Dialogue

I wrote this when I was 18. I found it in my desk drawer and read it. I was surprised how much I liked and decided I should continue the story.


“Oh sure,” he said as he tossed his finished cigarette out the window of the moving car, “I believe in God, just not the God you know or anyone else knows.”
I looked at him with the physiognomy of one who is too high to recall where he or she left their car keys; puzzled, bewildered and trying desperately not to laugh.
“I created my own God, don’t you see? Why should I believe in a God that loves them, and solves all of their problems? God is someone I can talk to without having to worry about following guidelines or worrying that I did something that HE wouldn’t want me to do. I wanted a relationship with God, but not theirs. That’s the way everyone else’s Gods were created. Bad things were happening to people and they didn’t understand why things were the that they perceived them, so they created Gods. They were the perfect beings that could solve all of their problems as long as they kept him happy, i.e. human sacrifice, prayer and in the case of Christianity, the Bible.
“They created guidelines so that they could keep their god happy. If they had a bad harvest, it was because they weren’t praying enough, if there was an epidemic that killed hundreds of children, it was because they weren’t offering enough human or animal sacrifices to appease him. When bad things happened, they told themselves, ‘Oh well, we better try a little harder to appease him next time. Too fucking bad!’”
“That seems like something Swift would write,” I said as I gazed at my palms and thought about palm readers who get paid to tell people their futures just by looking at the unique designs in people’s hands. Either someone created palm reading in order to justify why we have strange designs in our palm, or they created it in order to justify robbing people of their money and laughing sadistically at the poor saps who believe in that sort of thing. “Hey,” I thought, “Gotta pay the bills somehow.” It beats working in a factory in Cambodia making Gap shirts. I realized then that I was wearing a shirt from the Gap, and remembered seeing a news report that explained how they needed those shitty jobs to supprt their economy. I guess they have to pay the bills too.
He was making so much sense, but I didn’t care. He talked way too fucking much. All I want to do is feel the music enter my ear canal through the sound cable or rope, or whatever it is that’s plugged in. What do I want to do when I get home? Where is home? Where are we, or should I say, where am I? I know he doesn’t care. I recline and try to go to sleep. He keeps talking. I’m used to falling asleep while people are talking to me. It’s almost 2 o’clock. What do I want to eat when I get home? I wish I were home. I look up at the clouds moving gracefully below the moon, catching ghastly glints of light refracting into a billion and one spectrums, all I can see is the face of God in the clouds, melting into something, or someone ugly.
“Do you ever think about whether Satan exists or not?”
That was a hard sentence to say. I haven’t talked in a while and my throat was dry. I think I’ll have a tall glass of water when I get home. “Oh shit,” I thought, “he’s not responding!” Did he hear me? Did I even say it out loud? I have myself momentarily and always for not knowing the answer to my question. I light up a cigarette and look over at him. He’s already got another cigarette lit He always does that. Whenever I light one, he’s already puffing away with his own. What a joke. I begin to regroup enough to ask him again. I reached down to pick up a Mountain Dew bottle that’s probably only a few days old. It’s not very cold, but it is wet. I take a swallow or three. I had to finish the rest of it, he might ask me for some. I ask the question again, but I am interrupted by his prompt response.
“My God only creates positive things, not negative. Besides, my God can’t be wrong, he’s fucking GOD for Chirst sake!” I regretted asking the question already. I really didn’t care whether he believed in the devil or not, I just want him to stop talking.
“If God created an angel, or any other being capable of such powerful evil, that even the creator Himself can’t stop him, what does that say about God?”
“Yeah, but doesn’t there always have to be a negative to a positive? Light and dark, right and wrong, good and evil…” I said realizing that I should have just let the subject fizzle out on it’s own rather than initiate another five minutes of sensible, yet irrelevant ramblings. I didn’t want him to respond. I never wanted him to speak to me again.
He didn’t answer though. I distinctly remember saying that aloud, definitely loud enough for him to hear me. I even enunciated. E-N-N, E-N-U-N-S, E-N-U-N-C-I-A-T-E…Could you use it in a sentence please? Giggle-Giggle-Snort. I hate that fucking snort. It only makes people laugh harder after they do it. Air inhaled through the nostrils is apparently funnier than fart jokes, midgets and Bill Cosby combined.
“Wait, what were we talking about?” He asks, never taking his eyes off the road. I wish he’d look at me occasionally. He’s making me feel sick with that ten-mile stare shit. Cigarettes thrown, windows up, heat on. God it’s hot. I’d sacrifice a goat to justify my existence if only it weren’t so fucking hot in here. I don’t say anything, I just concentrate on the tube of music in my ear and count the orange barrels on the side of the road, put there to keep all of the invisible people inside their cars away from the left side. The conversation ends due to lack of short-term memory. “Wait, what were we talking about?”
He thinks I’m so stoned that I don’t understand what’s going on. But he’s wrong. I know the meaning of life but I wouldn’t tell him in a million years. Huh-huh, you’re so stoned! You’re such a lightweight. Whatever.