(Glory's apartment. Gronx laments over the condition of Glory's red dress.)

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

BEN: Not really my color anyway.

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.

Minion Gronx: With all due respect and fear of sharp objects, you exist, sir, because of her divine greatness.

BEN: You mean her divine failure, don't you? I didn't ask for any of this. I just want to be normal.

Minion 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've ever cared about she's taken away from me. You know why I wanted to become a doctor?

Minion Gronx: Flattering draw-string pants?

BEN: To be close to people, to witness their lives and their deaths to be there alongside them, a part of everyday humanity. Maybe it's the drugs.

Minion Gronx: Drugs, sir?

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

Minion 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.

Minion Gronx: True, this oh so appealing form will of necessity be shrugged off.

BEN: Not if I get the key first.

Minion Gronx: And if you did? What then? Could you do it, take a human life with your own hands? 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 your anyway, was it?

BEN: It doesn't matter how I came by it. It's mine. And I plan on keeping it.

• Ben's Issues

written by: Steven S. DeKnight; Typed the partial transcript of this episode myself. Full transcript at:
http://www.studiesinwords.de/98spiral.html