“Grampa?” asked the little boy, “Whatcha lookin’ at?”
The old man looked down from his rocking chair on the porch and smiled.
“Hey Abe. Your mamma know you’re out here this late?”
“Yeah. Her and Daddy are just watchin’ a bunch of guys shootin’ each other on TV. I don’t like seein’ that stuff.”
“Don’t blame you boy. Don’t care for that stuff myself. Scares you does it?”
The boy climbed up on his grandfather’s knee. Putting his head back on the old man’s chest, he wrinkled his nose and said matter-of-factly, “Naw. Daddy says its all fake. They use ketchup that looks like blood. I don’t like stuff if it’s fake.”
The old man started rocking the chair again. His gaze returned to the velvet night sky overhead.
“Whatcha lookin’ at?” repeated the boy.
“Just making sure all the stars are where they should be.”
Abe laughed. “How many stars are there Grampa?”
“Well,” said the man, taking a draw off his pipe, “They say we can see about 2000 of them. But the universe really goes on forever.”
“Yoonverse?”
“U-ni-verse. The whole big place we live in.”
The boy opened his mouth as if to say something more but then changed his mind. The two of them rocked in silence for a while.
“Grampa?”
“Yes, Abe?”
“How many are there?”
“Stars?”
“No, universes.”
The chair stopped rocking. The old man kissed the back of the boy’s head.
“Now that’s a good question.”
Abe grinned. “Are there a lot of different universes, Grampa?”
“Infinite,” whispered the man.
“What does that mean?”
“It means they go on forever and ever.”
“Just like the stars?”
“Just like the stars.”
The boy was quiet for a minute. Then he asked, “So everything’s real? None of it’s fake?”
“What do you mean, Abe?”
“Well, if everything is forever, then whatever I see when I close my eyes must be real somewhere.”
“You mean like dreams?”
“Yeah! Make-believe stuff must be real somewhere.”
“Umm, well, I wouldn’t go that far, Abe.”
“But I can! I can go anywhere and I can be anything and it’s all real!”
The old man said nothing for many long minutes. Then he tapped out his pipe and put it in his pocket. Rocking forward, he gathered the boy in his arms and stood. Then, casting one last look up at the infinite sky, he carried the boy inside and put him to bed.

Later, sometime in the night, the god-boy died, the ghost of a grin on his cold little lips.