Bird huddled against Scratch under the support pylons of the Brooklyn Bridge. Construction had just begun so there was scant protection from January rain that fell from the clouds like a musket volley.

“Dammit, Bird. Give me some space to breathe.”

“Sorry, Scratch. I’m cold.”

Scratch gave a long-suffering sigh, but put his arm around him.

“Just had to do a smash and grab on that one guy, didn’t you?” Scratch grumped.

“He had the nicest watch I ever seen.”

“Bird,” Scratch rubbed the bridge of his nose, adding six to his fourteen years, “Lemme ask you something?”

“You’re mad, Scratch.” Bird ruffled.

“Nah. But, we was on Baxter Street, just outside the points, right?”

“Right.”

“Pretty nice watch to wear out like that, huh?”

“I guess so.”

“You’d have to be stupid, or crazy and dangerous to wear a watch like that on Baxter Street, right?”

“Oh.”

“So now we’re hiding from that crazy fuck under a bridge.”

“Sorry, Scratch.”

“You still have the watch?”

Bird looked affronted. “Of course.”

“Good lad.”

Shivering for a few minutes, Bird nudged Scratch.

“Tell me a story?”

“It’s too damn cold.”

“C’mon, Scratch. Please?”

Scratch sighed. “Fine. Hang on.”

Scratch used their jackets to shelter the making of a cigarette. Puffing at the cheap tobacco, Scratch enjoyed the burn and passed it to Bird.

“So,” Scratch cleared his throat, “Far in future this’ll all be gone. Man’ll make something that’ll will wipe this shit from the surface.”

“Bigger than the war?” Bird asked.

“Bigger than anything.”

Far in the future, after the iron towers and the tenements get so tall they puncture the clouds, man’ll learn to fly and level mountains with his voice. Then he’ll discover something so big it’ll destroy him and his towers.

Them that survive’ll build on the old bones like barnacles on the keel of a shipwreck.

This world will have two new gods: Light Spirit and Dark Spirit.

Now, you’d think Light Spirit’d be good and Dark Spirit’d be bad, but it’s a tricksome world.

Light Spirit gave art to the people. They used it to tell stories about what Dark Spirit gave ‘em: Strife, uncertainty, heartache, pain, fear.

But there was something came from nowhere: questions. While the people created and suffered, they always asked things.

A favorite was “why.”

Light Spirit got sick of it and stole all the questions. People got quiet while he sighed and put up his feet and Dark Spirit seethed. Questions weren’t his gift, but he enjoyed the trouble they caused.

Questions have to be answered. Even by lies.

Dark Spirit discovered the Bandit Raiders that Light Spirit’d given the people’s questions to for guarding cuz they didn’t care about asking why. Light Spirit paid ‘em in sharp steel and strong liquor.

Dark Spirit tapped his chin, thinking on how to get the questions without having to do it himself.

Then he remembered Oliver Lightwalk.

Ol’ Lightwalk was as tricksome as the times. Stole from everybody, even Dark Spirit. Took a little strife: two arguments, a misunderstanding and some jealousy, gave ‘em to the Bandit Raiders and used their confusion to steal their weapons.

He kept the sharpest knife, dumped the rest in a deep hole of tainted salt water. Light Spirit thought Oliver should be punished, but Dark Spirit just laughed.

Now he thought, “Lightwalk owes me,” and smiled.

Oliver Lightwalk was lazing in the sun. Head on a rock, feet on another he had his hands behind his head and the sun full across his features when he heard the clanking of the salvage man coming up the road.

“Got nothing to trade, today, Old Man,” Lightwalk said with his eyes still closed, “But set a spell if you’d like.”

The old man shucked his sack and sat on a nearby rock with a sigh. They enjoyed the sun and smoked the ragged pipe-weed that could still be grown. Their breath puffed like loose clouds around their heads.

“Lightwalk.” The old man said.

“You know my name?”

“Know a lot about you.” The Old Man smiled and Lightwalk saw a tricksomeness better than his own.

“Oh, I know you.”

“Good lad. Then you know you owe me?”

Lightwalk laughed and pulled at his pipe. “I know you think I do. Somebody like you, probably that’s enough.”

The Dark Spirit cackled from inside the old man.

“Got a job for you, Lightwalk. Succeed and I’ll keep you in grace.”

“Or I could run to Light Spirit. Ask for shelter.”

“Ah, Lightwalk. You don’t want him for patron. You know he’s no fun.”

Lightwalk nodded. “What’s the rake?”

Dark Spirit told him, and they shook hands in the midday warmth.

Lightwalk was a ghost among other men, so the Bandit Raiders didn’t even know they’d been taken until Lightwalk was already long gone, the questions in a sack.

Light Spirit was a little harder to fool. A blaze in the road became a fire, became the sun, became the booming voice and body of Light Spirit.

“What’s in the sack, human?”

Lightwalk hesitated, but found on his tongue lies from Dark Spirit. He spun them like shining gold and the god stepped aside, sure that something was wrong but unable to say what.

Among the people, Lightwalk spilled out the questions and they flew away on the breeze, each to the mouth and mind it most suited.

The air was abuzz as they questioned each other, the sky and even themselves. Deep questions, dark and heavy, plodding through their minds like brewery horses.

At his home, Light Spirit put his hands over his ears and groaned while Dark Spirit chuckled.

“And that,” Scratch said, pulling the last bite of smoke from the cigarette, “Is that.”

“Good story, Scratch.”

“Thanks, Bird. Tomorrow we’ll fence that watch and get us a proper meal and place to stay until folks forget about us in the points.”

“Okay, Scratch.”

Warmer, they sat and watched the rain falling into the Hudson.