"What do you think happens when we die?" she asks
"Well I think we die, duh." he replies
"Yes numbnuts, but I mean then what?"
He shrugs one shoulder and pulls a face, scrunching his nose up making him look like a pug dog
"Nothing. you kick the bucket and then that's it. Lights go out. Goodbye. world. Nice knowing ya."
"So you don't think there's somewhere else then?" she says disappointingly.
"Somewhere else? like where? the pearly white gates. come off it. you don't actually believe in all that shit do you. That an all mighty god is sitting up there waiting for us to come a knocking. Beware though if you sin you will be cast out, even the gays are terrified of going up there the bible says there all going to burn in hell."
"You're such a sceptic."
"I like to think of myself as realist thank you very much."
"Do you mean a dick-ist," she adds
"It's common sense, all we are is some strands of DNA stuck together by chance and then when our heart stops pumping then we die, and that's it. people just look for an answer to it all, because there scared of the truth."
"But no one actually knows that for sure."
"True."
"So there could be something else?"
"yeah just like there could be aliens out there abducting peoples cats but hey how can we prove it."
"I guess someone would have to kill you first," she grinned manically and he shuffled away from her
"Get that look off your face that's one of the creepiest things I have ever seen since that time I thought Susan Boyle made a porno and it turned out to just be some old granny. phew a relief and a half that was."
"Admit it though subo porn does sound cool."
"Well ok ... maybe a tiny part of me would like to see that. For educationally purposes of course."
"Is the word tiny there important to you." she held her fingers apart a then wiggled her pinky and said "look familiar?"
"Oi ya cheeky bitch, you never slag off a mans bits. its like common knowledge. there is a line one must never cross and the length of a man's willy is that line."
"But it's ok for men to talk about girls parts like there on display twenty four seven"
"Well if you go by Ayr lassies then yes there always on display, though id rather watch a tank of tropical fish than see there red-snappers."
She laughed but only briefly a great sadness washed over her face suddenly
"Yeah but anyway back to my original point. Its just I want to believe there is something else out there."
"Why are you going on about all of this? what brought it on?"
She looks down at the ground, fiddling with the laces of her shoes.
"I -its my mum she ---- she has cancer"
There is silence, an awkward pause, in which she shifts her eyes on him as if waiting for a scream and then he takes a gasp of breath.
"B-but I thought it was gone I thought she got better?"
"S-she did but well --- it came back."
"It can come back?"
"It's not supposed to. they said it wouldn't but....." her throat cracks, and for a moment it looks like she might cry then she says almost unheard "it did"
He moves closer to her, his arm over her shoulder, there hands clasped together
"Baby, she is a fighter your mum will be ok."
"I no she is but I just well since it all I keep thinking what else is there. we all go about our daily life's we work we eat we sleep we do the same thing over and over it makes you think what is the point. there has to be something else to it all something more important? don't you think?"
He pulls her closer to his chest and kisses her forehead
"I don't know I suppose there has to be, it would be pretty shit if this was it, we are born we die, kinda makes no sense. there has to be some kind of purpose, I guess."
"So then there has to be somewhere we go, there must be a god?"
He wrestles with the idea, chewing the inside of his gum.
"Well ...maybe it's not god, maybe it's something else."
"Like what?" she asks hopefully.
"Well many cultures call it something else, maybe it's just an energy out there, I read once that we are all energy and we all give off some kind of pulse."
Her eyes widen in wonder "Like electricity."
"Exactly."
"So if we are like electricity then maybe life is like the switch and the light goes on when we are born and off when we die, it just takes someone special to come back along and switch it on again"
"I like that idea. We are all light bulbs just waiting to be switched back on to shine. Your mum will shine bright."
"Like a diamond..." she sang then giggled "sorry ha Rhinna does it much better than me I couldn't help myself."
She looks at him, the corner of her eyes prickling with tears
"Promise me one thing."
"Anything."
"Promise me that if I go before you that you will come and find me."
"Don't say things like that, you and I are going no where."
"I no but just say you swear it, that if I do you will come and find me."
"Ok I swear."
"Cross your heart."
"Ok."
"Well do it ...."
He crossed his finger over his chest where his heart was
"Cross my heart .." he repeated
"and hope to die." she added "you will find me there in the sky."
They kissed, there arms cradled each other's body's, tears trickled down her face yet they were happy tears, because for that brief moment in his embrace, nothing else mattered, everything made sense. Everything would be ok, she had to believe that, her mother would be ok, there had to be something else out there, there had to be a point to all of this, there was never just nothing ... as she pulled away from the only man she loved she stared up at the clouds and to herself smiled, knowing deep down somewhere in her very being that one day she would discover the truth....but until then she had to keep her light switched on, in the hope it guided those in the dark, to safety.
