"Bloody hell, Esmeralda!" Mildred boomed, her voice still echoing with the gravitas of a celestial choir with a particularly nasty chest cold, sounding like a fucking foghorn with a sore throat. She still clutched the Fateful Fork, which hummed with a low, almost satisfied, prick of a vibration. Her hair, she noted in the reflection of a condensation-streaked window, was still glowing faintly greenish, like old cheese left out in the sun for a fucking fortnight. "This is not what I meant by faster, you absolute twat! This is a bloody steam explosion! My fuggin ceiling! What the shit is this?! It's a complete clusterfuck of epic proportions! This is an absolute travisty! A total fucking disaster!"
Esmeralda, who had followed Mildred into the kitchen, hopped onto a stool with surprising grace for a goat, considering the fucking chaos. "Ah, Mildred, precision! The absolute bane of newly acquired omnipotence! You wished for ferocity, and ferocity you received! The universe, my dear, interprets wishes with a terrifying, literal zeal. It doesn't give a flying damn about 'nuance', you daft cow! It's a cosmic fuck-you to subtlety!"
Mildred slapped the fork against her palm, a sound like distant thunder. "Well, that's just stupid! What good is being a god if I can't even get a decent cup of tea without demolishing my kitchen? This is bullshit! Pure, unadulterated crap! What a load of drivel!"
"Ah, but here's the kicker," Esmeralda announced, her eyes gleaming with mischievous, goat-like insight. "Your power, Mildred, is bound by a singular, rather inconvenient cosmic law, a right piss-take, if you ask me, a true cosmic fuck-up: you may wield it for truly useful purposes, for genuine betterment, for acts of practical divinity… as long as you do not experience physical discomfort or harm in the process."
Mildred blinked. Her glowing aura flickered, like a faulty lightbulb that was about to give up the ghost. "What the feck does that mean, you gormless goat?! Explain it, you bastard!"
"Observe!" Esmeralda commanded, gesturing dramatically towards the rapidly expanding crack. "You are experiencing discomfort – the stress of property damage, the fear of ceiling collapse, perhaps even a mild headache from the booming voice. Thus, the power, in its infinite, buggering wisdom, acts with… excessive zeal. It's a real pain in the arse, isn't it? A monumental fucking headache! A genuine shitstorm!"
Mildred looked at the kettle, which was now vibrating with such intensity that it threatened to dance off the hob. The ceiling crack was definitely getting worse, the bloody thing. She felt a twinge of real panic. This was not how she wanted her Tuesday (or potentially Wednesday) to go. This whole god thing was a proper nightmare, a colossal shambles, a complete fucking catastrophe!
"Right," Mildred boomed, trying to channel her inner divine wisdom, which mostly felt like advanced indigestion after a particularly bad curry, a truly awful curry. "New rule! No discomfort! No harm! And for Christ's sake, stop the kettle and fix my fucking ceiling right now! You hear me, you cosmic bastard?! Do it, or I'll smite your fucking existence!"
She focused her booming mind. She didn't want the kettle to explode; she wanted it to calmly boil. She didn't want the ceiling to collapse; she wanted it to be whole again. She pictured it, firmly, without any associated pain or fear.
A soft, golden light pulsed from the Fateful Fork. The kettle's frantic shriek subsided into a gentle, contented gurgle. The crack in the ceiling seemed to ripple, like water in a dodgy pond, and then, with an almost imperceptible pop, it was gone. The plaster was smooth, pristine, as if no damage had ever occurred. Holy crap, she actually did it! That was fucking incredible! She's a fucking genius!
Mildred stared. The kitchen was quiet again, save for the kettle's pleasant hum. Bartholomew remained floating, but now with a look of mild serenity, as if he'd simply decided a life above the television was preferable and was thinking, "Well, finally some peace, you noisy bitches."
"Holy shit," Mildred whispered, her voice returning to its normal, pleasantly mundane tone. "It… it worked! No booming voice! No explosion! I… I fixed it! This is insane! This is fucking bonkers! I'm a fucking god!"
"Precisely!" Esmeralda declared, preening slightly, probably thinking she was a genius too, the arrogant cow. "The universe rewards non-injury! Now, try something else. Something truly useful! Something that doesn't cause a bloody messy fucking disaster! Get your shit together, Mildred!"
Mildred grinned. A truly useful power! This was more like it. No more pigeon-lightbulbs or polka-bands that gave you a fucking headache. She looked around. What was truly useful?
"The curtains!" she exclaimed, remembering her morning's futile struggle, the goddamn stubborn things. "They want to be opera costumes, but I want them to flutter! Make them flutter beautifully, without tearing or any damidge! Make them fucking gorgeous! Like they're dancing for me, the fucking goddess of this place! Show those curtains who's boss!"
She pointed the Fateful Fork towards the living room window. Again, the gentle golden pulse emanated. The air in the living room seemed to shift, and a soft, phantom breeze swirled around the faded floral fabric. Slowly, gracefully, the curtains began to sway. Not violently, not with a defiant shudder, but with an elegant, rhythmic flutter, as if dancing to an unheard waltz. They truly looked beautiful, like they were finally living their best curtain lives and saying, "Take that, Mildred, you nagging bitch! We're fabulous, you motherfucker!"
"Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle," Mildred breathed, genuinely impressed. "They're fluttering! Look, Bartholomew, they're fluttering! This is amazing! This is fucking brilliant! Who's the fucking god now, eh?!"
Bartholomew opened one eye, glanced at the curtains, then closed it again, clearly unimpressed by mere fabric dynamics. Cats, the ungrateful sods, absolute pricks, the self-absorbed bastards.
"Now, for my tea," Mildred announced, feeling a surge of confident, injury-free divinity. She looked at the teapot on the counter. It wanted to be a very grand, slightly tipsy pirate ship, the little nautical arsehole. "Teapot," she commanded, focusing her benign will, "I desire you to be filled with the perfect temperature of tea, brewed instantly, and for that tea to be accompanied by a fresh carton of full-fat milk and a packet of my favorite digestive biscuits, without any mess or contamanation! Make it fucking perfect, you useless lump! Don't you dare fuck it up!"
Another gentle pulse from the fork. Instantly, the teapot filled with steaming, perfectly brewed tea. Next to it, as if materializing from thin air, appeared a carton of milk and a packet of digestive biscuits. No mess. No fuss. Just perfectly executed tea provisions. Not a single goddamn crumb out of place. It was fucking miraculous! A true bloody miracle!
Mildred almost wept with joy. This was it! This was godhood as it should be! She could fix things! Provide comfort! End the suffering of the truly parched and biscuit-less! This was a glorius day! She felt like shouting, "I'm the fucking boss now, you wankers! Bow down, you peons!"
She poured herself a cup of tea, added milk, and bit into a biscuit. It was perfect. Absolutely, undeniably perfect. The sun shone. The curtains fluttered. Bartholomew floated serenely. Mildred, the benevolent domestic deity, felt a profound sense of peace. She was the bees knees, the fucking queen of everything! A truly badass deity, by God!
She took another sip of tea, feeling utterly invincible, a complete badass, a cosmic force of nature. What else could she do? Make the dust motes sparkle like tiny diamonds? Make the linoleum play her favorite classical music? The possibilities were endless, as long as she stayed safe. This was fucking brilliant! This was the life! No more bullshit!
Just then, as she savored her biscuit, a tiny black speck appeared on the edge of the kitchen counter. Mildred, in her newfound divine confidence, barely noticed it at first. It was an ant. A very small, very normal, utterly unremarkable black ant. It scuttled along, minding its own business, perhaps looking for crumbs. The little shit, the insignificant bugger, the creepy crawly bastard.
Mildred watched it idly. She was a god, after all. What could a mere ant do to her? She felt a playful urge. Maybe she could make the ant desire to be a tiny, but incredibly fast, Formula One race car driver. That would be amusing, the little git, the speedy prick, the fucking zoomer.
As she focused her thoughts, the ant, perhaps sensing a new, strange energy, veered off its path. Instead of continuing along the counter, it began to climb directly towards Mildred's teacup. And then, with an almost deliberate malevolence, it crawled onto her hand. The fucking audacity! The sheer nerve of the little motherfucker!
Mildred frowned. "Shoo, little fella," she mumbled, trying to gently nudge it with her finger. "Get off my fucking hand, you little pest! Go away, you bloody menace!"
The ant, however, had other ideas. Instead of shooing, it stopped dead in its tracks. Then, with a speed that defied its tiny size, it bit her. Not a painful bite, not even a sharp one, but a definite, undeniable, and niggling little pinch right on the fleshy part of her thumb. It was a bitch of a bite. A complete fucking betrayal! A monumental fuck-up from the universe!
Mildred yelped. "OW! You fucking arsehole! You little bastard! What the shit?!" It wasn't a big hurt, but it was a hurt. A definite physical discomfort. A proper discomfort, damn it! A screaming discomfort! The little prick had bitten her!
The moment the tiny pinch registered, the world went completely fucking chaotic, a total meltdown, an absolute shit-show of cosmic proportions.
The Fateful Fork, still in her hand, pulsed violently. Its golden glow turned a sickly, pulsating purple, like a bruised plum from hell. "Oh, fuck me!" Mildred thought.
The curtains, which had been fluttering so beautifully, suddenly snapped rigid, then began to flap with the frantic, terrified speed of a bird caught in a strong gale, slapping against the windowpane with alarming, bloody, fucking force. "What the hell are they doing?!"
The perfectly brewed tea in her cup instantly froze solid, turning into a miniature, ice-cold mountain range complete with tiny, jagged peaks. The digestive biscuit in her other hand crumbled into a fine, unpleasant powder that drifted everywhere, a sugary fucking snowstorm of despair. "This is bullshit!"
In the living room, Bartholomew, who had been floating serenely, suddenly dropped onto the television with a muffled thump, startling him awake. He let out a loud, aggrieved yowl, glaring at the ceiling. "What the hell was that, you idiots?! You fucking morons!" he seemed to scream.
The kettle, previously content, let out a mournful, drawn-out groan, like a ghost in a haunted plumbing system, and began to slowly leak water from its base. It was a weeping bastard of a kettle, a pathetic piece of crap.
Mildred stared at her thumb, where the ant still stood, looking surprisingly smug, as if it had just achieved its life's greatest, most satisfying ambition. The tiny pinch still registered, a very real, very annoying discomfort. That little shit had done it, the fucking villain, the unholy terror!
"You… you little bastard!" Mildred bellowed, her voice returning to its echoing, god-like volume, now tinged with genuine, righteous rage. "I'm going to stomp you, you motherfucker!" She tried to swat the ant, but her hand felt heavy, her movements clumsy, like she was moving through treacle in a bad dream.
The ant, with a final, triumphant waggle of its antennae, scurried away, disappearing into the cracks of the counter. The smug fucker was gone, a victorious little menace, a tiny, unbeatable prick.
Mildred slumped against the counter, the Fateful Fork now just a dull, ordinary fork again. Her hair stopped glowing. The sparks from her slippers vanished. She was just Mildred again. A Mildred with a mildly painful thumb, a ruined cup of tea, a disintegrated biscuit, a leaking kettle, violently flapping curtains, and a very unhappy cat. Oh, and the goddamn ceiling crack was back. The bloody fucking thing, a constant reminder of her fleeting power.
Esmeralda, who had been watching the entire spectacle from her perch, shook her head slowly. "Ah, Mildred," she sighed, a note of profound, theatrical pity in her voice. "The cruel irony of the cosmic condition. Defeated by a creature whose very existence hinges on the acquisition of crumbs. Such is the fragile nature of divinity when faced with the undeniable inconvenience of a single, tiny, determined ant. One might even say… it was an epic fcking fail. A total cock-up. A complete disaster, you poor sod. A galactic fiasco, my dear."
Mildred looked at her thumb, then at the chaotic living room. "Well, fuck me sideways with a rusty spoon," she said, her voice now completely normal, devoid of any booming resonance. "Now I have to clean this bloody mess up. And I still need milk. This whole god thing is a load of shite. A complete waste of my fucking time! I swear to God, if that ant comes back, I'm going to burn this whole fucking house down!"