Jimmy On the Roof
By: Quinn Neubert
“Do you believe in God, Kira?” Jimmy took the last sip, whiskey-fire tracing dow his lungs. He tossed the empty bottle off the roof, and it smashed against the ground, bursting against the sidewalk in sparkling mirror-glass. “Or a god, I guess.” He amended.
Kira leaned back, the gravely roof pressing into the line of her spine. She felt like she was lying on eggshells. “Yes.”
Jimmy adjusted his cross necklace, it had tangled in its own string and flipped over. An omen, perhaps. If he was someone else, he may have cared. He pulled out his pack of cigarettes and thumbed one out. Kira handed him a match, and Jimmy struck it on the bottom of his boot and lit his smoke, then took a deep drag. The cherry of his cigarette cast his face in shadow. Kira let out a long breath.
“So, God,” Jimmy continued. “Why?”
“You believe in God,” Kira pointed out, gesturing to his necklace. It was tarnished slightly, obviously well-worn and loved.
“Mum makes me go on Sundays and shit,” Jimmy pulled his greasy locks of dark hair back with a stretched-out rubber band. “But it makes me feel better when I wear it. Comforts me, somehow.”
Kira glanced over at Jimmy, at his slender piano fingers, stone-cut cheekbones, his spigot-shaped nose that was freckled in honey-spects. He closed his eyes when he sucked on his cigarette, his eyelashes sweeping the tops of his cheeks. He was ash and city lights, poetry and humanity locked in the little town of his mind.
“I believe in God,” Kira said. She tucked her arms underneath her head, creating a cage of limbs. She looked up at the sky, and the bloated-out stars and satellites. “I believe in a god. Or something. Something with a capital S. Because without something being out there, what’s the point? If no one is out there, if no one cares, then why should I?”
Jimmy grunted in assent and handed his cigarette to Kira, who stubbed it out beside her head. She watched the smoldering embers for a moment and grew cold. “I don’t want to be alone in the universe, Kira,” Jimmy admitted.
Kira was silent for a moment, then flicked Jimmy upon the nose. “Don’t be pretentious. You’re not alone.”
The quiet sang them lullabies in the night.