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Nine.
“Zach’s still upstairs.”
Eight.
“What?!” She rushed to the stairs.
Seven.
“MIA!”
Six.
“We need to get him out.”
Five.
“He’ll find a way, you can’t go there.”
Four.
“ZACH!”
Three.
And as she ran for her brother’s life.
Two.
I ran for hers.
BOOM!
“Do you think something happens after we die?” Zach and Mia stared at me in confusion at my random question. “Minister Paul said something during his sermon about eternal life, and that got me thinking.”
“Well...we were raised hearing about that. I actually believe in it. I do think there’s some sort of heavenly afterlife where we can reap our rewards.” Zach rolled the dice and moved his board pin. “But I don’t think we’re getting there through the sense of justice most people preach these days.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look at Minister Paul’s son, my uncle, his husband. Many people still believe they don’t deserve to get into heaven. That’s bullshit. They deserve it much more than the majority of the people I know.”
I nodded in agreement but countered as I made my move on the board. “I don’t think I like the idea of living forever after all this. We feel so much pain here, why risk it all again with a life I could never die away from?”
“But that’s the beauty of the life Minister Paul was talking about. It’s a good life, without pain and grief,” Mia argued.
“So you believe in it?”
“I do. I think we’re here only in passing. Learning, suffering, loving. And after all this is over, we get to experience what it’s like to live a life without pain. You owe me the rent for that.” She took my money and went on. “But I also believe we kind of keep living here.”
“How come?”
“Not with this body,” she explained. “I believe our memories and our deeds can keep us alive. It can be either good or bad, and that’s what defines if your bonus moments here will be worth it. That’s why I think it’s important to always bring up memories of the people we love who are gone. If we keep their memories and their actions alive, we can get them to live a little longer. We can even feel them.”
“So let’s say if you happen to...you know.” It was hard saying the word when we were talking about them two, even hypothetically. “You want us to keep your memories alive so you can still live with us.”
“If it doesn’t hurt you, yeah, I’d like that.”
Some people believed rain was a symbol of the blessings God sent us from above. I, on the other hand, would always associate rain with grief. With failure. With deceit.
