The sea for a pretty long time didn’t offer much but the possibility to splash each other, swim a little and bathe under the sun. The depth of the water never reached above their belly-buttons, or the two didn’t dare venturing further than that. After a brief moment playing as whales, the two kids finally found something interrupting the all-blue monotony of the water.

Less than a mile from their position in fact, a gigantic off-shore platform was in the midst of a hard day work. Surrounded by two cargo ships and filled to the brim with operators of all kinds. There was probably nothing else in the world which could capture the full attention of both children.

Arthur was mesmerized by the cornucopia of infrastructural features, cement pillars, tubes of every width and length, incomprehensible complex machinery and moving parts of the thing in front of him. The typical childish’ interest for work environments and mechanical gadgets had encountered the holy grail of construction toys. Jo instead didn’t even know that such a thing could exist at all, and given the sight of the feverish activity tarnishing the structure which was bustling with humanity, she had met the holy grail of stuff she so badly wanted to dismantle piece by piece and people she wanted to obliterate one by one.

The two kids approached the structure from two sides. Jo could notice that the workers had finally become aware of their presence and were running in every direction or incapacitated to move from awe and fear. All of that made her shiver of pleasure and anticipation. When they arrived at a close enough distance, though, both kids just limited to circle the structure and observe all the infinite parts it was composed of. They kept pointing at thing and wondering the function of each. Arthur was more prone at making hypotheses, but he himself had the notion they were probably completely misguided.

Jo was following him because everything the boy pointed or boysplained to her, felt like a waiter presenting the content of a buffet to a starving customer. She also felt fascinated by the confidence the boy seemed to have found now that they were interacting with something of his interest. She thought that she may feel some actual affection for that kid. She found herself hypnotized by the words and gesture of the boy with her mouth half open. Her cheeks turned red for the embarrassment and she did her best to dissimulate and hide it. Luckily for her, Arthur was so captured by the ever changing spectacle offered by the platform that he didn’t notice anything.

He was instead caught in the attempt to test the stability of an antenna on the higher tower of the offshore plant and soon after disappointed to find out it wasn’t that much resistant to the smallest amount of pressure he could bestow. The antenna tumbled down the structure for some hundred feet, hit with a small resounding thud on the outer part of the concrete platform leaving a visible mark and ruinously fell into the see. The noise awakened Joe from the hypnotism of staring at Arthur. She felt like it was due time to completely destroy the whole place. Both because she was getting a little jealous that the thing had robbed her of the boy’s attention, and because she was drooling on the idea of watching him, rather than her, doing it.

But it seemed pretty difficult to convince him. He was clearly fascinated by the structure and more akin to play with it rather than playing with her. Plus, it had already proven very difficult to convince him to play the part of the kaiju and destroy stuff. Every child wants to play the part of the hero, apparently, and unfortunately for Jo, Arthur made no exception. But she wasn’t going to give up on that. The difficulty actually made it such more urgent to convince her partner at sliding to the dark side.

“Hey, Art!” She interrupted him while he was evaluating the function of a strange vehicle which looked like a garbage truck without wheels.
“Hey Jo! I think I found a submarine here, or something.”
“Oh, oh, wow! Can I see it?”
“Yes of course, there’s even probably someone inside, but I’m not sure. The glass is dark …” Jo snatched the thing from his hand and without a second thought throw it into her mouth. Then she looked at him swallowing the thing.

“Hey! That’s unfair. I wanted to see it float!”
“Well, I guess it will float in my belly. That’s also quite an adventure.
“Well … I … I guess so.” Arthur agreed not completely sure of himself. Jo took that as her occasion to speed things up.
“Art, I’m getting a bit bored.” The boy looked at Jo and as always unconsciously decided to put her feelings in front of his own. He was still pretty thrilled for the off-shore plant, but he didn’t want to push his friend to stand there bored.
“So … do you want to go back to the beach?”
Jo faked she was evaluating the idea. “I don’t know, maybe. But if you like this thing so much, we can stay here, instead. I want to do what you want to do. I’ll just wait here!”
She played the subservient role knowing already how awkward that was making Arthur feel. And it didn’t take more than ten seconds for him to fall into the trap.

“We can … we can play something that you like.”
Arthur felt like a master trader which was tricking Jo into staying with him and still remain in the proximity of that all too wonderful steel-and-concrete island. What in fact he was doing, was coming exactly where Jo wanted him. She even faked a little bit more to be torn between the will to please him and that of going back to the beach, just to keep Arthur on his toes. F
inally she conceded: “Okay, we’ll play something here!”
Arthur rejoiced not knowing the mistake he had made.
“What do you want to do, then?” He asked enthusiastically.
Jo kept playing dumb. “I don’t know, there’s not much here … Well, except for this … thing!”
And that’s when Arthur sealed his fate. “Well, do you want to play with it?” Jo smiled, but she tried to retain herself to not make it too obvious.
She regained composure and announced “Fine! We can play with it … if you want!”
Checkmate.

“Great!” the boy exclaimed and then he started again pointing at the platform components and explaining their role. But Jo stopped him.
“Mmm, you already explained it all to me. I think that’s enough.”
Arthur was again confused. “So … what other game can we do?”
Jo faked examining the structure once more. “Well … we may play the kaiju monsters again!”
“What? Here?”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to do all the way back and forth from the beach and … I think that Reginald has eaten enough!” Arthur murmured the second part a little afraid to upset Jo. But unexpectedly, she agreed with him.

“You’re right!”
“What?!” Arthur himself was surprised of finally being right that day.
“But we haven’t!” She concluded to his dismay.
“Well … yes, but ...” Arthur didn't like the direction the conversation was taking.
“What?” Interrupted his reticence before it could properly form.
“I don’t know if …”
“Didn’t you listen to our parents. They said we can eat everything we want! And I’ve tried it! I even ate a ship in the city of corals. And this thing for as strange doesn’t look too different from a ship … with legs!”
Arthur had to agree, also because the platform actually came accessorized with a transport ship on the side. And the texture of metal and tubes of the former duly resembled those of the latter. If they could eat a ship, they could probably eat also the platform. He had already tried that one superpower anyway.
That same morning his mom was worried he had not eaten since the day before and had showed him he could actually eat the small buildings of the city. He was at first astonished watching his mother tearing the upper half of an apartment building and chewing on it. But when she offered him a bite, pushed by the rumbles in his belly, he didn’t back up and found out that buildings were now edible. One of the rules he had been taught the earliest, not to put stuff from the ground in your mouth, was gone in a whiff.
While he was almost finished with his meal though he had one final glimpse of doubt and asked if it was okay to eat what in fact had been the house of little people. Elsa pondered for a moment before smiling and caressing his cheek while arguing. “Well, it’s like the golden rule. Isn’t it? I just sat on this other building and it’s now gone under my butt.” Arthur smirked to his mother phrasing. “Yeah, but you didn’t do it on purpose!” “Of course I didn’t! And you didn’t eat people on purpose!” “No! I would never!” “Exactly! You were eating the building, and people left it last night. But … even if someone woke up late and then he was eaten up … well, that was an accident. Nobody could blame you!” Arthur looked at the last bites in his hand while considering those words. “Sooo … we can eat who oversleeps?” It was a very difficult logic for Arthur, held together only by his mother’s authority. Elsa smiled once again. “Not what I meant, but I guess that’s a possibility. Yes!” Elsa waited for the next question which, although, surprised her because it wasn’t a further inquiry for instructions.
“Mommy! Did you eat some people?” Arthur voice signaled no condemn or fear, only curiosity.
Elsa went for sincerity. “Well … I can’t be sure. But I think that maybe yesterday evening when mommy was really hungry … well, I may have eaten some people among the rest of stuff.”
Arthur weighted that information. He was updating his own image of his mom including the feature of being powerful enough to devour humans. Elsa wanted to stop whatever train of thought the kid was engaged in. She wanted to reassure him that it had been an innocent mistake, that it absolutely wasn’t on purpose, that she would’ve done everything in her power to prevent it from happening again. Maybe she wanted to reassure herself more than Arthur. But she couldn’t articulate anything before being addressed once again by another question from her son. One which sounded pretty daunting.
“And do they taste good?” Elsa gulped down hard. Thinking about eating people was already problematic enough, but up to that moment it was included under the category of collateral damages. To think of them in terms of taste, was probably too close to home even for her. Yet she didn’t want to let the matter remain unsettled and become a haunting taboo for her child.
“I don’t know Artie. It was pretty confusing and there were too many things and flavors. I can’t say.” Arthur paused a moment and the nodded, as if he condoned his mother’s uncertainty. And then he hugged her, unconsciously perceiving a little distress in her mood. She hugged him back feeling the remains of the building, that Arthur was still holding, crumbling on her back. “Are you upset?” She asked while caressing his head.“No … it’s okay!” He said looking nowhere in particular. “I’m sorry – he continued – for the little people. Because maybe they’re sad of being eaten. But that’s to feed you. So you’re good, and you are strong. So, I think, it is a good thing that you eat them.” “Owwww, Artie! Are you worried that your mommy doesn’t eat enough? You don’t have to!” Elsa said and started covering Arthur’s face with loud kisses. Arthur fought with all his forces but up to no avail.
The immense mother kept hugging her son and reflecting on that last exchange. She wasn’t sure what was the point reached. And if it had been communicated from her to her son or the other way around. Did she succeed in removing another worry from her child? Or wasn’t in fact him that had somehow authorized her at eating people? She kept pondering those words with her son in her arms until he concluded their conversation with one ending remark. “It’s very complicated to be big, sometimes. When I think about it, I don’t know what to do. But when I don’t think, everything is simple again.” Elsa was struck by those words. They seemed to contain all the wisdom she herself was looking for. And Arthur had been sharp enough, or maybe sincere enough, to actually say it out loud. “I know, Artie. It’s complicated. Just don’t think too much about it.” She said, trying once again to exorcise all fears and doubts from her son’s mind. 

What Arthur had kept for that whole conversation was the original fact that they could eat anything they wanted. And so he wasn’t particularly worried about actually eating the platform. He was just unhappy about it. He really cherished that marvelous piece of engineering and he would’ve rather stayed there in silent contemplation of it.

But he didn’t want to upset Jo further. From his perspective she had already been very patient in waiting for him to explore the whole facility and even extremely accommodating when she had accepted to remain and play there. So he didn’t move any further objection. As always, instead, he just sought for guidance.
“So, we just eat it?”
“No!” Jo stopped him.
Arthur looked at her confused.
She smiled at him and concluded: “We will have a dinner date!”