The Atheist

"It hardly mattered how her belief in God dissipated if her body still believed."

Hello loves,

Hasn’t the last week flown by? It’s been a little bit of a blur though I do remember that I read Show Me Where It Hurts by Claire Keegan and what a bruising book. A severely depressed man drives his family into a ditch, his wife inspects their marriage in an attempt to understand what he did as she moves on. I probably haven’t done the overview justice, but if you’ve read a Claire Keegan book you’ll know you are in for some hurt.

This week I have a flash fiction piece for you, more hurt but short and sweet. A little exploration into muscle memory and faith. I was raised a Christian but now identify as an Atheist but there are certain teachings, beliefs and actions that have ingrained on me I still practice them now without intention. This story isn’t mine exactly, but it is something I have experienced and I don’t doubt many others have too.

Let me know what you think in the comments.

See you next week.

Jordan x

The woman was an atheist now, but occasionally she prayed. She prayed the way she had when she was a child, who slept with a bible bound in leather worn by the hands of her grandmother under her pillow, afraid that death might take her in her sleep. At least, it would take her to God if the bound tracing paper pages remained nestled between the goose down pillow and her mattress. Back then her body made her aware of her knees, the thin skin separating bone from hardwood floor. More recently, her body made her aware of the ache in the back of her knees when she knelt. She would never kneel to pray anyway, to do so would send a surge of nauseating hypocrisy right to her core. Clasping her hands together, fervent and hot, and bringing her forehead down to rest on her knuckles came to her reflexively. The body knows. My body remembers, she thought every time. Every time fear of the dark took hold and restrained her like a small animal ensnared. The months succeeding the day her parents told her her brother was now with Jesus she spent asking God to return him to her or take her to him. All the times the violence in her parents’ voices drove her to ask for their silence. The years she begged for family to understand her and love her for who she was. Each and every night before bed when she pledged her soul to the Lord above. Never bothered by the crackle of silence that ensued. The movement has been absorbed into tissue, became as tensile as muscle and calcified alongside her bones. So it hardly mattered how her belief in God dissipated if her body still believed. When she has laid in bed registering a new day as a white or yellow or grey slithering crack in her curtains, and her crackled lips utter, “Please.” When she feels the curve of her knuckles press upon her forehead, she knows it is the only thing her body understands.