“You can’t just sit there all day.”

“I’ve done it before. Never underestimate my ability to idle.”

“You have, and I would never, for it is legendary, but let me rephrase: while you’re certainly able to sit there all day, you shouldn’t.”

“And why not? It is the summer.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“It means I’m on vacation, of course.”

“That just means you have more free time to do anything you’d like.”

“Exactly.”

“…Wait, I’m not sure we’re on the same page here. If you agree that you have more free time, then why do you disagree that you should do something with it?”

“I am doing something with it: nothing.”

“I’m not sure that doing nothing is different from not doing anything.”

“Semantics, my dear.”

“In any case, when you weren’t on vacation and you were done with your work for the day, you would idle. Why not go for a change of pace now?”

“Ah, but in that case I would idle because I needed rest and relaxation. Now I idle because I can. The former was a necessity, the latter is a luxury. You see?”

“Laziness by choice instead of necessity.”

“Precisely.”

“I should have known from the start my endeavor was hopeless. Well, if you do decide to rejoin humanity, give me a call.”

“If the phone is not too far away.”

At a young age, Joy discovered that she had a miraculous power: she could make anyone happy just by pointing at them.

When her best friend was crying because of a low score on an exam, Joy pointed at her.

Joy explained to her friend that there were more exams to take, and extra credit assignments, too. There was ample time to study and get a good final grade, Joy said, and she was sure her friend was more than capable of it. The friend had soon stopped crying, and agreed that it wasn’t quite the end of the world she had envisaged.

Once at a coffee shop, Joy noticed that one of the baristas was sullen. The man was so unfocused that he got her order wrong, and when she brought it to his attention he sighed dejectedly and his shoulders slumped as if he bore a great weight. She pointed at him.

Joy told the barista that although she didn’t know what he was going through, she was confident that things would get better with time, no matter how bad they seemed at the moment. The sudden support caught him off-guard, and as he handed her the corrected order, he was smiling.

Over and over throughout the years, she helped friends and family, colleagues and strangers, brightening any room she walked into.

And when she was down, she would stand in front of the mirror and point at herself.

Joy would try thinking positive thoughts, like ‘I’ll get in shape someday’, ‘I’ll pay off my debts somehow’, or ‘I’ll meet and fall in love with someone again soon’. She would try, over and over.

Point, point, point.

But it wouldn’t work.

Joy discovered that she had the miraculous power to make anyone happy just by pointing at them. Anyone but herself.

John was sitting on the couch reading a book, but it was that kind of distracted reading where your eyes roam the page without absorbing any of the words. After several false starts, he sighed and rubbed his forehead.

That was when Amy, his 4-year-old daughter, came running up to him.

“Daddy, daddy, I want to bake a cake!”

John rested the book on his lap and smiled at her.

“Do you now?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed. She jumped up and down, her pigtails bobbing. “Can we can we?”

“Sure, sweetheart. What kind of cake do you want to bake?”

“A chocolate cake!”

“A chocolate cake it is.”

John put the book down on the coffee table, next to the vase with a white lily, and went to the kitchen with his daughter.

It had been a while since John had last baked a cake, so he fetched his tablet and found a recipe online. Amy pattered around the kitchen, giddy with anticipation, while her father checked the fridge and the pantry for the ingredients.

John turned on the oven to pre-heat it. He and Amy then set about greasing and flouring the baking pan. The little girl accidentally got flour on her hands and scratched her nose. She sneezed, sending up a cloud of white, and laughed herself silly. Despite the mess, John found himself laughing, as well.

They took turns adding and stirring the sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. John cracked the eggs and Amy poured the milk (after having a small sip), then came the oil and the vanilla. They put it all in the mixer and turned it on at medium speed. The thing started to take form.

“So what made you want to bake a cake, sweetheart?” John asked. “That sweet tooth of yours?”

“Oh, it’s not for me, daddy,” Amy answered, staring intently at the swirling concoction, “it’s for mommy.”

John’s breath caught.

“Mommy said she wanted to eat chocolate cake,” Amy continued, “but she’s always so busy so she keeps forgetting to make one. I know you said she went away, but I want to make it so it’s ready for when she comes back. Then we can all eat it together.”

Amy looked up at her father. She frowned.

“Why are you crying, daddy?”

“Have you taken care of the bodies, Harold?” Biggie asked his companion as he picked up another skull. The short man held the skull up into the light, judged it sufficiently preserved and in possession of a particularly endearing grin, and threw it onto the cart.

“The bodies?” the portly man beside him said, stopping to scratch his head. “Oh. Yes, I have. Though to be honest, I’m not sure any of them are actually dead.”

“Wait, what?” Biggie sighed. “I swear, Harold, you have got to be literally the worst necromancer I have ever met.”

Harold raised an eyebrow.

“You mean figuratively, Biggie?”

“No, I mean literally! Out of all the necromancers I have ever met, you are the most incompetent of them all.”

“How many have you met?”

“That’s beside the point.”

Harold sucked in his gut and adjusted his overalls.

“Well maybe you should try working the graveyard shift,” he said, “then you can lecture me about how easy it is to tell the living from the dead.”

Biggie just stared at him. Harold was quiet for a moment, then finally shrugged and nodded.

“I’ll check on them again.”

“You do that, Harold,” Biggie said as he threw another skull onto the pile. “The last thing we want is ravenous guests. Anyway, do we have enough here?”

They did a quick count of the skulls.

“Yes, this should do it.”

Biggie grabbed the cart’s handles and began wheeling it away, Harold wobbling alongside him.

“So that’s it for the decorations,” Harold said. “I can’t believe your helldaughter is getting hitched, Biggie. It seems like just yesterday we were inscribing her summoning pentagram.”

“Yeah, they grow up fast, don’t they?” Biggie said. “Her species reaches adulthood in, what, three years?”

“Something like that.”

“Anyway, double-check the bodies, Harold!”

“Yes, Biggie.”