Chapter 42

SAN FRANCISCO,  Dennis rang up his last customer at 6:30.

At 7:00, he locked the door, because it was closing time.

He went into the back where he stored the chairs and started carrying them out.

He put two chairs down near the front of the store.

Then he went back and got two more. He put them in a circle and sat down on one of them.

He dreaded waiting, understanding it was likely no one would ever show up.

He had more chairs in the back, but he didn’t think he'd need them.

 ***

At 7:10, he wondered if it was a mistake to lock the door. People might feel put off if the door was locked.

He unlocked the door.

 *** 

At 7:13, he gave up.

He stood up, picked up his chair, folded it, and carried it back into the room.

As he was walking back to the front, he heard knocking.

He looked to the door and saw five people peering through the glass. They were young. College-aged. One looked like she was still in high school.

A girl with curly blond hair lifted up a cell phone and started texting.

Dennis tapped on the glass and glared at her.

She sheepishly smiled and put it away.

 A petite man, wearing a hat, knocked on the glass. He called out. "Can we come in? Is this the meeting for atheists?"

"No phones!" Dennis said. "Put them away."

"Will do!" the one with the hat said. He looked to the others, and they nodded in what Dennis hoped was agreement.

He unlocked the door, and opened it.

One by one, they stepped onto the threshold. First the curly blond; then one with a mustache that almost looked drawn on.

The curly blond came next, followed by a girl with purple hair. She was the one who looked high- school age.

Last was the boy with the hat.

Dennis didn’t remember seeing any of them in his shop. Well, he was getting old. He might have forgotten them.

"Should we sit?" Curly Blond asked. "Is that allowed? Dennis didn’t like her tone.

"Sit," he said. Did they all come together? He decided to ask. "Do you know each other?"

"We met outside the door," Purple Hair said. She smiled. Dennis noticed she had a rather large gap between her front teeth.

Curly Blond pointed to Hat Boy with her eyes. "We know each other." 

"Where's Alf?" Hat boy asked.

Curly Blond shrugged her shoulders.

Mustache said, "Leave it to Alf to put something up on Twitter; then not attend himself."

They all laughed.

Twitter? Dennis took a deep breath through his nose. This was a complete mistake. He dreaded the rest of the meeting. What if they kept wanting to talk about Twitter?

"Are you following Alf?" Purple Hair asked Dennis.

"There's probably a lot of Alf's on Twitter," Curly Blond said.

She sounded very conceited to Dennis. He didn’t like her.

Purple hair laughed a bit. Then she said to Dennis: "It’s Alfjoy. Do you follow him?"

"I'm not on Twitter," Dennis said.

"Really?" Purple Hair said. "How about Facebook?"

He shook his head.

"That's cool, Man." Mustache said. "Those things can suck up your time.

"True that," Hat boy said. "I need to wean myself off of them."

But they're good for finding out about these things," Purple Hair said.. "She gave Dennis a big friendly smile that really annoyed him. "Like this meeting."

The meeting. Yes. Was it too late to cancel? It probably was. But what was he going to do?  Just sit here and listen to them discuss Facebook and Twitter. Weren’t they supposed to be talking about atheism?

"Should we start the meeting?" Hat Boy asked.

"Yes," Dennis said.

The five kids looked at him, waiting.

"Yes," he said again.

The six of them sat on the fold-up chairs. They look at each other; then at the floor. Then Purple Hair said. "Well, I'll start if no one else wants to."

"Okay," Dennis said.

"Well," she said. "I like how you titled the meeting. Atheists Still Standing. Because in this new age, it's not easy to…Well, it's easy to feel lost."

"New Age?" Mustache said with a slight snicker.

Purple Girl smiled and shrugged her shoulders. "You know what I mean."

Curly Blond said. "I used to not believe in any spiritual stuff. No afterlife. No ESP. No God. No angels."

"And now?" Hat Boy said.

Dennis wanted to go home. Or really.  He wanted all the rest of them to go home.

Curly Blond sighed. "I don't know. It's hard to deny the evidence. I've read a lot about it, including science journals, and….

"Science hasn't proven any of it," Mustache interrupted.

"True. But they haven't disproved any of it."

"You can't disprove things," Mustache said.

"You can't disprove whole theories…like does God exist," Curly Blond said.. "But you can prove that the disembodied voice you're hearing is a recording. You can prove results from an ESP test are not statistically significant."

"I get your point," Mustache said.

"Me too," Purple Hair added. "The thing is no one has been able to prove that the video messages are faked."

"Give them time," Mustache said.

"Yes," Dennis said, surprised to hear his own voice. He hadn't planned on saying anything.

"I don't know if they will," Curly Blond said. "It's ignorant not to at least consider the idea that they might be real."

"So you believe?" Hat Boy asked.

"I didn't say that," Curly Blond looked a little annoyed. I'm just saying it's good to have an open-mind." Then she looked at Dennis. "Have you talked to any of the dead people?"

"Alleged dead people," Mustache corrected her.

"Fine," Curly Blond said. "Have you talked to any alleged dead people?"

"No," Dennis said.

"I have," she said. "I talked to my cousin who was killed in a hurricane years ago."

Dennis looked at this watch. When can he close the meeting?

"How can someone fake that? How did they know my cousin died? I mean who's doing this? Is it some kind of mass hoax? To me, it seems very improbable."

"Just because something is improbable doesn't mean it's not true," Mustache said. "You talk about having an open-mind, but it looks like yours is already made up."

Curly Blond glared at him.

"Relax, guys." Hat Boy said.

"What do you believe?" Curly Blond asked Hat Boy.

"Well….to use your words, I'm open-minded. Or I try to be. I don't believe in God. So I think that fits with the term atheist. I don't believe in deities. From what I've read, there's no strong evidence of there being gods in any of this. That doesn't mean there isn't a God or a million Gods. There could be a spaghetti God. Who knows. As for life after death, it seems after all the anecdotal evidence, that it's probable. To think otherwise…well, I think it's no better than a Christian ignoring evidence of evolution. So I probably believe in life after death. Do I believe in angels? No, not really. I don't believe in demons or vampires. I don't believe in all this Arcide crap."

Arcide? What's that? 

Dennis decided he didn’t need to know.

Hat Boy looked at Dennis. "What do you think, Sir? It's–"

He didn’t know what to say.

"Don't be shy." Purple Hair said. "I mean it's okay if you're shy. But I mean you can talk to us. If you want." 

Dennis found himself smiling a little, which embarrassed him. He forced the smile to stop. "Well–" He took a deep breath. "I might not know what I'm thinking." What an old fool.

To his surprise, none of the kids laughed at him. Not even a snicker.

"It's hard," Curly Blond said.

No one there spoke up to disagree.

"My parents think I'm delusional," Mustache said. "Ironic because I used to think that of them."

"You don't anymore?" Hat Boy asked.

"No, I still do."

They all laughed, even Dennis.

"You want to know what I think?" Purple Hair asked.

"Yes," Dennis said.

"Well, I still consider myself an atheist as I did before all of this. That's not to say I haven't changed a lot. I used to not-believe very strongly. Now my not-believing is rather weak. But to me, whether I believe in life after death is inconsequential. I've come to realize that for me atheism is not about belief or lack of belief. It's not about proving or disproving. In the heart of it, it's never been about any of that."

She stopped, maybe to make sure everyone was listening?

"So what is it?" Hat Boy asked.

"To me, it's about appreciating life…what we have here. You know what I mean. Why should we care so much about supernatural stuff when the natural is….well, it's super enough." She laughed at her own joke.

Dennis smiled.

She continued. "I don't talk to dead people on my cell phone. I talk to the living. If there's life after death, and it does look like that's likely, I'll talk to those people when I die."

"I like that way of thinking," Hat Boy said.

"Thanks." And she went on. "I like to read novels about doctors and teachers and lawyers and homeless people who are struggling. I'd rather read that than books about vampires. Harry Potter's really cool, but you know…if you watch the movies. Well, I think the real magic comes from the special effects artists. The make-up. The CGI. Green screen stuff. Look at all we can do as human beings. And if you think about how far we've come."

"Look at Minecraft," Hat Boy said.

"Totally!" Purple Hair said. "It's totally magic. All the coding and mods. It's amazing what all these people have done. But none of it is supernatural or Hocus Pocus." 

“What's Minecraft?" Dennis asked. The kids all looked at each other and laughed.

"Man, we gotta get you on Minecraft." Mustache said. 

"Bring your laptop next time," Hat Boy said. "We'll get you set up."

"I don't have a laptop," Dennis said.  And in a small way, he regretted that.

"You can also play on your Smart Phone. Or your tablet."

Dennis shook his head, embarrassed. The kids exchanged looks again.

"Wow," Hat Boy said. "What are you? Amish?"

"Are you afraid dead people are going to call you?" Purple Hair asked. 

Dennis shrugged his shoulders. 

"Don't worry," she said. "I get it. I don't answer my Skype or phone unless I recognize the number and name."

"I'm the same," Curly Blond said.

"There's no dead people on Minecraft." Mustache said. "I mean alleged dead people."

"There might be," Curly Blond said "I've heard rumors about things happening."

 "Yeah," Hat Boy said. "But that's on multiplayer. Single Player's safe."

 Dennis had no idea what they're talking about, but he then realized he didn’t mind listening to them.

Continue to Chapter Forty-Three

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