The Intellectuals

Waiting for Puck to exit the gym at three o’clock I caught one of his female classmates talking loudly to her mom on the way out the door.

“We saw a picture of the longest fingernails in the world today! IT WAS DISGUSTING!”

Private school.

Puck did his spelling homework on the kitchen whiteboard, scooting on his skateboard back and forth, then bursting out the front door to meet with Eddie for half an hour.

They were chatting for some time in the kitchen while I fixed dinner.

“And when it gets to be winter,” Eddie was saying, “it’s colder than the moon. It’s like Antarctica.”

“I can’t believe we even have clothes to survive that!” Puck exclaimed, fascinated.

“In Antarctica? We don’t. I think we used to in history…”

I zoned out while I put vegetables on the stove. When I returned from my distraction, they had changed subjects.

“So, you are the king of Crackers…” Eddie was saying. “So your dad is like a god.”

“But he’s not God,” Puck wanted to clarify. “There’s something I don’t understand about God. Some people make things with their hands and then they worship it like God. That is like so weird, you know?”

“That’s because God made them and they made something. They make something with their bare hands and they worship it. I think they should just worship the main God.”

“Yeah. Like in space or something. Well, I don’t really know where Heaven is.”

“God’s not even in the universe. The only way you can find God is if you go into a place of blackness. By outrunning the speed of the universe growth.”

“That’s not possible.”

“It’s not possible now.”

“Actually, there’s no way to get to Heaven unless you die.”

“Yeah. … I think there’s one other way though. It’s called The Nether.”

Sometimes there just isn’t time to catch up with everything that needs … adjusting.