I blinked. Actually, I didn't. Don't get me wrong, my eyes did the 'shut and open' routine, but I had the distinct feeling this was against my will. I looked at Dumbledore-Lion-mug. Oh Boy. Slight change of costume. Not good.
Gone were the Tide-Ariel whites and the shiny beard. Gone were the wrinkles. Heck, even the eyes had changed. Standing before me was a huge metallic robot with wires streaming off his back, more alive than mechanical. His face had turned part flesh, part metallic. I got the feeling this guy didn't have a keen sense of humor. Not that the first dude was Ray Romano or Jerry Seinfeld, by any stretch of the imagination.
"Weren't you one of the original TRANSFORMERS ?"
It's hard to tell emotions in a robot. The slight trembling along the fleshy part of the lips - that was the give-away. I think he was mumbling. I think he was praying.
"Are you bluetooth enabled ?" In my defence, I was genuinely curious.
"SHUT UP, EARTHLING. YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED INTO THE PROGRAM. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE."
Good God. "Are you from Microsoft ? Is this about the fake Windows '98 cd I'm using ?" They must have been serious about that whole 'buy Original Windows' ad.
"RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. WE ARE THE BORG."
"The Swedish guy ? You don't look a lot like.."
" WE ARE THE BORG. WE WILL MAKE ALL HUMANITY ONE WITH US, THEN RULE EARTH. PREPARE TO BE ASSIMILATED."

To be frank, I had no idea what assimilated meant, but I had a feeling it didn't include breakfast in bed. Sadly, whatever this thing was, he still had some of those superpowers left because I found myself unable to move despite repeated commands to my body. Then again, I had cocooned myself in my blanket so maybe that was it. Either way, the robot-Swede-God advanced closer. Those tentacle-wire thingys shot out and struck at me. Weird. They were merging with my mind through my body. If you think body searches in airports are an invasion of privacy, you really should try this. If only she were a 22 year old Swede nurse.. sigh. Anyway, the Borgy spoke.
"CONTACT WITH HUMAN ESTABLISHED. CONNECTING TO MAIN BORG NETWORK." This just had to be those pesky Microsoft guys. If I get out of this alive, no more illegal software cracks for me.
"CONNECTED TO MAINFRAME. INITIATING ASSIMILATION."
Oh well. It was a fun life while it lasted. Who knows, maybe being this robot's bitch wouldn't be all bad..no more ..Hey!! Why is there a tear in his eye ?
"Dude. You ok ?"
"ERROR !! ERROR !! ABORT !! STUPIDITY LEVELS TOO HIGH !! CORRUPTING HARD DRIVE !! ABORT ASSIMILATION ! SUBJECT IS LEVEL IGNORAMUS TIMES MORON. ABORT MISSION. ABORT MISSION. ABORRRRRRT MISSSSSSSIOOOOOON !!!!!!!"

Poof.

Ya, I know. You were expecting a blast. So was I. But all I heard was a poof. He was gone. The room was illuminated in light, but that was from the morning shadows seeping in from the windows. The closed windows.
Banging. Ah yes !! He must have gone out to pee. I got up and walked to the door and opened it. My mom stood outside.
"Wake up!!! It's time to go. We have to be at the temple by 6am."
"Oh Mom. Do I have to ?"
"Yes, we decided this a long time back. Now go bath quickly. God is waiting." She turned, clicked her Hitler boots and stomped off.
"Why do I get the feeling God is a 'tad' tired of waiting ?" I said as I went in to take my bath.

Prologue :
Location - The Great Lounge in the Sky, Heaven
Time - 6 am

"Guys, guess who's just back from Roshan's place ?" the bartender said to the two customers who'd just walked in, his eyes pointing to the third table. The two of them followed his gaze and came to rest on the lone figure sitting in the corner."
"Hee Hee. Get our order over there, will ya, Big Guy ?"
"Sure thing. You guys go console him."
The two of them walked upto the dark corner and stood before the forlorn figure." Hey, man. Want some company ?"
The old man in the pearly white costume looked up. "The horror. The horror. " was all he muttered.
"I know. I know. It's been a rough day, hasn't it ? We heard you got Roshan. What did you do to deserve that ?"
"I fell asleep while JC was teaching about the merits of the 7th Commandment."
"Ah!!"
"My God !! Is it possible that we can create such stupidity ?"
"It's a glitch in the system, Saint Angelo VII. You must remember, he was created at a time when Microsoft didn't yet exist. Till we made the deal with Gates, the earlier prototypes were mostly hand made. Errors were inevitable."
"But still.."
"Dude. Listen, you just got him as as a punishment. The two of us, we have him in our religion. Can you imagine how that sucks? I mean, I have four arms, a mace and a discus - Ol' Violet here has a trident and a snake and we still barely hold on to our sanity while he's awake. And he always escapes with that damn 'apology at the end of the day' clause. We're forced to forgive his sins and overlook his errors. I swear, man..."
The second guy spoke up now." I swear, the number of times I just wanted to resign from the Holy Trinity because of that moron. But nooooooo.. turns out it's a life long job. Talk about not reading the fine print."
"The only one having a good time from all this, of course is our shrink.. man, he's just rakin in the goody points."
"I can imagine" Saint Angelo VII said. He made a mental note to ask them for the shrink's number later.
A voice boomed out from the door to the Lounge. "Hey Hey hey ! How's it going, you all ?"
The other two turned to him and smiled. "Hey, Al ! Where ya been ? Ol Angelo here just saw the future of mankind. He's pretty scared right now "
"What say, bro ? You're still shakin, man. What'd Jc do ? Give you Rosh ?"
"Yup.."
"Oooh nasty. I guess that'll teach you to doze in class, eh ? Hey, bartender, the usual."
"Comin up, big Al"
Angelo looked at them. "He made me into a chicken.. a chicken,dammit !!"
"That's cool. Zeus became a big juicy banana, I recall. He still shudders when he sees a monkey on Animal PLanet... and what about Hippocrates, he's still crying for letting this guy into the medical field on a bet"
" I tried scaring him by changing into that robot species, Borg, from Star Trek. After all, the main idea was to add him to the eternal light right ?"
" Your idea was right, but not with it, man. For that guy, you need a special decontamination containment unit, you can't just add him with the rest of the .. hey, there's my order.Thanx, big guy. "
The violet God turned and his third eye opened up. "Hey !! We ordered before him !! Where's our fries and Mc Burger ?"
Big Al laughed. "Here you go, S" He playfully threw the bun at S, who ducked ensuring it landed on his partner's conch.
"Oh man !! I just got that polished this morning. Do you know how much it cost me ?"
"Hey bro. He ducked. I ain't paying for that. "
"Oh yeah !! Well, then here, have some of this ketchup." he said, throwing the open bottle, which multiplied exponentially into 64 bottles as it flew in the air. Al ducked and the ketchup found its way to St Peters who was sitting in the next table."
"Oh come on. All I wanted was a health snack in my break and now look what you did."
S pointed at Al. 'He started it. " "Oh yeah !!" St Peter retorted, lifting the salad bowl..
"FOOD FIGHT !!!!" screamed the Moon God who'd just entered on a break. He needn't have bothered. Everyone was too busy participating to actually wait for the announcement.