Etc.

Stanley is the protagonist of this story.

But Stanley is not simply a character in our fictional universe, whose life we have manipulated to fit the proceedings of this tale, and whose name, the same one our protagonist originally wore and so proudly embodied for all of his life, we have simply replaced with one that more adequately represents the author's artistic intentions for the tale in question, conveys the carefully premeditated tone of voice and mood to perfection, and is accurate, or inaccurate, if it be the writer's objective, to the fact or fictional place and time—both potentially plural if the story involves time travel, spans a vast area, happens to feature a diverse cast of Stanleys, or has dolphins—that the aforementioned proceedings are carried out in. Stanley, you see, is not merely a character whose story you will read, or not, and forget about, or not, since it is shaping up to be rather ridiculous. Stanley represents the person in all of us, whether you realise he is there, or not.

But I digress. Stanley was a middle-aged man in a grey suit.

He wasn't always a middle-aged man in a grey suit. At one point he was a wide-eyed, sticky-fingered child, enthusiastic and ever-curious about the bustle and glamour of adult life. At another he was a lithe, handsome young man in athletic wear, believing himself superior to his peers in every length measurable. But at some point in all of our lives, we put the athletic wear and Hawaiian shirts and logo hoodies down and start donning our grey suit. It's a process everyone goes through, from the punks to the preps: the process of becoming Stanley.

Stanley had a wide-eyed, sticky-fingered son, who is unfortunately not very intelligent, and frequently asked him about the definitions of words like fish, investment, and communism.

“Dad?” one such conversation began.

“Yes, son?”

“What is the meaning of life?”

Stanley paused a long while. “God knows.”

“How do I speak to him?”

“I don't think you're supposed to.”

They decided to find out together, by Googling the answer. There is, after all, no better way to solve a problem. Stanley knew that all he had to do was enter “the meaning of life” into a search bar, and in a second, like magic, he'd receive several answers.

Stanley had friends, at one point of his adulthood. Some of them donned grey suits. Some of them were in the middle of putting theirs on, and always turned up in one of the components, or a combination of a few, but never the entirety. Some of them still wore the attire of their youth, permanently smelling of alcohol and cigarette smoke. Stanley was always impressed at how rapidly all of them, even those who had been slow in turning to the grey, stuffy formal wear of adulthood, eventually figured out the meanings of their lives, and grew to fit the sober garments like a glove. All he longed for was to be as comfortable in them as they were.

He hated his clothes. He hated how restricting and uncomfortable they were, how convoluted the system, to put on mere coverings of the body, how difficult it was to tie a length of cloth with no practical purpose around his neck. He hated how someone of his age had to wear a suit to be considered a contributing member of community. He wanted to rip them off and be free, uncaring of the judgemental glares of society.

His fingers tapped away at the keyboard, and then he pressed enter.

POGGERS, the screen displayed in response. It was all the search engine returned, that lone word on a white background. His son giggled. Stanley calmly held down the computer's power button.

“Why do you ask, son?” Stanley queried.

“Are you not curious, dad?” his son said in response. “Why does mankind exist on this planet? The sole biological purpose of our existence, as far as I'm concerned, is to repopulate it, and as a five-year-old, I'm not exactly very concerned with that either.”

“It is more complicated than mere biology. Life consists of much more than the hard facts and numbers it is built on.”

“Aren't you an accountant? I don't know about you, dad, but I would very much like to understand why we are here. I refuse to simply accept the fact, even if it is rather commonly-accepted, and surprisingly so, in my opinion, that our purpose in life is to carry on the family name, be financially stable enough to comfortably host and raise a rabble of fine young men even more capable of doing so, and spend the last 10-20 years of that miserable existence with nothing to show for it but a long line of descendants.”

Stanley sighed. “I wish I knew, son. I'd answer your question if I could.”

They stewed for a minute in defeated silence.

“Dad?” the son thoughtfully inquired. “God knows, right?”

“He does, I guess.”

“Let's talk to him.”

“Okay, but first, we'll have to find him,” said Stanley. “It might be rather difficult, however. I've heard people say he's everywhere.”

“That's fine by me. I don't like kindergarten anyway.”

“I'm not sure if my leave allowance covers existential crises. I'll have to email my boss. About the finding him, we'll need a strategy. How do we cover ground, and in fact, all ground, since he's everywhere, as quickly as possible?”

“With a vehicle of some sort, of course.” The son suggested wisely.

Following hours of dull discussion pointless to render in print, they decided on a rowboat. Thus began Stanley and his son's quest to find God.

They travelled the Earth on their rowboat slowly and methodically, careful not to miss out on anywhere a god could possibly hide. From churches, to mosques, to bank vaults, no nook and cranny was spared.

On their journeys they came across a lonesome stream on an isolated beach, down which they drifted. The creek narrowed, funnelling them into a dense, peaceful wood that towered above them like majestic pillars. Beams of golden sunlight streamed through the gaps between trees, showering the tall grass and vibrant flowers in a kaleidoscope of colour as butterflies and birds fluttered freely about. Have you ever been wowed by the incredible beauty of nature, so tremendous and yet infinitely detailed that one can't help but feel small in comparison to its vast grandeur? So they felt, in that tiny wooden rowboat down the tiny, pleasant stream, as they came to the crossing.

It stood out from the surrounding imagery like a grimy, garbage-heaped, hastily-assembled red brick bridge, which it was. And out from under the cover leapt a troll—simply immense, ugly beyond compare, rolls of grease-stained fat spilling out over the grey suit it wore—a revolting creature.

“Hello,” it said.

“Hello,” they said.

The boat drifted under and past the bridge, as the troll stood and watched.

“Where are you off to?” it finally said.

“We're going to look for God,” said Stanley's son.

“Can I come along?”

“I'm not sure if you'll fit in the boat,” Stanley answered.

“I think I could,” the troll said. It walked downstream to them and stepped into the moving boat. “See?”

“Oh,” Stanley said.

The boat floated along.

“What made you want to follow us?” Stanley asked the troll.

The troll sighed, “I have been searching, a long time, for meaning in life. Who better to ask, I thought, than God himself?”

“What meaning in life could you possibly be looking for?” Stanley pondered. “You're a troll.”

“I am. But do you think I wanted to be created this way, in these circumstances, devoting the rest of my wretched life to guarding a bridge? There has to be more to life than this. There has to be more I can offer this infinite universe than an existence beset by routine and meaninglessness. I refuse to accept that this is the sum of it. I want answers.”

“Oh,” Stanley said.

The boat floated along.

And so they searched the world, a motley crew of lost souls in need of meaning, with the sole purpose of finding God. They drifted through busy streets, lone rowboat in the endless rush that is city traffic, passers-by staring, drivers swearing. They traversed deserts, gliding slowly across the endless expanse of golden sand and blue sky. They rowed up every mountain, down every cave. And finally, out they bobbed into the open ocean, miniscule between the depths below and the canvas above, eyes flecked with light from the star-specked sky, wondering when their journey could come to an end. So they searched, and are still.

But are you?