The center of the universe. I suppose we all imagine ourselves in that position. Even though most of us know we’re not, we can’t help but feel, on some subconscious level, that we are. When we’re babies, we can’t tell the difference between the world and ourselves. The whole of creation is just a part of us; just another uncooperative appendage to go along with our legs that can’t walk, and hands that can barely grasp. Then, as we’re learning to walk and talk, we recognize the foreignness of things outside of our bodies, but still feel that we’re at the center of it all. Some of us never grow past that, but most of us do move on to adulthood. Once we’re adults, we’ve learned to pretend that we don’t think we’re the center of the universe. But deep down, a part of us will always believe that we are. If you need proof, look at all the people who buy lottery tickets, enter sweepstakes, or go to Las Vegas. People who believe fortunes will fall their way in spite of all logic and proven mathematical odds, because when you secretly think you’re the center of the universe, you feel outrageously lucky.

And now I was told that I was, indeed, the center of the universe. So why didn’t I feel like I won the lottery?

Maybe because being the center of the universe is like being an only child in a family with extremely high expectations. Nothing you do will ever be good enough.

That’s where the skaters come in.

They’re not skaters, if you haven’t figured that much out. They told me, and I quote: “We are multidimensional beings that project into your world in this unobtrusive, camouflaged form.”

No one seems to have told them that being skater triplets is not exactly unobtrusive camouflage.

“Our purpose is to quell disturbances,” Ed told me.

“So you’re like God’s therapists?” I suggested.

“If there’s a God—and we’re not saying that there is,” said Edd, “he/she/they would not need therapy.”

“And if there is no God—and we’re not saying that there isn’t,” said Eddy, “then the universe would be an it rather than a he/she/they, and wouldn’t need therapy either.”

“We quell disturbances, let’s just leave it at that,” said Ed. “Now follow us and don’t get lost on the way.”

There was an abandoned Toys “R” Us up on Oldchurch Road that never got repurposed when the company went belly-up. It just sat there behind a chain-link fence, presiding over a weed-filled parking lot like a horror movie waiting to happen. This was where the Edwards led me.