A Sign

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My friend struggles with her belief in God. One night, she prayed in the town square, beneath the big tree, asking for a sign that He exists and is listening. When she looked up, she saw the Big Dipper. As she tells me this, a fervent gleam in her eye, I am skeptical. After all, if you look up at night, you’re bound to see stars. 

My desire for death is strong. I want to obliterate myself. I’ve been praying to a God that I swore off years ago, just to get through the day without self-destructing. Do I believe? Who knows. It doesn’t really matter if I do or not — I just need to stay alive. “Philosophical suicide,” Albert Camus would call it.

As I’m waiting for my shift to start one day, I ask for a sign that I should keep going. A sign that I should not die. Then I decide to window shop in a store nearby to kill time before work.

I push the door open and see a little girl behind the checkout desk. All the lights are off. As I look around, I notice that the store is dedicated to clothes and toys and strollers for babies. I walk over to a doll in a stroller and start stroking its head as tears burn my cheeks.

The little girl’s mother comes out of the bathroom. “Sorry, we’re not open. We close at 6.”

I mumble my apologies as I try to hide my tears. And I leave knowing that I should not die. I am supposed to have kids one day.

A sign? Maybe. Or just a tortured mind trying to hold onto the illusion that anything matters. But either way, I stay one more day.


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