On a block of Peoria street in Greendale, MA, there is a house. In this house lives a boy, and in the boy's room there are mountains of toys, scattered recklessly over the floor. GI JOE, Superman, tanks, guns, you name it. The collection is amazing. Buried among those toys, there is the boy and his two friends S. and G. If you climb the tree outside this house, you can stare at the three kids for hours, and they will never turn their backs to see you. The three are all incredibly busy with incredibly important duties.
After dinner, for playtime, the three solemnly return to their affairs. Today, like all other days, S. and G. are playing Destiny—the game of age and chance— as the boy plays with his Spiderman and Superman dolls. The boy plays loudly and the devil frequently tosses disappointed glances back at the boy, as if his sound waves have disrupted everything, as if his noise has proven a betrayal. God's eyes never leave the board. His head stays tilted, eyelids open wide, hands pressing into his lap. Today, God and Satan are playing for age 12.
The boy takes a break from business to play with his pals, but the two opponents merely mutter unintelligible gabber at him, in order to speed up this annoying break. Bored and a bit annoyed, the boy begins to describe a girl at school who throws wood chips at him. Speaking a bit too loudly, he lets his arm reach for the ceiling as emotion erupts from his fluctuating voice. “ AND THEN SHE JUST RUNS AWAY!” God and Satan exchange knowing looks, and the rooms falls silent. This happens frequently. An air of knowing blows off of the two opponents and into the boy's face. A slight smirk spreads itself over S.'s face, and God looks down, as if into hell, hoping to avoid an explanation. “What? WHAT?!” Exaggerating a scoff, the boy returns to his original play area, while keeping his eyes fixed on Destiny, knowing it must be the culprit responsible for the assaults at school.
An hour goes by and the only sounds uttered in the room are those of Spiderman's mimicked screams, as a truck repeatedly rolls over him. G. and S. get up and begin to stretch in a ridiculous manner. Bending knees, raising legs into the air, pulling skin on their cheeks. “Why do you need to stretch!?” The boy screams. The opponents shrug unknowingly and the boy begins to chuck his toys at them. One after another they fly, beautifully soaring and landing hard against God and Satan's cheeks. S. and G. retreat behind a wall of stuffed toys, and the boy goes wild. He begins to hold his belly and echo a bellowing laugh at them. Tears soon flow, and in moments he is on the floor. The sight of two rulers fleeing is apparently too much to bear. At the sight of the boy laughing S. is initially outraged, but upon seeing God chuckling, Satan lets loose a gigantic laugh! God laughs harder more, and the boy slowly calms, seeing a disgusting laughing competition unravel before him.
The room becomes noise. The house shakes in terror under the blows of such laughter, and in moments the three sway with the resonating room. All the while, Satan and God are looking severely at their board game. Standing there swaying, thinking about the atrocity of never being able to play, the nauseating silences, the knowing glances, and the relentless boredom, the boy begins to inch nearer to the game. Slowly, the laughter moves the boy back and forth, as he crawls with anger and hot tears in his eyes. With only a few feet more Satan notices the boy and his trajectory, and taps God. Together the two cease to laugh and move to block the boy's way, but they are too late. Grasping hold of the game, the boy holds Destiny above his head, and releases. And the game comes tumbling down, and the duo stood shaking terrified, and eternity began with the loss of one being, now drifting without a beacon, with a broken soul and no destiny. The “ands” ceased to be, and staring from a tree looking in before reality ended, I was happy to know that God and Satan were kids.
