BY ZEBULON CORK
In a sandbox in suburban Toronto, little Godfrey Chalkwalk played with his Tonka trucks, dumping sand into the back of his dump truck, scooping sand with his backhoe, and repeatedly burying his bulldozer in the holes his backhoe created, as revenge for its constant plotting to break Godfrey’s knees.
“Take that, Dozer!” Godfrey would cackle, every time he buried that treacherous machine, “Take that! Mua-ha-ha-ha-haaaa!”
However, every time he buried the bulldozer, something strange happened: the bulldozer would stay under the sand for a minute or two, but then the ground underneath Godfrey would rumble and the bulldozer would emerge from the sand, revving its engine, ready to once again do its best to shatter Godfrey’s kneecaps and leave him a trembling, whimpering shell of a child.
The third time this happened – the third time his bulldozer re-emerged, glowing red with rage, ready to once again attempt to murder Godfrey’s knees – Godfrey stood up and demanded an explanation.
“Hey!” Godfrey called out to God, the Devil, the Great Cosmic Pigeon, any supernatural entity who would listen, “whoever’s doing that, could you please stop it?! Please?!”
But the bulldozer didn’t stop: it revved its engine again, and charged after Godfrey. As Godfrey started to run, terrified out of his mind by the possessed dozer, he heard a booming voice come down from the sky, a voice that sounded kind of like Mufasa from the Lion King except dipped in gold and drenched in the sweetest honey.
“No,” the voice said, “I’ll never stop.”
And then, to Godfrey’s horror, a proud old man materialized in the sandbox.
Godfrey stared at the old man, the bulldozer completely forgotten. “Who are you?” Godfrey said, as the bulldozer began to smash into his foot, pulverizing his ankle. Godfrey however, was able to ignore the pain in the presence of this imposing figure.
“I,” the figure said, stroking his beard, “am Odin. Greatest of all the Gods.”
Godfrey couldn’t believe it. “Odin,” Godfrey said, “why are you doing this?” The bulldozer crashed into Godfrey’s other ankle, and he fell to his knees, which the bulldozer had just been waiting for a chance to destroy.
Odin, meanwhile, gave a noncommittal shrug. “Oh, just for fun, I suppose,” he said, “it gets boring being a god, you know. You can only smite so many heathens before it gets old. You can only beat Thor and Loki in backgammon so many times before you want to flip the table over and ban backgammon from all realms of existence forevermore.”
Godfrey smiled. The bulldozer, relishing the chance to murder Godfrey’s knees, reared back and then zoomed toward him…but Godfrey was able to catch it in his hands, was able to keep its mighty power at bay with his spindly little fingers.
As the bulldozer’s engine roared, Odin stared down at Godfrey. “What?” Odin said, “how are you able to do that? How are you able to keep the might of my bulldozer at bay?”
Godfrey got up onto his feet…feet which were suddenly healed. “I don’t fear you, Odin,” Godfrey said, “in fact, I was looking forward to seeing you here in my humble little sandbox…”
Odin took a step back. “No!” he said, “no one can defy the greatest of gods!”
“Oh, but I can,” Godfrey said, holding the bulldozer in his hands, feeling it vibrate, feeling it charge its powers, feeling its rage accumulate, “for I am Godfrey Chalkwalk, the four-year-old that the scrolls foretold…the one who would not only kill Odin but consume him.”
“No!” Odin screamed, backing away now, waving his arms, trying fruitlessly to summon his divine might, “No! This cannot be!”
“Oh, but it is,” Godfrey said, and then let go of the bulldozer. “Bye-bye, Odin.”
Odin bellowed: he charged forward, ready to meet the bulldozer in battle…but the bulldozer ploughed right through his heart, making its way through Odin’s body and into his brain. And once it was in his brain, it proudly demolished that centre of consciousness, driving around in Odin’s thick skull and turning that proud, divine brain into nothing but a glowing puddle of protoplasmic ooze.
Odin shivered, trembled, bellowed and screamed as his brain was cleaned out by the bulldozer. Then, he collapsed, and disappeared.
And then, Godfrey felt it.
The power of the King of the Gods.
“At last,” Godfrey said, “I can bend the world to my will.” Godfrey laughed, as he began to think of his plans for the Earth, and how close they now were to coming to fruition. I won’t get into the specifics of what those plans were: they’re too awful to even complicate. I will say, though, that no one ever enjoyed the taste of sawdust-flavoured ice cream ever again!
THE END
