“I don’t know if anyone is still alive down there”, sighed Azrael. “First it was the volcanic winter that caused a great famine, since crops were diminished or outright destroyed across the world. But then the plague hit Europe, and about fifty million people died”.

“I think slightly less than third of the population of Europe was wiped out, and almost everybody who remained is suffering terribly”, his wife leaned into him, as mentally exhausted as he was. “It wiped out the legions of the military because the closely packed encampments were a fertile ground for the contagion. It wiped out the elderly because they were weak, the children died because their parents died and couldn’t care for them, and there are places where almost nobody is left. There are places that weren’t impacted, but since the entire civilization has been devastated, they will suffer the secondary consequences as well. And, of course, some are taking opportunity to wage war on the weakened neighbours, and the agriculture suffered because dead men can’t farm, so there was famine as well”.

“There is, however, the good Fairy called Kay, who brought coffee, Jesus and Mary, to cheer up the much beloved hard working couple in distress”, a smiling Goddess shimmered in with the two more in tow, and the atmosphere improved immediately, with all the hugging and blessings.

“How are Lady Zina and Lord Buddha doing?”, Azrael asked the Goddess of Wisdom.

“About as well as the two of you, which is why her Holy Mother and Lord Shiva are cheering them up right now, while Lord Vishnu and Lady Lakshmi have taken over coordination of the efforts to alleviate the consequences and reduce chaos, and my husband is with them now. There have never been so many people who at the same time believe in transcendence and blame God for leaving them to die in that hell while they prayed for help”, she sighed gravely. “Fortunately, having billions of angelic volunteers willing to assist us in our efforts made all the difference. They have hardly any experience with post-Earth souls, but it didn’t matter. They were basically just comforting them and showing them that all will be good now”.

“In essence, as Satan wrought all hell down there, the entirety of the Heavenly Kingdom mobilised in return, and the concept of idle angels with nothing useful to do is now firmly in the past”, Mary noted. Her husband had to leave early and join his parents who were comforting the grieving souls, and since nobody on Earth really knew who she was, and explanations would actually make things worse, introducing a crisis of faith to people who were already shaken enough, she could afford to slack off. But comforting the stressed out Judges was important work, too. They were family, and they were hurt and tired.

“We are so tactically overwhelmed at the moment that we are strategically completely blind”, Azrael sipped his coffee, having cheered up significantly. “Caring about the distressed souls is a priority and it’s taking everything we have, while Satan is causing disasters with a minimum of effort, and he couldn’t care less about anyone there; the more they suffer the better, and the less he has to do to make them experience a spiritual crisis. So, essentially, he has all the initiative at this point, while we need to contend with trying to control the outcomes he is causing”.

“That is true, but this is expected, as our priority have always been the souls, and his priority has always been his own ego trip and causing ignorance and suffering. Also, at this point we are having five guardian angels available per every human person on Earth, regardless of what kind of a soul is in there. Those angels suddenly have something useful to do, other than build mathematical models that simulate chirality of kalapa structures”, Kay smiled.

“They really saved the day”, Hypatia nodded firmly. “We sent them to be with everybody who was afflicted by this calamity, both on Earth and during the process of death, so everybody had a comforting angelic presence with them, so that spiritual darkness wouldn’t overwhelm them”.

“The angels did almost all the work, and we just had to intervene with a small part of it, and yet it was still too much, so much so that we really started gasping for breath by the end of it, and we really appreciate you stopping by”, Azrael smiled at the divine women who enveloped them in a field of comfort and peace.

“I agree with my husband that this must be giving Satan free reign to scheme and invent countermeasures to everything good we have been doing lately”, Hypatia noted, but with a smile, since the blissful field of love generated by Mary and Kay was making her tingle with pleasure. Also, there was something about that coffee that seemed to work the same way. “Wait a minute, that coffee we seem to be having constantly, that’s some kind of an externalisation of God’s blissful inner nature, God’s love, a nectar of devotion, something of that sort?”, she grinned at the women.

“Hush!”, Kay giggled a conspiratorial giggle. “It’s coffee. That’s all I have to say”.

“The secret is safe with me”, Mary laughed. “The Christians would call it the Holy Spirit. We call it coffee”, she hugged the giggling Goddess.

“We need to start thinking ahead, so that the next disaster of Sanat Kumar’s making doesn’t catch us unprepared, though”, Azrael couldn’t help smiling at the giggling bunch.

“Probably, but you both need some serious downtime first”, Mary nodded. “Which means friends, family, love, kindness and…”, she inspected her cup, “…coffee, apparently”, she winked.