Short Writing Week 4
Some context here
“Proof of the Existence of God”
The priest settled in beside Edgar, who rolled his eyes in response and pulled the covers up a bit. Edgar was in bed, though fully dressed, with the priest on a chair beside him. The two were perpendicular to each other.
“I know how you feel,” said the priest. “Nonetheless, your family have tried everything else, so they called me.”
“They might believe your ghost stories,” said Edgar, waving one hand about to show how little he regarded the whole situation. “But I don’t.”
“I’m not sure they even believe my ghost stories,” smiled the priest. “But I do, and we can start from there.”
“Not interested.”
“Your family say you have been sitting in bed for over a week, fully dressed. They presume you move around to eat or use the bathroom, but they do not see it.”
“I’m very stealthy,” said Edgar disinterestedly.
“I’m not here to tell you that God loves you, or wants you to feel better - though He does - I want to show you something,” said the priest, and took out a small box. It was almost a perfect cube, half the size of a shoebox, made of wood that looked like it had been handled and roughhoused and passed around a lot. It had hinges on one side of the lid with a clasp on the other. There was some kind of glyph written on the top of it that Edgar did not recognise.
“You got a relic?” asked Edgar, still refusing to make eye contact. “The toenail of St. Bartholomew or somesuch. Should we pray for it?”
“This box has proof of God’s existence in it,” said the priest, which caused Edgar to look at him, finally. The priest put the box on the bedside locker between them, paused for a second and then withdrew his hands from it.
“What is it?” asked Edgar.
“I don’t know,” said the priest.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” asked Edgar. “You’re carrying this thing around and you don’t know what it is? What does it look like?”
“I’ve never looked at it,” said the priest. “I’ve never opened the box.”
“Is it locked?”
“No, you just have to unlatch it.”
“But it’s proof of God’s existence, yes?. A note, I am real, signed God.”
“Perhaps.”
“This is stupid,” said Edgar, but with his eyes still on the box. “You’ve got some kind of trick going on.”
“There is no trick. The point, the whole point of my ghost stories, is that you need faith. If you look in the box and see proof, faith is gone and all is lost. At that stage it doesn’t matter if God is real or not.”
“What if I look in the box and it’s a rock or something?”
“Then I would urge you to keep it to yourself.”
“And if I open it and it’s absolutely incontrovertible proof?”
“The same please.”
Edgar picked up the box and flipped the latch but did not open the lid.
“I really hold your life in my hands one way or another, huh? This seems like a big risk to take”
“As I said before, faith is everything.”
Edgar sat there in bed, knees up under the covers holding the box in front of him, unlatched. The priest silently closed his eyes as Edgar opened the box and looked inside. The priest’s eyes remained closed until he heard the box latch shut again. Edgar was looking into the distance, the box held loosely in one hand. The priest said nothing; Edgar passed him the box.
“You can go now Father,” said Edgar, and the priest left.