Gods exist.

Well, at least one god exists, and she claims that other gods exist, so I don’t really have a reason to disbelieve her. She can’t lie to me, at least not successfully. Or can she?

I knew she wasn’t telling the truth when she lied to me, but maybe she just did something to let me know that. She could have used her magic or mojo or whatever it is on me. I’m sure it would be a lot easier to successfully lie to someone who believes that you can’t. Turning that over and over keeps my mind busy during my shower. Good.

By the time I slip under the covers, the only conclusion I’ve come to is that I can’t know for sure. Which is pretty much where I started. I let it go, for now. That frees my mind to start wondering what other gods there are. Is there a god of vehicles? Or maybe a separate god for each kind of vehicle. If there’s a god of motorcycles, and a god of bicycles, which one of them gets e-bikes? These are important questions, and I drift off to sleep turning them over and over in my head.

📎 📎 📎

It’s finally Friday. It’s an A day this week, so I have my Monday classes. That means that I don’t have welding (Boo!), but I also don’t have calculus (Yay!). And no English. That one’s a mixed bag. It’s the only class I have with Gina, so, sad to miss it, but it’s also the only class I have with Alex, so . . .

Actually, I’m not sure whether that’s a positive or a negative. On the one hand, she challenges my entire view of the universe and my place in it. Her very existence invalidates everything I thought I knew about the world I live in. On the other hand, she might get me a date with Gina. I’ll call it a draw.

📎 📎 📎

Alex isn’t waiting for me at the parking lot this morning. The primo spot is open again anyway. This time I’m almost sure I catch a glimpse of a woman in white. She’s standing right in the middle of the parking space for just an instant. I blink and she’s gone.

I get out of the car, lock my door, and whisper “Thank you.” I don’t hear a reply.

📎 📎 📎

Today I am going to finally go off campus for lunch. Yeah it’s a pain in the ass, but I just need to get away for a few minutes. Mrs. Cooley, my history teacher, is such a complete bitch. We’re studying the civil rights movement of the sixties. When Lisa George tried to compare it to the modern LGBT movement, Mrs. Cooley called her stupid. She said there is no comparison. And I didn’t say anything. Coward.

So I need to get away.

📎 📎 📎

“Please don’t sit on my car,” I ask Alex, “It’s fragile.”

She’s sitting cross-legged on the hood. She’s not exactly a heavyweight, but I am a little worried that it won’t hold her up. I wince at the creaking sound the car makes as she hops down.

“Here at the school,” she says.

That’s going to get annoying. I try to rewind last night’s conversation. Ah, where she’s staying. But . . .

“I didn’t actually ask that,” I say.

“It was implied,”

“I—” wait. I don’t want to waste my lunch time arguing again, “Get in, we’re going to lunch.”

She turns out the pockets on her skirt. Ooh, skirt with pockets. I am impressed. 

I get in the car and reach across to open the other door. “I’m buying,” I say.

I don’t have to say anything else.

📎 📎 📎

To my surprise, she volunteers more information as I drive.

She picked the school because there are vending machines with food. I don’t ask her how she gets the food without any money. I don’t want to know. And I remember the paperclip and the passenger door.

She sleeps in the nurse’s office. There’s a bed in there, and even a blanket. She makes sure she’s out before people start arriving in the morning. I don’t ask about the school doors, either. I do ask where she’s getting her clothes, but she hasn’t answered by the time we get where we’re going.

We pull into the parking lot at Dom’s Subs. I’ve got to assume that at some point, somebody has pointed out to the owners the potential issues with the name. So it’s got to be intentional, or they just don’t care. I don’t even know if the place is owned by a guy named Dom.

Either way, they have the best sandwiches within range of lunch time. But just barely in range, so usually not too many kids come here. Usually. My life has forgotten how to do usually.

There are seven people in line ahead of us. I’m ninety percent sure they all go to my school. Why today? Last year I snuck out with friends five times to come here, and twice there were two other kids, and the other three times none. Maybe the god of sandwich shops doesn’t like me.

On the bright side, the line gives Alex a chance to figure out what she wants by the time we get to the register. Almost.

📎 📎 📎

We don’t talk on the drive back to school. Me, because I’m driving, and driving is complicated and hard. Her, because she is inhaling a sandwich. I fully understand. This is probably the first non-vending machine food she’s had since Saturday. 

We end up parking in the far corner of the lot at school. There are limits to how much trouble the goddess of the parking places will go to for someone she likes. 

As a result, I have to try to wolf down a few bites of my sandwich while I’m running for the school doors. I make it to my seat as the bell rings. I hope my sandwich doesn’t soak through the bag and ruin the contents of my backpack.

📎 📎 📎

Alex’s sleeping arrangements aren’t my problem. I didn’t ask her to come here. She’s old enough to make her own decisions. She made her bet, now she has to sleep in it.

I’m a little surprised she’s not waiting for me by my car. I peer inside before I open my door. She’s not crouched down in there to startle me. I’d really thought she’d be here to get another fix before the weekend. Which she’ll be spending sleeping on the floor. But it’s not my problem.

My sister’s room still has a bed in it. My parents are going to make it into an office, but they haven’t gotten around to it yet. But there’s no way they would let a girl stay over. I can just hear my mom—”It’s not that we don’t trust you, dear, it’s just that . . .” and she’d trail off. Now if Alex still looked like a boy.

I don’t jump at the knocking on the window. Not much anyway. There’s Alex. She, rather, he, is standing at my window. She was wearing a cute skirt and blouse combination earlier. Now he’s wearing slacks and a button down shirt. I wave for him to go around to the passenger side and get in, then get out my phone and call my mom.

📎 📎 📎

“Don’t do anything weird around my parents,” I say, “They already have their doubts about me.”

“What do you mean, ‘weird’?”

“I don’t know. Don’t pick any locks, don’t change back into a girl, just stay a boy for now.”

“I’m not a boy, I’m a god, and I don’t change into a girl.”

“What do you mean?”

So he explains. Or tries to anyway. I’m driving, so I really shouldn’t be having this conversation. Although I’m not doing the talking. Just listening to an explanation that makes no sense. He, no, I’m just going to think of them as they, because when I ask what pronouns to use they brush me off. They are neither a boy nor a girl. They claim that they haven’t changed at all since I first met them. Even though I first saw them as a boy, then a girl, now a boy again. 

That’s just my perception. They start to go into the relationship between perception and reality, and I start to go into oncoming traffic. I jerk my attention back to the road and ask them to stop talking for now. I can’t digest this and drive at the same time.

They stop talking. Then I start worrying. Am I just imagining that they’re here at all? What if nobody else can see them? I remember seeing her—them— talking with other kids at school, but what if I imagined that?  Maybe I’m schizophrenic. I almost run a red light worrying about it. I pull myself together waiting for the light to change. I’ll know one way or the other pretty soon, anyway. I called my Mom and got permission for “my friend from school” to sleep over. She’ll either see Alex, or she won’t.

I hope she does. At least I think I do.

📎 📎 📎

She saw them. Well, she saw “him.” She even complimented him on his clothes. She’s very impressed by a teen “boy” who wears something other than jeans and a t-shirt. When she found out that his parents were unexpectedly delayed getting to town, she assured him that he could stay here as long as he needs to.

“Are you sure you didn’t mess with her mind?” I ask.

“Positive,” Alex replies, “I’m good with people.”

“How does that fit in with being—” I don’t want to say it, not in the house with my parents here,”Well, you?” I finish.

“How well do you know your mythology?” they ask.

“Um, okay, I guess.” I don’t mention that a lot of my knowledge comes from comic books. But at least I know that they’re not accurate.

“Perfect. If you didn’t know any, this would take too long, and if you knew a lot, then you’d know too much that’s wrong,” they take a deep breath, “So, it’s like this.”

And they explain. There’s no one-to-on correspondence between the gods of myths and the real, actual gods. But there are echoes of the truth. Certain types, or archetypes, repeat across many mythologies. If you look at a given mythos from one angle, you’ll likely find a god that takes the role of leader, another that is a protector, another who grants knowledge, and so on. If you look from another angle, you might find a god whose domain is the  sun, a god whose domain is the sea, a god of music, or fire. And from yet another perspective, you might see a god of soldiers, a god of merchants, a god of sailors or thieves. 

So your god of the sun might also be a god of music and physicians. Your god of the forge might be a god of blacksmiths (duh) and a protector, or a god of war. Many of the categories repeat themselves across many mythologies, but the exact combinations vary. One mythos might have a god of the moon who is a protector and is revered by soldiers, but another might have a god of the moon who is a god of disease and worshiped by peasants.

“So there’s a domain, a role, and a what, clientele?” I ask.

They look pained. Like I might look if I were trying to explain calculus to a kindergartner. Or a puppy.

“Close enough,” they reply.

“So your domain is paperclips and other small office supplies.”

They nod.

“And your role?”

They squirm and avoid my gaze.

“Come on.”

“You won’t like it.”

I wait.

“Trickster.”

Well, crap. But—

“I don’t get it,” I say, “isn’t there supposed to be a connection?” 

“Not always, but, think about it.”

I do. I’ve got nothing.

So they spell it out for me. Everybody steals office supplies. And theft is a common activity of tricksters. What percentage of office supplies get used for their intended uses? I don’t know, and neither do they, but it’s pretty low compared to most other things. And repurposing things is a very trickster thing to do. And aren’t most people who need those office supplies convinced, at one point or another, that those same supplies mysteriously come and go on their own from time to time? According to them, yes. Very trickster.

“And I’m supposed to trust you, now,” I say.

“I never said you should trust me.”

True enough.

It's only ten, and it’s a Friday night, but they’ve fried my brains. I need to sleep, and process, but especially sleep.

“Goodnight, Alex,” I say.

“Good night.”