The Falling Action - Short Story Excerpt Two

There's a joke we tell up here, and it gets us all pissin' laughing 'cause it's so brutally true.

"Wha's tha difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter? The side you're on."

I'm sittin up here with men with fucking turbans on their heads, the lads that starved themselves and painted their jail cells with their own shite, and we are all crying with laughter because we did no fuckin' good.

I think we all missed the flamin' point, to tell ya the truth.

Catholic, Prod, God doesn' give a flyin’. He's na even sure He's right, He was just thrown inta this position and now people are dyin' for Him all over the place. He doesn' even exist, not how they told me growin' up. He's more just real because we all collectively live life believing in him. It's hard ta explain unless ya see it, like, but is na what ya think. It's really a lot more abstract than ya think.

And the laugh that He's havin' on us is that life isn't what ya think either. Life is the most precious fuckin' gift because things can change. It's tha worst part of life, too, but it's also tha best.

Things are changin' every day and nothin' can be predicted for certain, and about a million things will happen in your lifetime that'll shock the Jesus outta ya, but that's the really cool bit. Up here, everythin's always the same, and nothin' changes, not really, because nothin' has any weight now that it's all over. And surprising change, tha’s what makes life bigger than us, and that's what makes us all small, but small together.

Up here, it's like you only got the same ten records to play all the time, and let me tell ya, even if they're great records, you are left bustin' for a radio station. Even a shite one, because the great thrill in life is not knowin' what's coming next. Even if it is shite.

And I think His only point, that I well missed, is to love the shite out of everythin' ya can, because that's what you think of when you're up here, alone but not really alone, if ya get my drift.

There are some perks, like. I get ta meet famous people. I met Elvis. I met John Lennon. I met Jesus, he's got gross hair in person. But ya know what they all said?

"I wish I wasn't fuckin' dead."