What If God Shuffled By?

You awake from the certainty of being swallowed by the white and forgiving abyss with something approaching that, if memory serves, or is it more a pamphlet in your mind telling you of survival? At my behest.

The smell of stroopwafel freshly slid onto parchment from a hot iron that has tasted the decadence of crimson syrup offers from some poor, underpaid, and overworked market stall owner.

Maastricht feels like a million miles away from the Windy City. Although cold and damp, it exudes culture, and the air is fresh at least. You were right to avoid Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Damn them all. The three layers recommended to you feel like overkill, as your mac does enough to keep the rain on the exterior of your internal layers, and the brisk whisper of cold breath around your ears and neck is surprisingly refreshing.

You walk through a quiet promenade following the scent, passing an Italian woman with red hair and perfectly pale skin. You know she is Italian because of her accent and the beautiful, romantic language she uses on her phone. You reason it must be her mother because she punctuates each sentence and response with the words Mamma and il compleanno, as she's chopping her hand like she's practicing karate moves on her lunch break. There is a fire emitting from her larynx through the form and assured movement of her lips.

You stand in line, accept the scrumptious pastry offering, and sit within view of the red-headed Italian.

Out of the corner of her eye, she catches you watching and shoos you with her right hand, featuring nibbled fingernails and a fresh coat of black nail varnish.

You have no intention of shooing though—or should I say, because you are not in control. I really wonder if you can remember the last time you were in control. My ward. My pawn. The executor of my evil orchestrations.

You ponder inward, as if I care, "It’s bullshit that DMB hasn’t rereleased Busted Stuff on vinyl."

Watching

People walking by and

wondering why

No one ever stops to talk or thinks about it

If they ever did

What if God shuffled by?

And to you, I may as well be the God that Dave spoke of as the violin swells with the guitar, the drums, and that rolling bass.

You continue to stare beneath your mac as you slip the hood over your face, looking like the very epitome of death or an angry hacker representation from one of those two major hacker films of the late 90s. You ponder the better: Sneakers, with the glorious casting of Robert Redford with Sidney Poitier, against the jarring faux nihilism of Jonny Lee Miller and Angelina Jolie requesting that the hackers of the world unite to destroy Fisher Stevens as The Plague as some kind of meta-act of justice for his brownfacing as Ben in Short Circuit.

But it's irrelevant, you see, as I've given you the assignment, and time is marching onwards; yet, the Italian sits chattering about plans and shenanigans.

"Oh, if there was any other way," you plead with me, as I deafen my ears until you point towards the not-quite-six-foot American with his phone out snapping shots of this and that.

It's quite unfortunate that, as I set in motion your hand to lift the bodkin bolt projectile from your mac that I had set aside for you, I then forced you—though in honesty you did not put up much fight—to place it securely in the pistol crossbow.

You believe you have a choice as you take one last look at the flame-haired Italian, and you close your eyes. As you fire off at the target of my choosing, I push your eyelids wide open so you can see the colour of the life of the poor American's face pale with a simple, "Fuck, that's a good stroopwafel."

Before anyone can alert the authorities, or before you can fall on your own sword, the white abyss returns and swallows Matthew from the earth and you away to a safe place in my memory. Where you sit vacant, waiting for your next assignment.

*

Thanks for reading 

Features lyrics and references to:

This is for Sasha's awesome Happy Birthday To Me — Unofficial Challenge (Non-V+ Welcome!) 

As per her rules I used the title of Matthew's piece verbatim, and the good man was tipped appropriately

It is also the next part in my anthology that started here: