The Oneota Review 2013

ONE. Yeah, probably.

TWO (continuing). It’d be nice, though, if God decided to make an appearance. Like the director at the end of a test movie screening. “Well, how d’you think it all went? Did you like the ending? How about the love story, was that satisfying for you?” And then the two of us could sit down and have a conversation in which God would be informed that no, I didn’t think everything had gone all that well—in particular, the ending was unpleasant and I’d found the love story deeply unsatisfying.

ONE. Well, I hardly think you can blame God for all that.

TWO. Well, I mean, what’s the alternative? Being a victim of random chance?

ONE. What’s wrong with random chance?

TWO. It just feels—I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right. We spend our whole lives searching for, I don’t know, meaning in things. Why nobody ever did anything about the environment. Why stupid people get away with saying stupid things. Why one night, everything was wonderful, and then the next morning she was gone. And, you know, who knows?

Maybe there isn’t a reason. Maybe some things just are, and searching for some greater significance behind it is like searching for a—I don’t know—like shoveling through a pile of cow manure for something you lost. Sure, maybe it’s there, but the odds that you’re actually going to find anything are slim to none, and you’re just going to come out feeling like you just rummaged through a pile of shit. But to have that whole search utterly pointless, to have such a, like a, core human drive just invalidated, dismissed, it’s difficult to handle.

ONE. There’s got to be a more satisfying conclusion than that.

TWO. So what else is there? That it’s our fault? What, is that like our only chance for some sort of satisfying solution to the whole meaning thing? (As if ticking off items in a list) God’s out there, but he doesn’t have a damn clue what’s going on. Pleasant. (Two) God’s out there and God can tell what’s going on and everything, but God can’t do a thing about it. That’s a pretty shitty option. To be entirely honest with you, probably worse than option one. (Three) God’s out there and God can see what’s going on, and God has the power to change it, but God just doesn’t care. (Four) And then maybe there is no God, and there is no such thing as inherent meaning, and we’re just blind minnows swimming in a huge ocean and the vast anglerfish of death is just coming, waiting to swallow us up and that’s it, finito, and there was nothing we could do about it, no way we could see it coming, no meaning to make of it, and ultimately the whole thing was just utterly beyond our comprehension. So 40