I shook the hand of another man who didn’t believe in God.
Hands on my hips (I fucking wish they stuck out more), I turned and surveyed the room, filled to the brim with my Atheistic peers, a wry smile on my lips. I had surrounded myself with them like one surrounds oneself with a pile of fleece blankets and down pillows; they were comforting. I admire them in a way- that level of confidence. I could never match it in that fashion. My God had given me a will with which I could choose to sit in the bathtub in the dark alone if I wanted to. I could smoke, I could decorate my arms with cigarette burns, patterned tastefully in agreeance with my freckles; I could take all the credit, too.
I was in the midst of doing all of these things when she walked in.
“Abby, right?”
She was right.
She sat on the cold ceramic rim of the bath, plucking the cigarette from my fingers, and took a long drag. She handed it back to me. I frowned. That had seemed way too easy for her to do. I practice gripping my wrists.
“We are in the same club, you know,” she declared in a matter of fact tone, crossing her legs. “I watch. People are always telling you not to worry. Bullshit. I think that’s your problem. You should worry, a lot more than you do. You haven’t noticed me noticing.”
I have no idea what she’s talking about.
Maybe it’s because I hadn’t noticed.
“Anyway,” she rose to leave, “with the raw materials you have, you could be the next Mother Teresa or the next Ted Bundy. I mean, not that it’s any of my business.”
She closes the door.
My eyes stare into the dark space her body had occupied.
What the fuck?