Hours went by within the pages, wars were fought, magic was performed, beloved characters were murdered. Jake was so engulfed in the story unfolding in front of him that he jumped when a cloaked figure not-so-gracefully plopped through his window. Eh, he thought to himself. Jordan probably kicked her soccer ball up here again. He was too annoyed by the interruption to realize that it was not in fact a measly soccer ball. Determined, he threw himself in his book once again, desperately trying to finish his story before dinner. He was almost in the clear, only 30 pages left-

“Jaygokolyn of The Suburbs, it is I Gawddristopholesgrinkledorf. I am here to guide you on your journey to fulfill your prophecy. Pack your things, we must leave before noontime,” the cloaked figure revealed themself to be an elderly man with a long beard carrying a staff. He smiled proudly as he looked down at the small boy. The old man almost looked like a character out of Jake’s book. He dawned a long silver cloak embroidered with letters of the alphabet in nonsense order. A red name tag was stuck to his chest, and his name was so long that some of it ended up on the fabric of his cloak. All of this of course, was hard to process because of the long beard that hung all the way down to his toes. He was probably just letting that imagination of his run wild again. Jake blinked hard a couple of times before continuing his reading.

“Uhm hello? Little boy? Child? Jaygokolyn of The Suburbs? Perhaps you didn’t hear me. We must get going!” 

“Snap out of it Jake, it’s just a weird dream,” he muttered to himself. Only ten more pages left to go in his book. He would finish them and then take a nap. Again, he thought he was in the clear until someone started to twist his ear! “Hey do you mind? I’m trying to read here!” he scolded, sitting fully upright in his bed. 

“You’re not dreaming, child! We must go!”

“I’m good.” Jake shrugged, getting increasingly annoyed that his reading was getting so rudely interrupted by this weird guy. 

“What?! This isn’t an option! You cannot just simply ‘be good’, you must save the world! Save it!”  

“Look weird wizard guy, I applaud you on your performance and everything and I’m impressed or whatever but, you don’t actually expect me to believe you, do you? I mean really, cool story bro, but, what are ya doing?” Jake didn’t even look up from his book this time, just kept reading. 

“I am not ‘weird wizard guy,’ my name is Gawddristopholesgrinkledorf, but you can call me Gawd. Anyway, it is you in the prophecy. You’re supposed to defeat Gorklenymph by facing your greatest fears! Doesn’t that sound exciting and not dangerous at all?” ‘Gawd’ bumped Jake with his ‘magical’ staff, only getting a half enthusiastic huff from the boy. Finally Jake looked up to take in the self-proclaimed wizard. 

“Prove it,” he stated, setting down his book and sitting on the edge of the bed. The wizard looked at him like he was crazy. 

“Prove it? Prove it?! I’m literally a wizard! Do you see this staff? Wizard. This hat? Wizard. This beard? Do you see where I’m going with this?” he sighed deeply after that dramatic little monologue and looked at the kid eagerly. 

“Okay but does the magical hat talk? Does your staff turn humans into cabbages? Is there any real magic happening here or did you get lost on the way to your dungeons and dragons campaign? I truly haven’t seen any proof yet of you actually being a wizard.” Gawd stood there, gawking at the boy. This was unbelievable! Nobody had ever doubted Gawd before. He was going to have to be super convincing. 

Bracing himself against the dresser, Gawd tapped his staff against the ground 3 times, causing a bird to fly through the window at full speed, running into Jake’s bedroom door with a thud. Gawd smiled nervously, and picked up the fallen bird to let it fly back out of the window. Jake did not look impressed. 

“Say I were to go on this ‘quest’ with you.” His finger quotes hung dramatically in the air. “What’s in it for me?”

“What do you mean what’s in it for you? You would be saving the world here child!” He was trying to be intimidating, but his old man voice cracked. Jake raised an eyebrow, urging the wizard to go on. 

“The prophecy! Have you not seen it? I’m afraid the future doesn’t look promising for you dear boy. Well- Yeah okay here you can read it.” He grabbed a small scroll from his cloak, and tossed it over to Jake. The tiny prophecy was written in a horrible scribble, almost like a Gremlin wrote it. Jake had to squint to read it: 

On the 5th day of the 4th month of the 3rd year,

2 men (Jaygokolyn and Gawddristopholesgrinkledorf),

Must go on a mission to defeat the 1 Gorklenymph 

As well as his evil goons. 

-The prophecor

After several minutes of trying to make out the words of that awful handwriting, Jake moved to look for something in his desk. “Aha,” he exclaimed as he pulled out a red pen. “So there are several grammatical errors here, but I’d like to first start off by showing you how ridiculous this is. First,” he said, and underlined the butchering of his name, “My name is Jake. This probably isn’t even me!” 

“It is you,” Gawd stated, grabbing the prophecy back from him.

“How are you so sure?” 

“Because Gorklenymph is downstairs.” 

As he said it, several loud bangs came from beneath them. “Oh boy,” Jake sighed. 

“Let us go, Jaygokolyn!” the wizard exclaimed. 

“It’s Jake.” 

“What?” 

“My name. It's Jake.” the boy rolled his eyes as he put on his shoes. 

“Oh right, I see. Let us go, Jack!” 

“Really close, but still no.” 

“Wh- Okay okay, say it one more time.” 

“Jake?” His name came out like a question.

“Oh! Let us go, Joke!”  

Jake looked at the old wizard in disbelief before shaking his head. “You know what? Close enough, that’s fine, let’s just go.” 

“Excellent, lead the way, Joke!”

As he led the way, Jake shoved his book into the back pocket of his jeans.

He could already see that the main level was trashed from the middle of the staircase. Conveniently, at the bottom of the stairs, Jake’s parents left a note that they would be gone all morning for Jordan’s soccer game. Great, he thought as he crumpled up the note. Of course they leave me to handle this. 

“So, I think all we will have to do is follow the sounds of unintelligible screaming,” GAwd said, patting my shoulder. “I believe that means we will have to go through that door.” 

Jake closed his eyes tight and took a deep breath before he opened the door. But nothing could’ve prepared him for the horrors waiting inside. There was food everywhere. Cereal boxes poured out all over the floor, dry spaghetti noodles in the sink, meatballs on the kitchen table, everywhere! What shocked him however, was what creatures did all of this. Everywhere he looked there were garden gnomes causing the ruckus. Gnomes in the cabinets, in the fridge, there was even one hanging from the chandelier, yelling orders. Jake looked over to Gawd in shock. “Are you kidding me right now?!” he screamed, and Gawd just shrugged. “Why didn’t you tell me that he was a garden gnome!” At this, all of the gnomes froze. Somehow, the mess of the room looked worse in the quiet. 

“It is you!” the gnome on the chandelier yelled, pulling out a needle sized sword. 

“It is I,” Gawd stated, struggling to pull a toothpick from his beard.

“No I’m not talking about you, I’m talking about him!” he yelled, flailing his sword around. “Finally we meet, Jaygokolyn.” 

Jake just groaned, and kicked gnomes out of his way to get to the cupboard. He decided that if he was going to deal with this crap this early in the morning, then he was going to have breakfast. He grabbed a bowl and grabbed a box of cereal that wasn’t destroyed. Everyone in the room was staring at him in anticipation. “What’s your deal?” he asked the quiet room. 

“He is trying to have a conversation with you,” Gawd whispered under his breath. 

“But I didn’t hear my name,” Jake said blankly. 

“Gah! Alright alright Gorklenymph, you have to call the boy Joke,” Gawd mumbled to the gnome. 

“You mean this isn’t Jaygokolyn?” Gorklenymph’s eyes darted between the wizard and the boy. “Then who is this guy?” 

“No, no Gorklenymph, this is Jaygokolyn, he just doesn’t like that name, he prefers Joke.” 

“Jack?” Gorklenymph attempts to say Jake’s name. 

“No, J-o-k-e, Joke.” 

“OH Jake.” 

“Yes perfec-” Jake gets interrupted. 

“No, no. It’s Joke.” 

“Ah yes, I understand now.” 

“Alright commence with your evil,” Gawd said, stepping back a couple of steps. Gorklenymph cleared his throat, and shook out his hair. 

“Finally we meet, Joke.” He pauses for a failed dramatic effect but then quickly recovers. “You may be wondering why I’ve brought my evil goons to your humble abode on this fine afternoon.” 

“Well yeah, I guess, but what has my attention more than anything is your beard. Why is it blue?” Jake smirked as he watched Gorklenymph scramble for a mirror. He took this as an opportunity to leave. “Grab my jacket off the hook,” he told Gawd. “And meet me in the car.” 

The aforementioned car happened to be an old Ferrari GT 250 California Spider, a project car that Jake’s dad had been working on for years. Jake admired his father’s craftsmanship, running his fingers along the fresh cherry red paint. Releasing a deep sigh, he turns the key in the ignition and the car roars to life. “I know how to drive,” he tried to reassure himself. “I do this all the time.” Slowly and carefully, he backed the car out into the driveway. He had to brake-check, because he almost ran over Gawd. 

“So this is the car.” Gawd looked at the Ferrari in awe. 

“Mom and dad took the minivan to Jordan’s soccer game. I’ve never driven this one before, but it shouldn’t be too different.” Jake’s eyes were darting around the controls in some sort of sensory overload. Once he established that the car had an automatic transmission, he felt a lot better about driving it. “Ready to go?” 

Jake looked over at Gawd who looked very comfortable in the passenger’s seat. He had put on an old pair of aviator sunglasses and his seatbelt was buckled. “Take it away, kid!” he exclaimed, then cranked up the radio. Highway to Hell blared through the speakers. 

How convenient, Jake thought to himself. “Hey, there’s one more thing I need to ask you.” Jake put the car in park and nudged Gawd’s shoulder. 

“What is it?” 

“You are a licensed adult right? Like you have your driver’s license?” his hands fiddled with the gear shift as he tried to find Gawd’s eyes through his sunglasses. 

“Driver’s license..?” His raised eyebrow told Jake that Gawd had no idea what that was. 

“I only have my learner’s permit, so I need to have an adult with a driver’s license riding with me in the car,” Jake explained. 

“No, I don’t but- let’s just go. It’s not illegal unless we get caught.” He winked and turned the radio up even louder. Jake sighed before putting the car in gear. Everything will be fine. I’ll explain everything to mom and dad when I get back. 

The drive started off fine. He only hit the curb a couple times, but other than that, it was fine. That was about when things started going downhill. Jake thought the weird sounds he was hearing were coming from the car, but he was wrong. 

“Gawd, turn around and see if you can figure out what’s making that humming noise.” Jake kept his eyes on the road, white-knuckling the steering wheel. 

“Uhhh Jake?” Gawd blindly flailed his arm, attempting to tap Jake’s shoulder. 

“What? What is it? Wh- Hey! Quit hitting me in the face!” Jake managed to safely pull into a largely abandoned parking lot to push Gawd’s slimy hands off of him. “Dude!” he yelled, shaking Gawd’s shoulders. “What the hell?” 

“Looooooook!” Gawd yelled in seemingly slow motion. Then, Jake saw them. It looked like the entirety of his monster truck collection was driving down mainstreet. Loaded onto the monster trucks, was 3 gnomes each. One driver, one in the passenger seat, and one in the truck bed, equipped with a nerf gun. 

“Get them!” the blue-bearded gnome yelled. All of the gnomes yelled just slightly off sync. 

“Okay I really wasn’t expecting them to follow us, now what should we do?” Jake asks Gawd, who is haphazardly twirling his beard around his finger. 

“Well I mean we could just complete the prophecy now and fight him.” Gawd shrugged, and his focus shifted back to his beard. 

“But isn’t he like, dangerous and stuff?” Jake asked, as the gnomes slowly but surely started to cover more ground. They had started firing nerf gun bullets, there wasn’t much time to make a decision. 

“HE IS A GARDEN GNOME JOKE! WHAT DO YOU THINK? THAT HE’S MADE OUT OF STEEL? JUST KICK HIM TO THE MOON!” Gawd’s head tripled in size and turned a weird greenish color when he raised his voice, but as soon as he was finished his head returned to normal head size. At this, Jake came to a shocking realization: If he had just kicked Gorklenymph back at the house, shattering his clay coated ego, (and him) then maybe Jake would’ve been able to finish his book before lunchtime. But he didn’t, and now they are here. Now we play the long game, Jake thought to himself. 

“I have a plan,” he said leaning against the ferrari. Gawd waddled over to stand next to him. 

“Alright, yes. And what is that exactly?” 

“To have a nice friendly chitchat.” 

The pair stood awkwardly for several more minutes before the gnomes finally got to a talking distance from them.

“Prepare to surrender!” Gorklenymph shouted from the bed of a bright green monster truck. He almost motioned his goons on Jake. Almost-

“Hey guys, I know this kinda kills your evil doing groove, but let’s have a little chat,” Jake said, holding his hands in the air. The gnomes looked around at each other in confusion and lowered their weapons. “Now Gorklenymph, I have an important question for you.” 

Gorklenypmh steps onto the roof of his respective monster truck and draws his needle-sword. “What is it, boy?” 

“What would happen if the prophecy wasn’t fulfilled?” Jake asked, and pushed off his car towards the gnome. 

“Idunno,” Gorklenymph mumbled under his breath. 

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Jake held his hand up to his ear. 

“I said, I don’t know.” 

“Wait, did I hear this correctly?” Jake asked the crowd. “Gorklenypmh got you all out of bed, out into the world on a Sunday morning on a hunch that something bad would happen if you didn’t come after me? Poor leadership skills if you ask me.” Jake walked along the row of little trucks, kicking up dirt with every step. 

“Let’s make a deal. If we just leave each other alone and coexist in harmony, then nothing bad ever has to happen. But if you come near me, or interrupt my Sunday morning reading EVER again, it will be over for you. Got me?” 

The response from the crowd was pure stunned silence. “Alright good. We’re leaving. Let’s go Gawd.” 

Then that was it, the boy and the wizard rode the ferrari off into the midday sun.