#23 Zeke the Angel
Zeke the Angel. Not that anyone knew him as that, at least not most anyone save perhaps for a wet-brained little bum who gave him everything he could just for the fuck of it- not even because of what Zeke was, refusing to hear any offer Zeke had to make. It was because of that bum that Zeke could still roam the earth as more than some otherworldly vision. It was also why his current manifestation tended towards lumpy, hairy and weird-smelling.
Which was just as Zeke preferred things. He had no use for being beautiful. Once, eon ago, he found it necessary, back when he believed it was his calling to seduce as many souls into the mutually blissful relationship that symbiosis with an angel offered. Back before he started to believe in his own PR. Back before he came to the conclusion that doing some good when and where he could mattered a whole hell of a lot more than feeding off of what humans gave so freely anyway.
Now he took their happy and their love when and where he could, when it came to him freely and beyond any subtle coercion on his part. Hence the ugly and smelly. Stacking the deck against himself, and he didn’t care. He still got more than enough to get along, especially since he stayed right there in the muck and the mire, so his ugly body could process regular food too. Truth was, compared to what the average joe had to go through to get along, he had it pretty easy.
Being an expert in, well, no, let’s call it like it was, having a huge hand in creating the theological binary mindfuck that humanity would most likely never be able to extricate itself from, he could pretty safely say that he wasn’t acting out of guilt. He was an expert on guilt, and had no use for it whatsoever. That was a demon gig, pure and simple.
No, it was something bigger, what drove him. Maybe a sense of responsibility, the need to clean up at least some of the mess he had made, even if that mess going as viral as it did was not something he had imagined. Or maybe it was absolutely simple. Maybe it was just love, pure unadulterated love for every damned tom dick and harry that managed to get up in the morning and drag himself across the surface of the planet, knowing the cards were stacked against him, knowing that this pointless day might just be the last, and going about his business anyway. Who the hell couldn’t love that, anyway?