Humble Vessel

Glory's apartment. 

Ben comes down the stairs to the main room, wearing regular clothes, followed by a minion, Gronx. 

Gronx holds Glory's dress and speaks with a female voice 

(although she looks just like the others). 

GRONX: 

This is, this is terrible. I'll never be able to mend this. 

BEN: 

Not really my color anyway. 

(sits on the arm of a sofa) 

GRONX: 

Oh, yes. Inappropriate humor. 

(fake laugh) 

Most amusing. 

Don't suppose you know what led to this sartorial tragedy. 

BEN: 

That's not how it works, you know that. 

GRONX: 

Yes, of course. I just thought maybe after her magnificent incandescence was returned to this ... manly and ... 

(looking Ben up and down) painfully handsome assemblage ... you might have noticed something interesting? 

A key in Human Form, perhaps? 

Lounging about unattended? 

BEN: 

If I did, do you really think I would tell you? 

GRONX: 

Why do you insist on fighting the inevitable? 

No one can stand against her blindingly scrumptious luminescence. 

BEN: 

Glory. Her name is Glory, 

and she's your God, you little scab, not mine. 

GRONX: 

With all due respect and-and fear of sharp objects, you exist, sir, only because of her divine greatness. 

BEN: 

You mean her divine failure, don't you? 

Gronx squints angrily at him. Ben gets up to pace. 

BEN: 

I didn't ask for any of this. I just want to be normal. 

GRONX: 

We play the hand we're dealt. 

BEN: 

Nothing's mine, is it? This life, this body, it's all infected. 

The only thing I ever cared about she's taken away from me. 

You know why I wanted to be a doctor? 

GRONX: 

Flattering drawstring pants? 

BEN: 

To be close to people. 

To witness their lives and their deaths, to be there alongside them, a part of everyday humanity. 

(sighs) 

Maybe it's the drugs. 

(walks past) 

GRONX: 

Drugs, sir? (follows him) 

BEN: 

Find the right combination, keep her buried where she belongs. 

GRONX: 

Impossible!

 Her magnificence can never be fully contained! 

She is a perfect, all-encompassing light, one you should feel honored to be bathed in. 

BEN: 

Oh, yeah, I'm thrilled. 

Especially with the part where she gets her key back and I cease to exist. 

GRONX: 

True, this oh-so-appealing form will of necessity be shrugged off. 

BEN: 

Not if I get the key first. 

(turns to leave but Gronx stops him) 

GRONX: 

And if you did ... what then? 

Could you do it? 

(Ben looks annoyed) 

Take a human life with your own hands? 

(comfortingly) 

Oblivion is such a small inconvenience in the service of a deity. 

Accept Your Fate. 

I mean, you said it yourself — 

This life was never really yours anyway, was it? 

BEN: 

It doesn't matter how I came by it. 

It's mine. And I plan on keeping it.