“So then what do you think about predestination?”

​

The girl slurs sheepishly. The boy in the shadows lets slip a slight chuckle, but hesitates for a moment, considering. “Like, are you asking if I believe there’s a big, bearded man in the sky holding the strings to each and every one of our whims, notions, and dreams without our having any say?” He pauses.

 

“Then Claire,” he asserts with a slow drawl, “I’d call you an idiot.”

​

The boy holds himself for a moment, slowly raising a sweaty plastic cup to his lips. Claire isn’t listening, she’s entirely focused upon the orange hue of the fire as it dances across his face.

 

“Now,” he starts again, “if you were to ask me, I’d probably have to reckon the whole debate between freedom of will and predestination is some shit anyways.” The boy takes a moment to look out a nearby window. His eyes form into a suspicious stare before he continues, “Things happen cos’ there weren’t any other way for them to. That’s just how it’s been laid out.”

​

Claire starts to speak, “But isn’t that G—”

 

“Nah.” his face tenses, “It’s like… yeah, like water.” The boy stops for a moment to try to center his words through the stale cigarette smoke, “A stream isn’t a stream because every single drop of water movin’ through' chose to be goin’ down that path. It’s going down that path cos’ the path was there. Made by a countless amount of coincidence and happenings unrelated to that single drop.” 

 

In that instant, bright headlights flash through the window, cutting through the haze, before disappearing into the night. Claire recognizes a soft scratching sound from the corner the boy has been sitting in. “Or maybe like, yeah like a road. You want to get some places? You take the roads we’ve built to get to these places. You go where you want, but you take the same road with someone who's going somewhere else, at least for a time.”

​

Claire tries to look at the boy, dizzy and confused; “But, we done built those roads? Or at least my pa—” 

​

The boy moves through the shadow, seemingly gliding over towards the window, not listening to a word. Claire doesn’t even notice the shaking in his hands and the raw red streaks across his neck. A poster gripped tightly in his sweaty palm, the words “MISSING” desperately peeking over.

 

“Nothin’ is anythin’ really if you think about it. Just the things we’ve done built for ourselves to give us a sense of direction.”

 

His presence seems to intoxicate Claire. She can barely feel the burning in her nose.

 

“A sense of purpose. Yeah. When you take a road the road knows damn well where it’s taking you. But to think something, someone, anything care enough about us folk to take the time to make sure that we have direction, or some sorta ‘divine purpose’ just don’t make sense to me. The roads are there because they’ve been there Claire, without regard for you or me.” 

​

The boy gently coaxes a pack of Marlboro Reds out of his pocket, lifts the last one to his lips. The flick of the Zippo pulls Claire back out of her trance. The smell of gasoline lingering around her.

​

“Are we on the same road, then?”

​

“No. We’ve been off any roads for a ways now, Claire.” 

​

The boy takes a drag, then carefully lifts the cigarette out of his mouth. The stench of the chemicals is nauseating. The small fire in the middle of the room slowly starts tugging at the wallpaper. The boy lowers the embers towards a puddle on the ground. 

​

“Yeah I think we’re long gone... it don’t matter nuthin’ anyways. All roads lead back to the house or the field, or grass and dirt and the law. Nothin’ too good for the likes of people like us anyway.” The boy puffs his Marlboro, desperately trying to hold back a vile bout of rattling coughs. 

​

“My Papaw has always been a gamblin man, blackjack by trade, always tried to tell me the house will take you in, keep you warm for a while, show you pleasant things and such, but no matter what house was always gon’ be rigged, that’s just how the game is set up. The house always wins.” The enraged ember now close enough it reaches towards the puddle of thick putrid oil. Claire tries to conjure the series of events that ended up with her here, with this boy.

​

“Then what could we even do? We can’t live in the house and neither can we leave it?”

​

With the creak of a chair and a swoosh the boy’s face emerges from the shadows, blood trickling through the creases of his forehead and down the stubble on the side of his face. His cracked lips form a smile, proudly displaying a set of missing teeth. With a tap the payload falls from the tip of the cigarette and catalyzes upon the pool of oil. Igniting a trail of inferno spitting in every direction.

​

To him, it was simple, 

​

“You burn down the whole damn house.”