Cali sat on the edge of her cloud and passed her hand through the mist distractedly, she was unable to relax. She‘d done everything she could to make her human finish his book. Her work on the beach in Honolulu had been first rate; everybody had said so. Getting the old man at the bar to pass on some drunken wisdom and inspire her human to buy a plane ticket home was genius. Then finishing it off with the beautiful Spanish girl telling him she was moving to London, first rate. Cali knew she was good at her job; she could make connections that most missed and was able to trouble-shoot in ways the others could only dream about. So why couldn’t she seal the deal?

If he couldn’t finish his book now, he never would and Cali would lose her MIT status[1]. Cali felt like the entire galaxy was against her. She knew what was responsible for her current predicament, the boss’s faulty pipe work. If Carlucci Gregorio the 15th century writer hadn’t had a heart attack while on the way to deliver his manuscript, she would now be at the top of her class and would have gotten an automatic pass with distinction, and that would have shut Poly up for a while. She knew the past was like the wake of a ship, but it was so bloody annoying.

Cali looked over the edge of her cloud. Her human Zac Goldman, was currently sitting outside a pub with a young lady. This was not good. Cali had noticed that Zac was very good at talking about being a writer, he was good at chatting up girls, but when it came to sitting down and writing he was useless. Sadly the relationship between the Muse and artist did not have to be one of mutual respect. If a human had the art inside them, it was the Muse’s job to coax it out. The worst part Cali thought was that, in the end, the praise and admiration her human would get would far outweigh hers. She was already bottom out of a class of nine. It was lucky that she had managed to slip the boss a synopsis of Gregorio’s novel, that had bought her a few hundred years of good will, but that wouldn’t last forever. The boss thought it was the correct time for Gregorio to go, but he couldn’t be sure, as he had misplaced the paperwork. Cali always suspected foul play, but couldn’t prove anything.

Cali realised that it was time to go to her meeting; she sighed. She envied her human, if he did nothing it didn’t matter to him; she was the one who suffered. Zac wanted the fame and the money and the women that would accompany a best-selling novel, and especially a great novel, but didn’t want to do the work. Annoyingly, Cali knew he had one in him. Although she struggled to see how such a shallow idiot could contain something so deep. Cali sighed and began to walk to her meeting.

Heaven had changed over time; the power of the human imagination shaped it everyday. She liked it at the moment, most people thought that heaven was a nice place to be and so it was. The only thing was there weren’t a lot of people there, which made it a bit boring. The idea that people went there seemed a strange one to Cali, where would they all fit? Much better that they kept living and dying and living down on Earth. It was a shame that they would eventually wipe themselves out but the boss said that made the Muse’s work all the more important.

It was supposedly lovely down on Earth, although she was only allowed to see it from a distance. The paintings of the Muses’ standing behind the artists were not exactly correct, especially the part about them not wearing many clothes. Cali was particularly offended when she first saw one that could only be described as less than modest, especially as she mainly wore yoga pants and a hoodie. She acknowledged that wasn’t the most romantic image…much more comfortable though. Cali arrived at the meeting and sat down next to Clio.

Clio nodded and sighed. Cali felt her pain, being the Muse of History was not a fun job. It wasn’t that human history was boring far from it. The problem was that history progressed at such a slow pace and most of what Clio had to do was inspire people to write about the same things others had done perfectly adequately already. Clio said Cali was the luckiest of the nine as every novel she inspired was different. Cali disagreed; it was rare that anything original came across her desk. That was why she was still hung up on Gregorio, and that was sadly why she now had to spend all her time focusing on the wastrel Zac Goldman.

‘Looks like Poly is in a bad mood today’. They both looked down to the front and saw Polyhymnia striding towards the front. Poly had seen the writing on the wall and realised that there wasn’t much of a future in being the Muse in charge of Hymns. She didn’t get any of the credit when one was written anyway. Poly had decided that she needed a new career and had moved into management, now she was in charge of all the Muses. Poly coughed and then projected her voice ‘Okay, we have a lot to get through this morning. Sorry, Thalia is something funny?’

‘Well, yes.’ Thali - who, as Poly knew preferred Ali - shrugged.

‘And what, pray is so funny?’

‘I mean, there is always something funny going on for me. Just now one of my humans wrote a very funny joke involving Granola, and… well, its probably best not to mention it in present company’. She turned and winked at Cali.

‘Can I get on with the meeting now please?’ Ali nodded and lowered her face to hide her ever-present smile. It was hard for the Muse of comedy to keep a straight face.

At the end of the briefing Cali headed to the coffee shop. One of the first things that the Muses had lobbied the boss for, once humans had discovered, it was coffee. There was no deity of coffee, Ykychaua the Mayan god of Chocolate was the nearest thing they had in heaven and fortunately, he also happened to be a very passionate believer in good coffee. Luckily for everyone in Heaven he also like to be called Chu which made everyone feel more comfortable, as Ykychaua, even with thousands of years of practice, was impossible to pronounce correctly.

‘Morning Cali, the usual?’

‘Yes please Chu, everything going alright?’

‘Same old same old, what do you fancy?’

‘Just a black coffee please.’ Cali believed that to be the best Muse she could be she needed to lead the same kind of life as the writers she worked with; most of them seemed to drink black coffee. She hoped it was because they liked it and not because they were trying to uphold an image; the irony of this wasn’t lost on her. She wouldn’t smoke and could not drink as much as some writers did. She had asked to be reassigned from some of the American writers who experimented in the 1960’s - living in heaven was enough of a trip for Cali. She was not happy when, in the twenties, writing and hard-drinking had become entwined. She knew the value of a couple of glasses of wine or beer that could help cajole writers to ‘get in the zone’ but any more than that and they mostly just started writing crap or fell asleep. Cali had once tried to go for drink for drink with some of the more serious writers and drinkers of the 20th century and she spent the next three days lying on a cloud hoping that the boss would finally end the universe.

Cali sat down at a table with Mel and Ali. They made an odd pair, Mel or Melpomene to give her original name and Ali. Mel, as the Muse for Tragedy was permanently morose. Cali didn’t blame her as she had to deal with some pretty bleak stuff. Although some of the best writing, songs and poetry dealt with tragedy, it didn’t make a fun life for someone who took their work home with them as Muses invariably did. Ali on the other hand was normally much more lighthearted, however once you got to know her as well Cali did you got to appreciate the dark side of comedy. Although Ali seemed always to be bright and airy and have a sunny disposition, Cali knew there was darkness inside her as well. That was probably why she gravitated towards Mel. Mel was happy to have anyone to hang around with after millennia of people becoming bored with her moaning. However, Cali liked Mel and thought that if she had to inspire tragedy all the time she would be probably be pretty morose as well. The three Muses sat and drank their coffees and talked. They didn’t tell stories because, well that was what they spent most of their working life, or rather entire existence doing, listening and helping create stories. Ali turned to Cali, ‘how’s it going with your human?’

‘He’s a bloody idiot! A rich aunt left him a sizeable inheritance so he doesn’t need to work, so he has even less drive now. He’s got money and he’s spending his time travelling the world enjoying himself, he can’t get motivated because he is too busy having fun.’ The girls were sympathetic, but they had their own issues with their humans. Cali left the meeting feeling a little depressed, having found out within a month both Ali and Mel’s humans were on track to finish their respective projects.

Cali got back to her cloud and found the note. It was in a red envelope and she knew it was from Clio. It informed Cali that unless Zac produced the goods, she was going to be demoted to an MA[2]. After thousands of years of working independently, Cali’s blood boiled at the idea. She couldn’t let this happen. Cali looked around her cloud and thought desperately about what she should do. She looked over the edge of her cloud down at Zac on Earth and her cloud changed from white to dark grey to black as its atmosphere mirrored her mood.

Cali made the decision without thinking. She walked to the edge of her cloud, turned to look back at Heaven and stepped off. She shot like a dart through the atmosphere; she shuddered at the idea of the cold as she sank towards the Earth’s surface. She was nervous, not about the jump, immortality removed some of the excitement from life, but because ‘forbidden’ didn’t even cover what she was doing. She peered down and zoned in on him sitting at a picnic table outside the pub. Cali smiled to herself grimly and tucked her arms in to speed her approach.

The girl, whose name Zac didn’t know, excused herself and picking up her phone moved inside to use the bathroom. Zac looked around cockily at the other customers making sure they had noticed her. He pulled out his phone and began to tap a text to another girl he had met the night before. With the slightest thump, Cali landed on the opposite side of the table from him. He looked up in shock, then instantly was back in the game. He fixed her with an arrogant look, ‘Honey I’m flattered, but I am with someone. Maybe another time yeah?’ Cali’s mouth turned to a tight grin. She grabbed his hand in a vice like grip, which made him cry out. Cali smiled sweetly, ‘me and you kid, have got some work to do.’