Zephyr struts into the tavern on a mission. She was told to come here – though the source of the recommendation was sketchy. Still, she wants to believe. She always wants to believe. It’s getting harder though.

As the door slams shut behind her, she has to adjust her eyes to the darkness. With a frustrated sigh, she begins digging around in her oversized purse, looking for her cigarettes.“A little light would be nice,” she mutters in an annoyed tone. “I mean, Jesus Christ!”

At the sound of his name, Jesus Christ turns to her. “I’m right here, my child,” he says. She jumps.

Robust laughter breaks out to Jesus’s right, where Moses sits perched on the edge of his seat. He gives Jesus a slap on the back. “Enough already with the whole ‘my child’ thing. Shtick’s played out. Nobody’s buying it.”

“Plus,” adds Mohammed in a more subdued tone, “it smacks of pedophilia. You must consider such things these days.”

Moses winks and points his finger at Mohammed. “Yeah, that too.” He then digs his finger around in the space between his second tooth and bicuspid and pulls out a grisly strand of something. “Well, will ya look at that!?” he presents it to Mohammed who swats it away. “I keep telling Zipporah to take it easy on the brisket. But does she listen?”

“They never do,” Mohammed says wistfully.

Zephyr stares at them. Kokopelli wasn’t kidding when he told her that they hang out in a tavern. All of them. She continues to root around in her bag until she locates a cigarette in its deepest abyss. It feels like a victory. She lights it and walks up to the three figures at the bar. 

“To whom among you do I address, well,” she pauses. “A grievance.”  

Mohammed and Jesus look at Moses. 

“Of course,” Moses rolls his eyes. “Take your kvetching to the Jew. A little antisemitic, don’t you think?” 

“I’m a Jew too,” says Jesus. 

Moses waves him off.

“Ah, lighten up, Moses!” Jah says with his trademark Jamaican accent, laughing as he emerges from a cloud of ganja smoke. “After all, is it not your people who created humor for the rest of us?”

Moses ponders. “Well, it certainly wasn’t the Lutherans.”

Zephyr lets out an exhausted sigh. “Can you guys focus? Please!?” There’s a lull in the conversation as a soft brown projectile whizzes by her face and nearly hits her in the eye. “What the hell!?” she yells. “Was that shit?”

“Alright! Take it easy, Hanuman! Not everyone finds that funny,” Jesus calls out to the Hindu monkey god.

“Amateur,” says Moses.

Jesus then turns to Zephyr. “Apologies for Hanuman. He can’t help himself.”

“I find that rather hard to swallow,” she says, scrunching up her face and wishing she’d used a different choice of words. “At any rate,” she says, raising her voice before anyone can pick the low-hanging fruit she’s to graciously presented, “Who wants to hear my grievance?”

“Well, that depends,” says Siddhartha from a neighboring table.

“On what?”

“How attached are you to your grievance?” 

“Oh, my Ahura Mazda!,” Zarathustra, seated next to Siddhartha, exclaims. “THIS again!? I mean, it’s bad enough you prattle on about the whole attachment thing endlessly at home.”

Siddhartha shrugs. “It’s worth exploring.”

“I feel that having an attachment to my Persian cat is a necessary for her survival. It’s not a sin,” he sneers.

Moses leans back. “He’s the one you consult about sins,” he says, pointing to Jesus.

Shiva strolls, or really more like glides, over to Zarathustra and Siddhartha. “Sounds as though you’re having troubles at home?” he asks with a gleam in his eye, cocking up one eyebrow. “Is it threatening to destroy your peace and harmony?”

Siddhartha leans back, places his hand on his belly, and merely laughs. “Of course not! Our foundation is not so easily shaken.” Zarathustra’s face says otherwise though. 

“Hellooooooo!?” Zephyr shouts and a hush falls over the tavern again. “I mean seriously! I thought I could get some help here. Anyone?”

Each looks in a direction away from her as though to dodge being the receiver of her grievance. “Okay,” she says, slumping down onto a barstool. “Fine. If that’s how you want to play it. Since I was raised in a Judeo-Christian society, I guess I’ll just share my grievance with you, Jesus.” 

Jesus nods.

Moses throws his hands up and shakes his head. “Does the Judeo part of that mean nothing to you!?”

She turns to look at him. “So you’d like to hear my complaint too?”

“Not so much.”

“Then shut it,” she says. 

“What seems to be the problem, my…,” Jesus starts and Mohammed waggles his finger and gives him a few tsks. Jesus clears his throat. “What can I do for you?”

Zephyr takes a deep drag of her cigarette and lets the smoke blow out in a long trail. “Being a human is exhausting,” she finally says. “I’m wondering if I can I trade this whole being human thing in for something else?”

Jesus ponders. “Like what?”

Loki appears seemingly from behind a wall and starts heading for the bathroom. “Might I suggest a pygmy mud rat!?” he suggests with a giggle as he passes them. He then hops on one foot and spins around. “Or maybe a flesh-eating bacteria?” 

Mohammed sighs and rolls his eyes. 

“Well, I don’t know, exactly,” Zephyr says. “I mean, I could be a dog. Or a horse. I like both of those.”

“I suppose we could do a trade,” Jesus says thoughtfully. “But if I’m being honest – and this is something upon which I’ve built my reputation so people look up to me for it – then I have to tell you that I don’t have much control over what kind of dog or horse you’d become.”

“Meaning what?”

“Well, you may be a pampered pup with a heated bed and dried chicken heads,” he starts.

“That’s not a thing,” she says. 

He shrugs and continues. “But you could just as easily be a lab dog forced to ingest, say, household bleach to see if it’s an effective means for fighting a pandemic virus.”

At this, everyone pauses then erupts into laughter – including Zephyr. But when the laughter dies down, she sighs. “See though? That’s what I’m talking about. There are SO many stupid and awful humans out there and frankly, I’m ashamed to be associated with them.”

“Understandable,” says Ganesh, waving his bejeweled trunk soulfully from his spot in the corner. This action elicits some ‘ohs’ and ‘ahs’. 

Mohammed shakes his head. “Show off.”

“Humans can be a perplexing lot,” Ganesh continues. Some of the others nod. “For example, I’m perpetually presenting them with ways to move around and get over obstacles but they’d rather believe themselves victims while whittling their time away watching their illuminated rectangles,” he says woefully. “Or listening to Kid Rock.”

At the name Kid Rock, everyone shudders a little. Hanuman throws another handful of feces, but this time nobody scolds him. Shiva even high-fives him – which raises some questions about the god of destruction’s take on hygiene. Then again, it makes sense. 

“Confucius say, embrace your humanity,” says Confucius who has shuffled up to the bar and stuck his head into the conversation. Mohammed stands up and glares at him.

Zephyr regards Confucius for a moment. So far he’s the only one who’s given her a straight answer. Though Siddhartha also leaves her considering her level of attachment to her grievance. Maybe there’s something here, she thinks. 

“What did I tell you, Confucius?” Mohammed bellows. 

Confucius shrinks back. “Mohammed say Confucius must stay over there with L. Ron Hubbard until Confucius pronounce L. Ron Hubbard correctly,” he responds, pointing to a faraway table and mangling L. Ron Hubbard’s name, as well as the word ‘correctly’. Jesus and Moses look down upon him sadly, shaking their heads.

The whole scene is suddenly too much for Zephyr. “Okay then,” she says, hopping off the barstool, gathering her large purse, and hugging it closer into her body. “Thanks for your… help. I’ve gotta go now.” 

“Really!?” Jesus asks, surprised. “You require no further input then?”

“I do not. I’m good. Think I’ll just take Confucius’s advice and embrace this whole humanity thing. You know, just deal with it.”

“Namasté,” Ganesh nods.

Zephyr looks at Ganesh for a moment, then back to the rest of the crowd. “Ya know, maybe I’ll go see what Aphrodite, Demeter, or Kuan Yin are up to,” she says jokingly. ““See what the girls are up to, ya know?” They don’t pick up on the joke though. “Get a little girl time. “

“Well,” Siddhartha begins, “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait to see Kuan Yin. She’s in rehab.”

“Rehab?” Zephyr asks, though irritated she’s been drawn in again.

“Compassion can be a powerful drug,” he says, lamenting. Zephyr shakes her head as though trying to make sense of this.

“And Demeter is the hospital,” Moses rings in. “An unfortunate incident with the thrasher on her farm. I won’t go into details,” he says, then adds in a whisper, “but it’s very gory.” Again, Zephry is confounded.

“It is with great regret,” Jesus interjects loudly in a Sermon on the Mount sort of way, “that the great Aphrodite… is in prison.”

“Oh, come on!” Zephyr laughs. “You’re telling me that the goddess of love is in prison?”

Mohammed nods. “Prostitution ring.”

“Of course,” Zephyr finishes laughing and pushes open the door. “Well then, it’s been quite an experience. But I’m out. Godspeed and all that,” she says sarcastically.

That bastard Kokopelli is gonna pay for this, she thinks as the light floods her eyes. After she’d been in the tavern for a bit, she suspected he was playing some sort of cosmic joke on her by sending her there. Or maybe he was trying to make a point. You just never know with that penis-flute-blowing trickster freak.

She shuts the door behind her, lets out a deeply existential exhale, and looks up to the sky – feeling like a very tiny human. “If we’re truly made in god’s image,” she says to no one in particular, “we’re all seriously fucked.”