Thursday arrived with a soft knock.
The new intern was already there when I came in.
That was the first problem.
She stood near the front desk, posture relaxed but attentive, badge clipped neatly, holding a tablet to her chest like it was both a tool and a shield.
“Good morning,” she said, smiling. “I’m—”
“You can start by taking a seat,” Ms. A said calmly.
The intern blinked once, then nodded. “Of course.”
She didn’t finish the sentence.
No one asked her to.
Crisis stopped walking.
The Analyst looked up.
The Archivist adjusted his glasses.
No one introduced themselves either.
That felt deliberate.
Ms. A gestured toward the open workspace.
“You’ll be rotating across departments,” she said. “Observation is currently suspended.”
The intern nodded, already absorbing the phrasing.
“I reviewed the orientation materials,” she said. “And the addenda.”
Crisis raised an eyebrow. “All of them?”
“Yes,” the intern replied. “Some sections didn’t agree with each other.”
The room went very still.
“That’s… thorough,” the Analyst said carefully.
The intern smiled apologetically. “I like understanding internal language. Especially when it’s… symbolic.”
I frowned.
“Symbolic?”
She hesitated, choosing her words.
“I assumed ‘gods’ was an institutional term,” she said. “Legacy stakeholders. Foundational frameworks. Cultural constructs.”
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No one corrected her.
That was the second problem.
Ms. A watched her for a moment.
“And if they weren’t?” Ms. A asked.
The intern paused.
“…Then I would need clarification,” she said honestly. “Because that would significantly change the scope of my understanding.”
Crisis folded her arms.
“Are you saying you don’t believe they’re literal?”
The intern inhaled slowly.
“I’m saying,” she replied, carefully, “that I haven’t yet determined whether this organization uses reverent language, metaphorical language, or… something else.”
I liked her immediately.
That worried me.
They seated her at the empty desk.
The chair didn’t complain.
She logged in on the first try.
The system didn’t hesitate.
She noticed.
Didn’t comment.
“So,” she said after a moment, “what did I miss?”
No one answered.
She waited — patient, composed, clearly trained not to fill silence unnecessarily.
Finally, I spoke.
“You missed a god leaving.”
Her fingers paused above the keyboard.
“…In what sense?” she asked.
“In every sense,” I said.
She nodded slowly, as if filing that under to be revisited when evidence appears.
At lunch, she excused herself briefly.
When she returned, she waited until everyone else had started eating before joining in.
It was a small thing.
It felt intentional.
“I hope this isn’t inappropriate,” she said, glancing around, “but I’m still not sure whether I should be taking certain terms literally.”
Crisis didn’t look up. “You shouldn’t.”
The intern smiled faintly. “That’s reassuring.”
I wasn’t sure it was meant to be.
In the afternoon, she submitted a note.
Not a report.
Not a recommendation.
An observation.
Carefully worded. Conditional. Filled with phrases like if interpreted as and assuming metaphorical usage.
“Please don’t feel pressured to act on it,” she said to Ms. A. “I may be misunderstanding the premise.”
Ms. A accepted the paper.
Didn’t comment.
That unsettled me.
By the time Thursday ended, the office felt subtly different.
Not louder.
Not faster.
Just… slightly misaligned.
Like someone had joined a conversation without knowing which words were jokes yet.
That night, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling.
The ceiling had now seen someone walk into a department that managed gods and assume — reasonably — that it couldn’t possibly mean that.
I asked it a question.
At what point does disbelief become professionalism?
The ceiling didn’t answer.
So I did.
When accepting the truth would require changing how you work.
Sleep didn’t come easily.
Which felt fair.
