The Builder and the Destroyer

"There are three classes of man.  The first and smallest class is that of the dreamer.  The dreamer lives to inspire the second class.  The second class is that of the builder.  The builder lives to stay one brick ahead of the third and greatest class of man, the destroyer.  The destroyer will not rest until there is no place left to rest."--Tiebos

There were two boys.  Their homes sat opposite each other's in a typical suburban neighborhood.  Both of them were strange and stood out among the typical suburban children.  They found themselves mocked by the other boys of the neighborhood.  In turn, they mocked each other, as they had learned that is how the game was played.  In a moment of divine grace, a day came when enlightenment shone upon them, and they saw that it was their very strangeness that united them.  The two boys became the best of friends.

They spent their days in collecting and building.  They collected rocks, shells, coins, stamps, high scores on the Atari 2600 and Intellivision, cereal boxes, license plates, and any thing else that was collectible (and some things that were not).  But their collecting was, for them, another way of building.  They built cities everywhere and out of anything.  They build a rock city by the mailbox, a Lego City in the basement, a domino city next to the Lego City, a Lincoln Log city in the bedroom, and a dirt city in an embankment. 

The dirt city was built into a six foot, sloping embankment in one of the boy's backyard.  Pine trees swayed above the boys as they used hand spades to carve out roads from the cool red clay for Hot Wheels, and caves for homes, businesses, and fire stations.  Working through dusk, red mosquito welts would rise like constellations on their arms as the first stars tried futilely to replace the fading sunlight.  Sticks served as lampposts, guardrails, and pillars in the spreading metropolis.  One of the boys pilfered a small bucket of concrete mix from a nearby home site to pave his roads and line his caves.  The other refused to use the mix because it was stolen, but secretly coveted the smooth gray streets of his friend. 

One afternoon, they boys returned from school to find two large gashes like the track of twin slashing meteorites had devastated their city.  The sneaker prints at the end of each gash betrayed the man-made disaster that had been wrecked upon them.  Believing the damage to have been accidental, the boys threw themselves into repairing the damage.  Joy welled in their hearts whenever they discovered a beloved spot that, thought destroyed, was actually preserved under the ruins.  Excavations and new road-building had the city running again by dinner time.

The next day the boys found more destructive footprints.  It dawned on the boys that there was no other explanation than the idea that the destruction was purposeful.  The boys were hurt in their hearts and couldn't understand why another would destroy their work.  But they rebuilt the city....

...to find the city destroyed again.  After this, they began hiding their work every evening with pine straw, hoping that this would keep the angel of death from visiting their city. This ruse worked for a few days before, once again, the ravishing feet trampled their town.

In the now mournful silence of rebuilding, one of the boys stood up, red clay sticking to bare knees and proclaimed,
"I'm done."
"You're going home?"
"No, I'm done with dirt city.  I don't want to do it anymore."
"But I love dirt city."
"So do I, but I can't stand that someone keeps coming and destroying it."  It hurts too much, he didn't say.
"What if we built it somewhere else?"
"They would find it.  They would find it and destroy it."
"Oh."
"Its a little kid game."
"No, its not!"
"Let's play video games."

That fall, the pine needles settled over the broken concrete and shattered caves of dirt city and have never again been cleared away.  One of the boys either grew up a little that day, or part of him died.  Probably a little of both.

Peace
..._