Doomed

^{DECEMBER 21, 8:51 A.M. EST} Papadaddy One

Gentle Tweeter,

Early on, my papadaddy conscripted me in his ongoing campaign against biodiversity. His strategy was that we two crouch in the harsh upstate sunshine and excise every trespassing native plant from a portion of my nana’s vegetable garden, leaving only the nonnative green beans. While we labored shoulder to shoulder, plucking, uprooting, endeavoring to create a questionable monoculture of legumes, he asked me, “Maddy? Dumpling? Do you believe in fate?”

I made no reply.

Still he pressed his topic. “What would you say if every iota of your life was predestined before you was even born?”

I continued to not engage. Clearly he was trying to enroll me in some demented existentialist worldview.

He paused in his weed pulling and turned his wrinkled face to regard me. “What do you know about God and Satan?” An upstate breeze ruffled the strands of his gray hair.

Without meeting his gaze, I killed a weed. I spared a bean plant. I felt like God.

“You know, don’t you, that God and Satan got themselves a feud going?” He glanced around as if to confirm we were alone. No one would overhear. “If I told you a secret, do you promise not to tell your nana?”

I yanked another weed. I promised nothing. Instead, I girded my girlish loins for some hideous revelation.

“What if I told you,” he continued, unbidden, “that you was born the greatest human being who’ll ever live?” He asked, “What if your destiny was to patch things up between God and Satan?”