To Indeed Be a God

Nuwanda

TW: brief mention of suicidal ideation
PSA: I wrote Claire's poem again 🧍‍♂️

The gang all returned to their rooms. Claire prepared for bed and eventually went over to Neil and Todd's room.

Claire sat on Todd's desk chair as they all talked and shot the breeze, talking about gossip and such.

"So," Neil said, taking a sip of water, "what's up with you and Charlie?"

Todd nodded, "Yeah, you seem... hostile,"

Claire sighed and walked over to the window, closer to the both of them.

"It's stupid. Just drama,"

Neil rolled into his stomach, "So? Tell us,"

She scoffed, "Okay, so I'm doing the science project, right? Well, Charlie was my subject. I had to do cotton swabs on a clean mouth, a mouth after they kissed someone and a mouth after they smoke a cigarette. I already got the first two, and I just needed to get the cigarette swab,"

Neil stopped her, "Is that why you two were kissing when I walked in the other day?"

"Yeah. Anyway, Charlie came over last night, he smoke a cigarette, we talked for a bit, just hung out. Then I swabbed his cheek and deposited it, said goodnight, all that jazz. He stood by the door, just staring at me. So I walked over, and he tried to kiss me,"

"Really?" Todd asked.

"Yeah. And I freaked out, so I slapped him,"

Neil laughed, "You slapped him?"

"Well, what was I supposed to do?"

"Anything but that,"

She laughed a little, "Well, anyway, he's ignored me all day. Until our argument at the phone,"

Todd shrugged, "I'd call it a lover's quarrel,"

"Shut up!" Claire laughed before looking out the window, "Oh shit! Look at the comet!"

Both Neil and Todd jumped out of bed and crowded around her to see the huge green trail slowly streak across the sky.

They watched it go in silence then let their exclamations go.

Neil sighed, "I love stars,"

"Me, too," Claire and Todd said in unison.

"I mean, you ever think about constellations? H-how humans just found shapes in the stars and spread the stories around the world? They're an entirely man-made construct and don't actually inherently exist in nature. I mean, the universe gave us the stars and we saw art and myths and stories in them. The capacity that humans have for seeing purpose in the incidental makes me realize just how lonely we are on this planet, desperately searching for meaning elsewhere in the universe,"

Claire and Todd were quiet for a moment.

"Huh," Todd whispered, "you have some thoughts, Neil."

"You do," Claire said, "I think everyone has some revolutionary thoughts every once in a while," she said, turning around so her feet were out the window and her back was against the sill, effectively making her look upside down.

"What are you doing?" Todd asked.

"Looking at things from a different perspective. As Mr. Keating said," she replied, "I think that's what I wanna do. Make people look at things differently."

Todd nodded before doing the same thing on his bed, leaning his head upside down, "You made me look at death differently. Like with that poem. I'm not so scared of it anymore,"