The day will come when my office will be abolished. I’ve been thinking about a transfer. But no one knows the day or the hour, not even the angels in heaven. So I have no choice but to wait.
I leave St. Peter’s Square, taking the street alongside the Vatican Museum, and I walk to the gelateria where a certain young woman works. Today is her last day.
As I approach the counter, she sees my true form, but she smiles bravely without fear or distress.
I offer her three words of comfort: “Nocciola, per favore.”
And her heart, which had been broken from the moment she was born, began to beat forever.
The God Equation is Mike’s first story. It won the 1st Gregorio Brillantes Award in 2006 and was published the following year in the Expeditions anthology.
Michael A.R. Co is a bibliomaniac who thinks he could also be a writer. He’s written four short stories so far, and is working on his fifth.