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Contemporary Fiction Fantasy

For God’s Sake

“Well, what do you think? I know it’s a difficult question, but then the answer is even more difficult. I don’t think it’s any reason to procrastinate though. You’ll have all eternity to do that. You do believe in eternity, don’t you?”

His questions, they seem to intensify with His every appearance. The first one I remember as though it were tattooed on the inside of my eyelids. “Do I exist?” Who asks questions like that. It tends to set the atmosphere on fire with speculation that no one should contemplate, as there is no real definitive answer. Only the answer we choose to create, to satisfy our need at the time.

Faith I understand is believing in the unbelievable. I'd like too. I'm afraid however that He will think that my reasoning, logic, is contrary to the whole concept of faith, and I'll never find an answer that will satisfy Him and me. Perhaps it is too late, and I'm lost already.

I know questions are supposed to entice you to speculate, then come to a decision based on past experience, logic, whatever makes us happy and we can accept, or at least live with. But a lot of the time His questions don't make me happy. They make me nervous. But it doesn’t seem to keep the answers from formulating.

I can’t even remember when the questions first began. I don't mean to be combative, but he is the one asking the questions.  At first, they were memorable because, well I hadn’t remembered any before, probably to young, now I miss those days. Sweet disregard of any critical prognostication about something that may or may not have an answer. Of course, everything has an answer, but not the answer you might be looking for, that begins a whole other trail of teary conjecture that has the possibility of turning your hair white, assuming you have…

But I digress. Do I exist, you exist, they exist, Him exist, her exist? Being He's him, and I'm me, what can I say. After a brief conversation with myself, I have determined I’ve been down this mind shaft before and can find no more light at the end of the tunnel that I did on previous excursions. And I always come back to the same place I began, but then who can be absolutely sure about anything.

I can prove existence to myself, but I can’t prove it to you. For all I know you’d lie to me just to get me to leave. I wouldn’t blame you if you did. I’ve been known to throw myself out of situations I don’t agree with. 

I’ve attempted escaping from myself on several occasions. One memorable escape I could get into, involved a few people and a wedding rehearsal that went terribly wrong, so I’ll pass. The other was learning to swim. You would think, because we are ninety percent plus water, that we’d have any problem getting used to the medium, but alas there seems to be a difference between the external and internal essence of water.  One gives life while the other attempts to take it back.

Perhaps that is the point. It isn’t the questions that are the problem, but that gray area in between them and the answers. I truthfully have few problems with answers, it’s the questions that hurt. I’ve attempted to talk with others about it, but they just look at me like I need to see someone, and quick.

I’ve never been self-assured. But then don’t we all really doubt we have the ability to know what to do, or think, in situations, given the lives we lead. So many distractions. Truths falling in half, some growing to have more relevance than they have a right too.  And many others, cloaked in a supposition, that they are not lies. It is all confusing, and there seems to be no real place to go to find what we should think or believe. Our guess is as good as any, better than some I suppose, worse than others, but then they are ours and we should get some credit for that.

The question though continues to haunt me for some reason. Is existence contingent on believing, even when you know its impossible to be right all the time. But then you can reason that you are not always wrong either. So again, I am in that gray area that sprouts uncertainty between here and there, because and maybe. So out of frustration, I fire back at his feeble excuse at discombobulation. 

He asks me if that word is even used anymore and is it appropriate given the circumstance. Circumstance, I thought we were having a debate, or slight argument about the theory of existence, and He comes up with this notion that places me in an uncomfortable position, which leads to a disadvantage for me, if my debating skills have failed me. Circumstance, strange word, considering it implies a place, possibly a situation, but most assuredly, a time period.

Time however is a relative term, when you consider the millennium that have past, will pass, and the short period we will be entangled in it. Perhaps that is what He’s getting at. Am I ready to consider the circumstances of my life, how much time I have left or have wasted, how much gray area can I account for, if asked. 

Circumstance can also entail the very beginning and the end. All tied up with a bow of years, hours, seconds, and then eternity.

I get where He’s going with this. 

Is there enough gray area between the beginning and end to justify eternity, which is the relevance needed to believe in circumstance, truth, and their natural progression to existence.

But then, if existence is based on the supposition that you need to believe in existence before you can reap the rewards of an eternity, aren’t we left with the same conundrum we began with?

I think he has posed this question to see if my ability to argue with myself and declare a winner is a possibility, or merely an exercise in conjecture. 

Is it possible to believe in something or someone that doesn’t exist? I believe it is. We believe, I believe, all manner of things we can’t prove to be factual, or deemed part of an existence, but we accept them as part of our reality.  Santa Clause, Tooth Fairy, winning the lottery, and of course, where He is going with this.

Just because someone asks a question it doesn’t mean we are fated to answer it. I’ve disregarded many questions I deemed to have no relevance or are simply words uttered by someone who has failed to contemplate the nature of answers.

He, on the other hand is no fool. You cant get that famous just on your looks. You have to have done something or said something memorable, or both. We all need heroes. It takes our minds off our own insecurities and provides evidence that the circumstance we find ourselves in, even though temporary, does have a shelf life. 

So, it all comes down to what happens between the time we are packaged and the time we spoil. I was beginning to wonder if there was an answer, or if I’d just have to bluff. But then there is this whole thing claimed about him knowing all things. I get the principle, but it seems like there would hardly be a question, when knowing how it will all end.

November 29, 2020 16:59

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