God of Small, Stupid Things

They corner me in an alley behind a Dunkin’ Donuts. Three guys, all buzzed on adrenaline and cheap liquor, reeking of human desperation. Eyes wide. Hands shaking. I could make them explode just by blinking wrong. I could turn them inside out with a flick of my wrist. But where’s the fun in that?

“Wallet. Phone. Everything. Now.” The ringleader’s voice cracks on “now.” A little mortal hiccup, like a bird caught in a storm.

I stare at them. Blink. These are the first people to talk to me in months.

“Alright,” I say, as if I’m a late-night talk show host handing out prizes. Wallet, watch, keys. Just some metal and paper arranged to feel important. They shove me toward a beat-up car, a scratched-up Nissan that smells like wet dog and failed relationships. The back door opens, and they stuff me inside. A sharp jab of a knife against my ribs, like an afterthought.

“What the hell, man?” the youngest one mutters. He’s got acne scars and that post-puberty lankiness that screams insecurity. He keeps glancing at me like I’m about to turn into something else.

I am.

But I don’t.

“You’re supposed to be scared,” he says. A little too loudly. “Why aren’t you scared?”

Because I’m older than the universe. Because I’ve seen worlds burn and suns choke on their own gravity. Because I created the very concept of fear, carved it out of my own flesh and whispered it into the ears of the first men.

“Scared? I’m thrilled,” I say.

The driver glances back. The leader. He’s got that dead-eyed look, the kind that comes from a lifetime of losing at everything. He turns the radio up, bass thumping like a dying heartbeat. The car lurches forward.

We drive for a while. I watch the city lights blur by, streaks of neon and dirt and dreams leaking out into the night. A hooker leans against a lamppost, her eyes hollow. An old man huddles in a doorway, talking to a ghost only he can see. It’s beautiful. All this chaos, this failure, this writhing, messy humanity.

And I’m here. In the back of a stolen Nissan. The Almighty, the Everlasting, reduced to a backseat hostage.

The knife digs deeper into my side. “Shut up,” the kid mutters.

“I didn’t say anything,” I reply, grinning.

“Stop smiling, man.”

The driver’s watching me through the rearview mirror. “Don’t egg him on. He’s got a temper.”

“A temper?” I let out a laugh that makes them all flinch. “Do you know what a temper is? I once tore a mountain range out of the earth because I didn’t like the color of the sky that day.”

Silence. The kid’s knuckles are white around the knife’s hilt. I can feel his pulse through the blade, a rapid stutter that’s almost endearing.

The car skids to a stop in front of a decrepit warehouse. Corrugated metal and broken windows, graffiti splashed in obscene bursts across the walls. Perfect setting. Horror movie ambiance on a budget.

“Get out,” the leader barks.

I comply, stepping out with all the grace of royalty humoring peasants. They shove me through a door, down a hallway. Cracked concrete underfoot, a smell of rust and rot in the air. They think they’re in control, little kings of their tiny, broken kingdom.

“You’re gonna tell us where you live,” the leader snarls. “Gonna take us to your place. You look rich. Got that rich-guy face.”

I consider it. I could show them. Open the door to a mansion in the sky, a palace made of stardust and fire. Or I could show them something else. A glimpse of the true face of God. All burning eyes and infinite teeth.

But I don’t.

I wait.

They lead me into a room. Small, dirty. Mattress on the floor, a single lightbulb swinging overhead. The kind of place where dreams come to die.

“Sit,” the leader orders.

I sit.

He leans in, knife at my throat now, breath hot and sour. “We’re gonna make you bleed, unless you give us what we want.”

“And what do you want?”

He blinks. It’s like I’ve asked him to define the meaning of life. For a second, there’s just the sound of that single bulb buzzing above us. The sound of cheap menace.

“Money. Jewels. Whatever you’ve got,” he finally mutters.

I lean forward. Close enough that I can see the tiny capillaries in his eyes. “You don’t want those things.”

“What?”

“You want to feel powerful,” I say softly. “You want to feel like the world isn’t crushing you. Like you’re not just another piece of meat waiting to be ground down and swallowed up by the universe.”

He jerks back, eyes wide. “Shut up.”

But I can see it. The cracks forming in his armor. The tiny splinters of doubt, of fear.

“You’re just ants, you know that?” I say. “Little ants, scurrying around, thinking your tiny lives mean something.”

He slaps me. Hard. My head snaps to the side, and I taste blood. Metallic, warm. It’s exhilarating. I haven’t been hit in millennia.

“Why aren’t you afraid?” he whispers. “Why the fuck aren’t you afraid?”

Because I’m God.

But I don’t say that.

Instead, I lean back, smile through the blood, and say, “Do it. Cut me. Beat me. Try your best.”

And for a moment—just a moment—I see it. The flicker of realization in his eyes. He knows something’s wrong. Something’s off.

But then it’s gone. He grabs the knife, raises it—

And I let him.

The blade sinks in. Pain blooms, sharp and bright, spreading through me in a white-hot flash. I gasp. They think it’s fear. But it’s not.

It’s joy.

Because for the first time in a long, long time, I feel alive.

And that’s when I show them.

Just a sliver. Just a taste. A glimmer of what’s hidden behind this fragile, human shell. Shadows swirl. Reality bends. Their faces twist in horror as they see—

And then it’s over.

I’m gone.

And they’re alone. Just three stupid kids in a shitty warehouse with a corpse on the floor. Their own. And a message burned into the concrete, black and charred:

GOD IS BORED.

And I’m smiling.

Because I’ll be back.

There’s always more ants to crush.