God is underground.
The other kids, ones surer than him and more authoritative, said so as they played in the sandbox of the kindergarten. If you dig deep enough, you will see the face of God and die. He accepted it as fact as if he were incapable of suspicion or doubt. With the strange knowledge sitting somewhere in his mind, he sat in the sandbox with the sand spilling into his sandals, in between his toes. At his disposal were a small, red, plastic shovel and a blue bucket, no larger. He kept the official implements of digging at his side as his grimy hands interfaced with the sand directly, viscerally. He dug through the loose sand of the top layer until he reached the packed sand below. The denser sand was also darker, as it held some moisture. He did not know what to think of God existing somewhere below the sand, or of the assured death that would follow if he laid his eyes on God. He simply liked the way the sand felt and how easily it could be molded into shapes. Some half-acknowledged recollection compelled him to carve and force shapes and structures into the sand. So, he tunneled into it and raised bridges over the tunnels. He pressed his hands to pack the sand tight so it wouldn’t crumble. The structural integrity of his connecting tunnels and overarching bridges became paramount. Their sight gave him a sense of pride, of trustworthy achievement. Other kids, those with an idea of God, inched closer to the strange structure above and below the sand. Upon considering the depth it uncovered; they decided to warn him once again. You are digging too close. If you dig too much, you will find the face of God, and you will die. They delivered their message and walked away.
God. That word, spoken in the language of the outside as opposed to his family’s mother tongue, had never been uttered by anyone he’d known. He wasn’t even sure he’d heard its equivalent—Бог—in his own language. And yet by some instinct, or by the gravitas with which the other kids invoked the name, he felt dread—a tiny mysterium tremendum. The threat of death couldn’t break the builder’s bond to his creation. He stabilized another bridge going over another tunnel. His arm, when it dove into the tunnel, felt cool surrounded by moist sand, away from the sun. He pressed a palm to test the tunnel’s solidity. It felt like he could go deeper if he dug his fingers into (God) the sand or resorted to using the red shovel.
And without much thought of (God) anything, he began to dig. Without minding how doing so threatened the structural integrity of (God) the bridges and the tunnels, he first clawed with his fingers—fingernails already adorned with dirt and sand—to reach (God) the lower levels of the sandbox. When (God) the sand grew more resistant and hurt his persistent fingers, he turned to (God) the tools beside him. With the aid of (God) the red shovel, he breached the hardness of the deeper sand, where a shadow began to pool. The hole in the sandbox swallowed up his arm past his elbow, though it gave him no pause. The other kids noticed his suicidal labour and urgently pleaded with him to cease his digging. You can’t dig that deep. You’ll see His face! You’ll die!
His reply was that he wants to see (God) what happens, and that he’ll continue to dig until he does. In his mind, playtime wasn’t over, and he wasn’t called back into the kindergarten. He was allowed to stay in the sandbox all alone (with God). He dug deeper and deeper until he could climb down into a pit of his own creation, until (God) shadows swallowed him and hid him from any who’d peer into the pit to find the lost boy. He dug and he dug until the shovel cracked and bent and broke and cut his hand with a jagged plastic edge so he had to claw through (God) the sand with his fingers until his nails could hold no more sand until they bent painfully until his fingertips were raw and the sand sucked blood—then there, a crack and ill light and God, God, God, and Death. And he is grown. He is a Man in a land foreign to him, where God is Death, and War and Desolation rend the Holy Land.