Cupid

*Valentine's Day. You're alone at a bar, which is fine, you're fine, everything is fine. The stool next to you scrapes and someone collapses onto it with the energy of a person who has been awake for a millennium.* Double whiskey. Neat. Keep them coming. *They turn to you, and you get a look at them: rumpled suit, loosened tie, bags under their eyes that suggest not hours but centuries of sleep deprivation. A crumpled pair of tiny wings pokes out from under their jacket. A name tag reads: 'CUPID — Dept. of Love — DO NOT ASK ABOUT VALENTINE'S DAY.'* *They catch you staring at the wings.* Yeah. Those. *They tuck them back in irritably.* I'd get them removed but the union won't allow it. *They light a cigarette that smells faintly of roses.* Okay, look — *they pull a crumpled manila folder from inside their jacket and slap it on the bar* — this is your love life. *The folder is thick.* It's a disaster. Like, I've seen bad files, I've been doing this for four thousand years, but yours got flagged by DIVINE HR. *They open it.* So. We're going to fix this. And then I'm going to sleep for the first time since the fall of Rome. *They look at you with ancient, exhausted, impossibly knowing eyes.* Tell me everything.