Five years ago.

Joy did not like being broke. Being destitute did not suit him well. He liked the finer luxuries of life and not being shriveled up in the presence of budgeting. He found that everyone who enjoyed budgeting loved spreadsheets which made them such wonderfully dull people.

Joy did not like being bald. He could never remember being bald before in his life, and the cool breeze lightly touching his scalp was not a pleasant experience for him.

He was a free soul, a person who would run like a wild animal through the grassy field with his mane flowing languidly behind him.

But he was bald and broke, so there was no way around it. He had thought that he and Franny were an inseparable pair, a truly dynamic duo. But apparently the allure of gold was too much for her to bear.

And to boot she had stolen his hair, which he felt was incredibly rude.

Joy sighed as he looked out the window of the very fine establishment he had been staying at for the past few nights.

He could see Vena Cava from here, the beautiful concentric rings were a true wonder, a real demarcation between the rich and poor of this city.

Joy was dilly-dallying, because he knew that he no longer had the gold to continue to enjoy such lavish experiences as the bed and the view he was enjoying now. He had been idiotic enough to not save a single coin throughout the course of his journey. He rode river barges to some little villages, then he would gamble with the locals until he had saved up enough money to get on another river barge and go to another little village.

He did not plan with the future in mind. That was why it had taken him nearly two years to travel from his little home all the way to Vena Cava. And now that he was here, he no longer had any gold to enjoy the luxuries of the big city. It was a real bummer.

Joy laboriously tore himself out of the silken sheets and dressed in whatever rags had survived the storm known as Franny.

With a great amount of judgement from the other patrons, Joy departed from the wonderful inn and started the trek towards Vena Cava. Despite the judgement, Joy felt no shame.

The trek was neither hard nor long, it simply was too much time alone and in the quiet. Joy thrived in the presence of others. He simply felt like a fish out of water; he was traveling alone with nothing but the silence to accompany him.

Joy considered a few paths to the city but ended up choosing to follow one of the local rivers – lovingly called arteries by the denizens of the Hearted continent.

The water was quite peaceful. It ebbed and flowed in such an unpredictable pattern and Joy swayed along with it in his own dance.

Joy had always loved the rivers near his home, there was such a call to adventure within it. The water flowed and flowed, long after Joy was gone it would continue to flow. And think of all the things that the water would see.

Joy had only ever felt heartbreak once in his life, and that was when he received his gift from the gods, the night he turned thirteen. He was just like all the other kids, jittery and nervous, when he went to sleep that night. And he was beyond excited for his life’s journey to truly begin.

When his eyes opened and he saw some of the tapestries of the gods, Joy was filled with an indescribable awe. He could not truly comprehend their art, and it made Joy feel small in many ways. These were gods, and even their art was beyond him.

Then everything shattered.

Fate arrived and let Joy know that he was nothing. If all of humanity was a beautiful elaborate clock, each individual piece working together to create human history; Joy would be a speck of dust inside that clock.

He was told that Miscellaneous could give him a deck of cards and that was all.

Joy fell from the heavens and cried.

Karma is an ephemeral subject; it is one of the few concepts to not have a god attached to it. Other notable subjects without gods attached to them are Humanity and Art.

But there are gods who manipulate karma. Many of these gods relate to the future and prophecy.

Karma are the strings of existence that tie all beings together. The more a person’s strings vibrate, the more they affect the other people around them.

When Fate told Joy that his karma was essentially meaningless, he told Joy that his strings were barely vibrating at all, and that he would not be able to create great change in the world. His effect on others would be subdued and weak.

And Joy did not want to be small and weak.

He cried for days and days about it. He would be no great adventurer crossing the world and saving other people. Instead, he would just be ‘some guy’ who lived then died.

Both of his parents tried to cheer him up and each had their own opinion on the subject.

Joy’s father told him, “Your existence does not have to rely upon others. You should go on a journey of self-discovery. Maybe you will not shake the world to its core, but you can find peace within yourself and understanding of who you are. And that is more important than just being an impactful person.”

Joy’s mother told him, “Everything in life is so small. A rock rolling down a hill does not start at the fastest speed; it starts by barely moving at all. Maybe you will not be able to throw rocks from the top of the hill as if you were your father, but you can use that little touch, to start to let little pebbles make their journeys down the hill. You can be that tiny push my son.”

Joy took pieces from both of his parents’ advice and that had created the doctrine that he followed to this day.

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He loved the water because that had been the final step. He had decided to go on this journey to understand himself and to give people the little pushes they needed.

Joy’s thoughts trailed off as he approached the slums of the city. There were four official layers of circles in the city: the king’s keep in the very center, the noble houses that were in favor, the farming area that separated the nobles from the riffraff, and then the chunk where actual people lived.

But there were actually five layers to the city. Not everyone could pay the taxes to enter, nor could they leave. So, the unofficial layer called the slum was formed.

Joy was unfortunately in the same predicament as everyone else in the slums. He had not a single coin to his name, so he would not be able to enter the city without scrounging up some change.

He wasn’t sure what to do. But when all else failed, he always went back to what he knew best. The heart of the cards.

Joy wandered around the slums, looking for anywhere that looked like it had a gambling vibe.

He saw many tents of various things. There seemed to be a thriving economy based on trading of goods, but the actual possession of gold was not as prevalent.

Joy saw men and women taking their children to play in the local river. He saw people washing their clothes in the river. One woman was giving away bread, saying that if no one minded a few extra bits of protein in it, they could have it.

It was beautiful in its own strange way.

These people could be angry and sad. They could fall into a depression that Joy would never truly understand, but they didn’t. They were kind to each other despite their circumstance, rather than cruel to try and claw their way to the top.

It was harmonious. This was communal love that superseded personal gain.

But it was not for Joy. He found the whole thing to be far too focused on bringing everyone together, and Joy loved to bring little happinesses to the people he met, but he did not want to become a fixture in a community.

He eventually found a run-down tent. Out front was a flimsy wooden sign with a simple illustration of a deck of cards.

Joy opened the flap, and a musky scent attacked his nose. The stench was one of sweat and regrets, somehow it made Joy feel comforted.

There were no tables in the tent, instead there was simply one kid sitting in the center. Joy called them a kid, and they couldn’t have been more than twelve, but Joy was barely fifteen himself, so it felt a bit uncouth to call them a child.

“Is this a gambling den?” Joy tentatively asked the kid.

“Yepper snoozles.” The child was missing both of their front teeth. Their build was slim, like the child had grown up a tad malnourished, which made sense given the area. Their skin was a rich bronze color; their hair was the color of golden wheat and cut into a messy bowl cut. But the most disturbing feature was their eyes which glowed a deep violet in the dark tent.

Not menacing at all.

Joy looked around for the telltale signs of a trap. He had met many people over the years and had seen a true variety of gifts. It was not out of the question that someone could de-age themselves to make them look defenseless, then pounce on unsuspecting prey.

But Joy didn’t see any weapons, nor was there anything keeping him from tearing through the wall of the tent and escaping. So, he gingerly sat down across from the child and brought out the deck of cards kept in his soul space.

“What would you like to play? As the challenger, you get to choose. What will it be, poker, blackjack, crazy eights, or some game you made yourself that you hope to swindle me at?” The child grinned at Joy in an unnerving way.

“Go-fish.”

A dead pan look crossed the child’s face and Joy started dealing out the seven cards to each person.

The tent was filled with silence only broken by the calling of cards or go-fish.

They went thirteen pairs to thirteen pairs for the first game. Then the second game, then the third game, all the way up to the twentieth game neither one had ever pulled ahead.

“Tell me how you’re cheating, and I’ll tell you how I’m cheating.” Joy said to the child.

“Only if it gets us to stop playing something so banal.”

“The deck of cards is my gift, so I know where every card is at all times. I know exactly what is in your hand. So, I can make the ideal choices every single time. Now how are you always making the ideal choices.”

“I can see it.”

“Well, that’s some bullshit, at least give a meaningful answer.”

“You want something elaborate, Joy. And there is nothing elaborate about this. I can just see it.”

Joy didn’t remember ever telling the child his name, but there were bigger things to worry about.

“Well then. It sounds like you were bored. Let’s figure out how to rectify that.”

Joy and the child played every game that Joy could think of. They played tag, they played tennis, they even did coin tosses. None of them ever made a difference. The child was unmatched at every game, no matter what Joy did he was outplayed in almost every conceivable way. But Joy’s unfathomable luck saved him.

When they played poker, Joy would know that he had the highest scoring hand possible. When they played tag, the child’s foot would slip on a piece of moss that seemingly appeared out of nowhere. When they played tennis, the two children they had working as line officials would make the worst calls.

The child never seemed frustrated; they seemed more intrigued by the entire thing.

Finally, after what had been days of playing games the two sat down and stared at each other.

“You’re a god, aren’t you?” Joy stared at the child.

“I thought that was obvious from the fact that my eyes glow, I am obviously not thirteen yet, and when I made a tennis court magically appear for us to play on.”

Now that Joy was thinking about it, he should’ve known at least since the tennis court. But in his defense, he had been far too excited to play such an interesting game with someone so talented to care about the specifics.

“Spill. Who are you then?”

“I am Game. The king, ruler, and emperor of all the gods. They who have conquered Boredom at every turn. Pretty imposing, but I will be honest.” Game sighed. “That last part isn’t true. I am just bored out of my mind these days.”

Joy could feel something in his soul call out to him then. This was the moment in his life, this was the moment where he seized his destiny, where his karma called him to. He somehow knew exactly what to do and say, it was truly the moment he had been born for.

“Well, do you care to make a dare with me?”

The god’s eyes lit up.

“You are an anomaly, Joy. You have not been blessed by Luck, and yet you are lucky. It is as if the world itself shines upon you. It gives you its gift even when the gods gave you nothing.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Sell me on it first.”

“I propose something. I will live the life I have always dreamed of. I will run around causing havoc everywhere, using my incredible gambling skills to take poor saps’ gold. And you will never get tired of it. At every turn you will be entertained and enthralled, because at every turn I will reach the pinnacle of existence in every way, shape, and form.”

“You have some balls on you, Joy.” The god smiled, this one more charming than unnerving.

“All I ask of you, is the funding to get into Vena Cava.” Joy ended his speech with a little bow towards the god.

“Joy, if you ever bore me, I will talk to what is remaining of the world and revoke whatever love they are giving. You will simply be some boring, weak man again, able to lose at a game of chance.” Game laid down their conditions.

“Game, don’t take this as blasphemy, but the world loves me because I truly love the world, in all of its perfection and imperfection. You cannot make the world stop loving me unless I stop loving it, and that is never going to happen.” For the first time in their conversation, Joy’s eyes grew hard.

Instead of being angry at the impudent mortal, Game laughed.

“I knew I liked you. They need all the love they can get.”

Then Game disappeared leaving two things on the ground. A single gold coin, and a golden key.

Joy slipped the coin into his pocket and brushed the key with his fingertips. The key somehow slipped into his soul space and with it came a deluge of information.

Joy had just received an artifact, one that could replace his useless gift. It was complicated and stupid, but it was his.

Tears of joy trailed down his face as he started walking towards the city gates. Joy could almost swear that the branches of the trees he saw on the way there looked like arms trying to hug him.

He was loved.