The God of Small Mistakes

How it begins

Ruth Bell found the god beneath a tray of misplaced washers. He was arguing with a screw.

'You were meant to roll left,' he said.

The screw did not answer. Screws rarely did, even in Ruth's workshop. She lifted the tray and found a man no taller than her thumb wearing a coat with one button missing.

'I need those,' she said.

'I know. You were going to put them in the wrong drawer.'

'Was I?'

'Probably. I'm very good, but nothing is guaranteed.'

His name was Ivo-of-the-Gap. He managed small mistakes: missed buses, lost buttons, the wrong envelope opened before it went too far. Ruth listened while truing a wheel. By the time he explained the ministry responsible for dropped toast, she had decided the entire story was either true or an elaborate response to solvent fumes.

Then he mentioned the bus she had missed on the morning she met her oldest friend.

Ruth stopped the wheel. 'Did you arrange that?'

'I arranged a loose shoelace. What you did while tying it was entirely yours.'

Outside, the city was installing new street clocks. They all read the same second. Since the Council for Seamless Living took office, the buses had stopped arriving late, the doors had stopped sticking and customers had begun complaining about bicycles before anything actually went wrong.

Ivo looked toward the window. His coat had become slightly transparent.

'They're getting better,' Ruth said.

'At some things.'

She thought of the cyclist whose brakes had failed last week. 'People get hurt by mistakes.'

'I don't manage those.' His voice lost its small brightness. 'But they're using the same word for everything.'

A customer entered with a perfectly functioning bicycle. He had come because the new appointment system said he should. Ruth opened her mouth to greet him, and realized she had not spoken to anyone by chance in three days.

Ivo's missing button fell through his coat.