[image description: A young woman in a black top with spaghetti straps is captured mid-laugh, her mouth open. Her eyebrows, eye shadow, hair, and pupils are all variegated pink and sky blue. Her lips are blue. Behind her the remains of a burned-out building and violet storm clouds. Text reads, “9, Gabby Gallowglass ~ The Small God of Inappropriate Laughter”]
The funeral is quiet, solemn, as befits a place of mourning. The hymns have been sung, the psalms read, and the pastor calls upon the family to rise and give their final goodbyes.
It is the man’s widow who first notices the problem. Her granddaughter, even as she stands, appears to be choking on something, some small inconvenience or unwanted spot of phlegm. But she does not cough, does not clear her throat, only continues to make the same small choking noise over and over again, until finally her lips part and gales of laughter issue forth, bright and merry and contagious. In moments, the whole funeral is laughing, bodies shaking and eyes tearing up with something other than sorrow.
Gabby Gallowglass has arrived.
No one knows when she first became codified, called, as all gods are, from the misty fields of human need. Some believe she was originally a minor Muse of some form of comedy, less powerful than Thalia, but equally as persuasive. No one has ever been able to prove her origins one way or another, and those who try are likely to become consumed by a knock-knock joke and find themselves walking into passing traffic. Gabby Gallowglass is a vindictive goddess, when she needs to be. Her hand guides the pen of scribes and artists alike, tucking jokes into places where no jokes belong, whistling past the world’s graveyards.
But for all that she compels laughter where there should be none, steals away consent and intrudes on private moments, those she visits are unlikely to complain. Most say that without Gabby, they would never have been able to bring themselves to reveal painful, punishing truths that would have sat and festered in their hearts until they inevitably came to light, in a much less merciful manner.
She rarely visits the same heart twice. All those who have known her adore her. All those she has touched remember, and very few resent.
Artist Lee Moyer (13th Age, Cursed Court) and author Seanan McGuire (Middlegame, Every Heart a Doorway) have joined forces to bring you icons and stories of the small deities who manage our modern world, from the God of Social Distancing to the God of Finding a Parking Space.
Join in each week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for a guide to the many tiny divinities:
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