prompt: screen, title: The Lovers, The Dreamers and Me in "the next big thing" flash fiction

“So,” Frank asked the Amazing Mitzi, sitting in a Starbucks between a Hooters and Disney’s El Capitan Theatre, across from Mann’s Chinese, “what makes you so certain that your god exists?” “The God,” she responded as all good monotheists should. “The God,” the animist allowed, “but how are you sure the manifestations you experience are really this One-True-God?” She waved a hand over his cardboard coffee cup, transmuting it from mint-green to ocean-blue. “That’s how.”

“But,” Frank continued, “how do you know your magic comes from an Only-Creator,” he tried being sensitive, “not some yet-unknown science or a collection of beings you mistake for that… unitary Near-Eastern volcano deity?” Mitzi forgave her friend his bluntness, she understood he meant no offense. “I suppose I just… do.”

“Have you ever met God?” “No,” she admitted, “I’ve bargained with angels from time-to-time, never God directly, no.” “I’m genuine curious, then, how do you know?” Frank’s species, when they still roamed The Forest Northwest, communed with immaterial entities representing forces of nature. Mitzi’s traditions were difficult for him to grasp.

“You had fire?” “Everyone has fire.” “Hearths, I mean, structures to contain it.” “Sure.” Hirsute, they didn’t need fire as much as we do but it was useful to them from time-to-time. “The same way I know there’s a fire one room over, around the corner,” she turned his cup a brick-red and smiled, “I see the shadows, hear the crackle, feel the heat. Direct observation only gilds the lily.”

“You experience your,” he corrected himself, “you experience God through inference.” “As we have since Moses threw out his back carrying stones.” “We,” Frank inhaled, “sang to the spirits and when we needed them most… they sang back.” “Have you considered if they were, like the angels, simply messengers of God?” “Or maybe your angels, just the shadows and heat you’ve mistaken as emanating from just one being.” “Maybe…” she returned Frank’s cup to a starting green, “but I mean, probably not.”

After relaying this tale in full, Frank asked me, “Do you have a faith?” “I’m Culturally-Catholic Agnostic. I’d love to believe but I’ve seen zero proof, which of course I feel real guilty about.” “I didn’t ask your religious affiliation, Mike. I asked about your faith.” “Decades ago,” I admitted, “my faith was the screens at Valley Cinema, faith my name would be up there in lights, making millions of people happy. Until this place disabused my naivety.”

“Now?” “Now, my heart’s a bag of broken glass if you want to know the truth of it. I just try to not to spill my shards, try to not hurt others as I’ve been hurt, until whatever day this sad-sack finally bursts.” “That’s a kind of faith, too.” “A faith too small to fail this time, I’d hope.” “The spirits I heard were completely invisible, but their songs were beautiful beyond all description.”

I’d love to believe I’ll hear something like that, even once in my life. But I mean, probably not.