First message: "Please help us, God."

"You know I have to take this," He said.

Nobody else batted an eye. It was nothing new. And it rarely took more than a second. More like a blip, a hiccup in the conversation.

He listened to the rest of the prayer and thought about it briefly. He didn't need much time though. Illness, financial trouble. It really was nothing new, the type of prayer He'd answered countless times while working on His book. He already had a decision in mind.

The Book of Fate was already on its third revision. But He was still taking calls from His characters. A few edits shortly before the call was made, a few edits in chapters long after the call was made, and voila, ready for the next message.

He worked so fast that messages rarely piled up on His phone. Usually just one in the queue at a time.

He was immediately back at the table with the other authors, nine of them in total, each working on their own books, in their own languages. They came together to share ideas, to problem solve where to take their stories. Group therapy for the gods.

It was just a couple hours each Tuesday over coffee. Not a big sacrifice, and prayers from the characters would continually stream in during the meetings, just as they would at any other time.

Most of the prayers were pretty typical though. After nearly an eternity of practice, they were pretty good at answering all the standard prayers, though not always in ways their characters would immediately understand, but in ways that still made sense in the context of the books they were writing.

Past and future were playthings to them, easily modified with the magic of word processing and cut-and-paste. Some of His colleagues would always give a direct answer back to the prayers of their characters. He didn't do that much anymore. They'd just have to find out for themselves how their prayers would affect His story.

Last week was a bit more different though. Instead of the usual friendly banter, one of His colleagues received a unique call for once.