Michael makes a horrible first impression. When God showed up there was this sick ass trumpeting over a kind of trip hop beat that alerted me to his divine presence, then in his mighty yet melodic cadence, he announced that he was God the almighty and he was speaking to me from the kingdom of heaven. The archangel Michael just cleared his throat. He’s got this nasally sort of raspy voice, and when he clears his throat it really sounds like there’s something in it. It’s gross. I started looking around the stockroom to see who did it because I am not trying to catch a cold, but there wasn’t anybody there and I heard it again. I wasn’t really sure what was going on and then I heard the archangel Michael say “That’s okay I can wait, it’s not like I’m an archangel or anything.” That was the first thing. Then right off he started acting all put upon, like he hadn’t got time to bestow upon me the word of our lord and savior. What an act; he’s got no friends and nothing to do. He even put me on hold that first day, for like, ten minutes. I mean, he showed up in my head, I didn’t show up in his. That’s just rude. He didn’t apologize or even congratulate me on being a prophet at all. Just told me what God wanted-I think that time it was just to take some pictures of abortion doctor’s kids at school and mail them to their parents anonymously-and he didn’t pep me up at all for it. I was just starting to think “man I’m going to be glad to get this guy out from between my ears” when he kind of gave a little yawn/groan. I’ve since come to realize that noise means that he’s planning to hang out for a while. I’ve come to dread it more than cancer.

Now he does it all the time. Just shows up and makes that little yawn/groan thing to let me know he’s there. He doesn’t have anything to say, just kind of keeps asking me how I’ve been doing or else complains about the lack of weather. Oh, occasionally he’ll bring me something on the business end, like poisoning every tenth package of bacon at the store or canvassing for the addresses of exactly seventy two virgins (what a workout), but four times out of five he just pops up for no reason. It’s like every other day at this point. If there is an awkward gap in the conversation, which is inevitable because there’s only so much you can do to engage an entity with no interests, he’ll start humming. Just hang out there humming in his nasally hum until you say something else. Old Time Religion is one of his favorites. I used to think it was kind of catchy. Now I loathe it. Did I mention that he doesn’t smoke pot? He says he’s allergic. Yeah, well, I’m allergic to you, you dipshit.

I tried joking around with him. Once I asked him if the “if you build it he will come” guy was his brother or something. He didn’t know what I was talking about. He’s seen like no movies, lame. He’s got terrible timing too. He showed up the other day right when this gorgeous soccer mom who comes in needed help loading Figi water into her car. I had to pretend like I was having a seizure. My friend Reggie loaded the car and totally got her number. I tried to explain to the archangel Michael as politely as possible how he had just dumped a bunch of salt in my game. He just got all jealous and mopey. That’s really uncalled for and makes me uncomfortable. I’ve had about all I can take of that guy. If god wants me to duck tape the mouths of birthing mothers in the maternity ward, he can damned well ask me himself.

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Wesley swears that this is a piece of non-fiction, but we know he’s lying because Genevieve’s had the archangel Michael locked in a box in her apartment for over seven months.

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