His fingers are working slowly and insistently at the fabric of his bed linen as we talk. After a few minutes I take my lighter from my pocket and push it into his hand. He switches to dialing the flint and resumes speaking.
We are talking about everyone we know, that we both know. It feels like we have to mention every last person before we can move on. We talk about their jobs and their families and their futures. Every time things begin to flag someone else comes to mind, and we start mining a fresh vein of undiscussed acquaintances.
Later he gives me his Bebo and Facebook passwords. His parents wont know what to do with them. “I always said I’d get you onto Facebook,” he says. I grimace.
We are quiet for a while. “Hey,” he says. “I feel like I need to tell you something. Something big… I slept with your sister.”
“No you didn’t.”
“No, seriously. A couple of years ago.”
“No. You didn’t.”
“I could have though. I actually could have.”
“No you couldn’t.”
We talk about religion. “I am having trouble with this,” he says. “Before, when I found out, I read up on the memoirs of a lot of big atheists. What they thought about it. Whether they felt satisfied.
“They all talked about their children. Their years with their loving partner. Their gratefulness. They were all eighty. It made sense but they were eighty. What am I supposed to do with that?”
“You want my opinion?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve always thought that there is an afterlife, of sorts. You’ve touched thousands of people in your life. A dozen or more deeply. Even you. Those ripples will go on forever, as those people touch other people. Your afterlife is the imprint you have left on the world.”
“It’s not really sustainable, is it? That we must mark the world to feel we’ve accomplished something. Maybe my imprint is the tonnes of rubbish I’ve left behind me. The fuels I’ve burned. Aren’t they just as significant?”
“No.”
“Seriously though, that’s not good enough. I’m twenty-six. I’ve only skimmed….” He looks tired.
“I guess…” I pause. “I could write a book about you?”
He grins. “Yeah? About an electrician?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Okay,” he says. “Deal. You will make my ripple when I’m gone.”
We sit for a while. I sit. He is dozing. “Maybe there is a god?” I say.
“Could be,” he nods. “Could be.”
I leave casually. We have always been casual. It would be wrong to change that now. There is comfort without expectation, without guilt. There is a freedom in it, for him and me. I will not write his book, we both know. Atheists owe nothing to the dead.
On my way home I stop to beat the fuck out of bales of cardboard left out for recycling. If you’ve never tried this I strongly recommend it; they are just the right size and weight to offer a good resistance. You can stand them back up on curb when you’re finished. Honestly, try it sometime.