A Fable of Joy and Wanting
Two men there were in those final times and one was called by the fisherman saint's name though men knew him only as the maker of games and the other carried the serpent-driver's title and he ministered to the sick with hands that knew no rest. The gamewright crafted worlds from nothing and in winter he hung candy canes in digital boughs and children laughed and coins filled his coffers and he slept the sleep of the unburdened. The healer watched him one evening explain his trade and something broke loose in his chest like a stone rolling from a tomb and he said aloud to no one why would any soul pay another to hang sweetness in the ether. They aged as men do and the distance between them grew like a wound that would not close and in time they died as all men must.
The healer woke in a white country and wandered there some years before he understood he had crossed over. When knowing came upon him he wept with satisfaction for he had earned his rest. Then he saw another man on a hill and that man stood on a great wooden deck behind a house of many rooms and in the drive sat a black truck gleaming like obsidian and all around him lived grizzled men who smelled of oak and whiskey and fellowship. The healer fell to his knees and cried out to the firmament who is that man and why does he possess all I ever wanted. And the voice came back your friend the gamewright. And he wailed why oh god why. And god said I put you there for a good time son not a long time. And somewhere in the nothing a voice rang out clear as winter air: it was always candy canes. All the way down.
— Finis —