A God for the Missing Teaspoons

How it begins

The god of missing teaspoons had been caught with a dessert fork.

This was humiliating.

Worse, the housekeeper knew enough to recognize the difference.

"That isn't your department," she said.

Siva stood on the kitchen table with the fork over one shoulder.

From a distance, it might have looked heroic.

Up close, he was six inches tall and tangled in a napkin.

"The drawer was mislabeled."

"No, it wasn't."

Mara lifted the napkin.

Behind her, the kitchen shone with the immaculate misery of a room in which nobody was allowed to eat standing up.

Siva looked for a teaspoon.

Every slot was full.

Every handle faced the same direction.

He felt a small professional dread.

"How long has it been like this?"

"Since the new rules."

On the wall, a framed sheet listed the proper times for boiling water, opening windows and replacing flowers that had begun to look informal.

Mara put the fork away.

"I need you to take something."

"I am already taking something."

"Something larger."

He looked at the framed rules.

"No."

"You haven't heard."

"I've lived nine hundred years. I recognize the face people make before asking a small god to become an example."

Mara sat at the table.

It was not a permitted sitting time.

Somewhere above them, a bell rang.

She did not move.

"My sister comes on Sundays," she said. "We get eleven minutes. The clock starts at the gate."

Siva looked toward the cutlery drawer.

He had always thought people needed missing teaspoons because perfection was boring.

It had not occurred to him that sometimes they needed a reason to be late.

The bell rang again.

Mara held out a key no longer than his arm.

"It opens the clock cabinet."

Siva put down the fork.

For the first time in centuries, he considered stealing something that might be missed.