Adjourned. Indefinitely.

The seven of them sat around the table, locked in intense conversation. I sat amazed as I watched. Meetings like this one only happened once in a thousand years. The Seven Aspects of the universe, the fibers of humanity, gathered in one room: Good, Evil, Life, Death, Love, Hate, and my friend Dave, from accounting.

“Well, what are we to do?” Good asked. “It will not take humanity much longer to twist the rest of us.” She leaned back and crossed her arms indignantly. The morals of what Good was were constantly changing, and she was not pleased with this fact.

“There is nothing we can do but keep trying.” Love patted Good on the shoulder, smiling softly.

“Keep trying!?” Hate grumbled, fiddling with the cuffs of his suit. “We’ve been trying for eight millennia. What more can we do? Humanity has lost all reason.”

“Not all reason,” Life chortled. “They still fear Mr. Grim Reaper over there.” Death snorted, unamused. My spine shivered at the sight of him, dressed in black with wisps of smoke reaching out from behind him like claws. Life smiled at his deathly glare. She was the only one immune to his powers.

“Nevertheless, they’ve begun to forget their purpose,” Love sighed. “We all know this was not how the Creator intended things.”

“We still have time,” Dave said in his monotonous drone.

Hate glanced at him dubiously. In fact, everyone in the room gave Dave a surprised side-eye. He rarely talked, but when he did, people tended to listen.

“We could always press the Big Red Button,” Life suggested, her glowing features taking on a mischievous smirk. She was a true pixie, that one, and as the most vibrant of the Aspects, it was no wonder she had the height, build, and personality of an eight-year-old girl. At least, when she wasn’t appearing as a trigger-happy twenty-two-year-old.

“That’s out of the question,” Good argued. “Only the Creator can begin the End.” Hate and Love murmured in agreement, but the others objected. Soon, six of them looked ready to start throwing chairs. I backed toward the door. Last time one of the Aspects threw something, there was a storm of hail in Dubai.

“Good is right,” a husky southern drawl cut through the din of the argument. “Only the Creator can end what He began. Humanity continues to form its own doom while we sit here arguing about things we can’t do. That ain’t right.”

Everybody looked at Death, more amazed than ever. The room nodded in agreement. After all, nobody disagreed with Death.

“So what are we going to do?” Life asked. “We’re running out of options. It’s not like we could just disappear or anything.”

Dave’s eyes widened.

“What if we could?” he speculated, a sly grin spreading over his plain features. “What if we didn’t influence humanity at all? If we removed ourselves from the equation, humanity would realize what the world is like without us.”

“There’d be no one to draw the lines,” Evil added. “We wouldn’t have to work every single day either. I don’t know about you, but I could certainly use a vacation.”

It sounded bad, sure, but I had to admit they had a point. Humanity was messed up, and it was high time that someone taught us a lesson.

“Hold up.” Good glanced at the others with a strange look. “Are we seriously considering this? I know this isn’t true for all of you, but it goes against everything I stand for.”

“You don’t even know what you stand for to humanity, G!” Evil snapped.

Good looked as if she’d been slapped. Then her features softened, and her shoulders slumped.

“You’re right,” she whispered.

Love patted her on the shoulder. Life, oblivious to the momentous decision hanging in the balance, was upside down on the ceiling.

“So what’s our plan?” she giggled.

“G?” Evil asked.

Good looked up and met her brethren’s eyes.

“Let’s do it.”

There was a determination in her kind eyes that hadn’t been seen for many millennia. Evil leaned back in his chair, grinning. Dave sighed.

“Now what?” he droned.

“Ooh, oh, I know!” Life bubbled. “We can either adjourn this meeting and get ice cream, or we could play Office Ball.”

Death rolled his empty eyes. “You’re such a child,” he muttered.

Life hugged him tightly and batted her eyelashes. “That’s why you love me!” she sang.

Death muttered something under his breath, unamused. Life grinned and flashed out of his arms in one of her fancy teleporting acts.

“If anyone cares,” Dave called out, “I vote ice cream. Meetings are boring anyway.”

Life reappeared behind his chair. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

I, however, was rather confused. The Aspects had just made one of the most important decisions in human history, and they were talking about ice cream? I was honestly a little offended.

“If we’re getting ice cream, can we at least go to that one place on 31st?” Hate grumbled. For whatever reason, he strongly disliked the sugary cream.

“Aren’t we still technically in a meeting?” Evil crushed the hope of ice cream with the reality that there was still some business to attend to.

“I guess,” Life whined as Death dragged her back to her chair.

“Alright, let’s continue,” Dave began. “Life, what news from your department?”

“Well, population is up like two hundred fifty percent from our last meeting. Plus, humanity’s concept of me has become much more defined.” She sighed and whispered something in Death’s ear. He shrugged.

“As for me, everything’s going well. No management problems whatsoever,” he said.

“Excellent,” Dave responded, pushing his glasses up his nose and jotting something down on his clipboard. The rest of them continued in a similar and equally boring manner.

“Can we be done now?” Life finally blurted. “Dave, how can you stand this? I can’t take it anymore.”

“Yes, we can be done,” Love said gently. “Evil, what are our minutes?”

“Three hundred and twenty today, Love,” he said, glancing at his watch.

“That’s great and all, but can we get ice cream now?” Life looked ready to spawn a swarm of fluffy pink sheep to carry her out of this dreaded office building.

“Yeah, come on, let’s go.” Death grabbed her hand, and they walked out the door.

What I didn’t understand was why they didn’t just teleport.

The rest of the Aspects quickly followed their lead, and I was left alone in the conference room.

For a moment, everything was quiet. Then it happened.

On the table, where each of them had been sitting, something remained.

Good’s chair held a small, cracked mirror, its surface shifting as if it couldn’t decide what reflection to keep.

Love left a box of chocolates. Somehow, they rested on her chair ever so gently. Hate was a labyrinth of cracks splintering their way across the once-new table. Life’s seat was empty for a second longer—then I noticed a tiny plotted plant, a Venus flytrap. Death’s place was marked by a ticking clock, promising no escape. Evil’s was a set of perfectly balanced scales… tipping, ever so slightly.

And Dave... he'd left his clipboard. Of course, he had.

I stared at the objects, my chest tightening. So this is what the Aspects had come to? A couple of cracks and a motherlode of symbolism? I tried to discern whether the emotion tightening my chest was anger... or fear.

I wondered what my life was going to be like without the Seven Aspects. How would humanity change? Would there really ever be a difference? I picked up the clipboard. The last line read, in neat, careful handwriting:

“Adjourned. Indefinitely.”

I swallowed. These were all questions for Dave. And who knows? Maybe some of the minor Aspects would take over, and we’d have a whole new way to run the universe. But one could never be certain how the Aspects of the universe ate ice cream. That was where I was running right now. Because if I didn’t hurry, I might miss the moment the world realized… it was on its own.