A Discussion

                "Do you believe in God?" The man with the crutches asks me. It is such an odd question, and it takes me a few seconds to gather my thoughts for an appropriate response.
             "What do you mean, Gatsby?" Me and George Gatsby had been friends for years, first meeting at the shipyard, working together, fixing up the lame boats that had been left alone for many months. He sets his crutches aside, leaning them up against the wall as he does the same, looking oddly alike, two immobilized objects.
             He says with not so much as a grin on his face, "Well, I’m just wondering, because lately, if there is a God at all, he has been neglecting his attention towards me."
             I nudge him in the shoulder, "That's not true and you know it. You've lived such a good life."
              "Yes, but not as good as a king, or a wealthy man."
             I begin to wonder if Gatsby has something further on his mind, something other than whether or not God exists. Never had he given so much as a conundrum about higher powers. For as long as i had known him, he always resided in the moment. I had for as long as I knew him, envied that existence. Never had he appeared so heavyhearted. "There's something else, isn't there?"
             Gatsby looks up, shifts around so he could better speak with his friend.
             "I just learned that my daughter died last night." He said, with just the faintest glimmer of a tear out the corner of his right eye.
              "Oh dear Gatsby! I'm so sorry." I lay my hand on the beginning of his rough, sunburned neck.
             "It's alright Matthew, there's a lot you don't know about me. I never knew her, she was taken away when she was very small. Her mother called me in the night to say that she had cancer for a year now. I yelled at her, partly because i was angry, partly because i was scared. She hung up after about five minutes, and that was it."
             I stare at Gatsby for the longest time. Never had I known my friend to be so at pain with anything. And it was true, I hardly knew anything about the person that I called friend, almost to the point of not deserving that state. There was indeed a lot I didn't know about him.
         The wind blows quickly, whipping my jacket back and forth. Gatsby is wearing nothing but a pair of blue jeans and his green short-sleeved work shirt. It is early in the morning and the sun is only a third into the sky. The harbor is ripe with the smells and aromas of fresh fish and salt water. The sound of the waves running alongside the shore and the wooden planks of the boardwalk are not entirely distant. I can hear the heavy canvas sails, however succumbed by a taught rope binding them to their tall masts, whipping and snapping in the wind that is slightly harsher on the way up towards the sky.
         Gulls are cawing in their indecipherable bird language as they hover above the town, no doubt waiting to swoop down at the sight of a discarded bit of fish or bread-crumb on the sidewalk as well as the live fish that swim just under the waters surface.
         “Gatsby?” I ask, wondering if he had forgotten the nature of their discussion already, “About God?”
         Gatsby closes his eyes and lets out a great sigh, “Matthew, I do not believe that God exists.”
         “Why do you say such a thing? Just because something happens that affects you, does not mean that God has neglected you at all.”
         “What makes you so sure, Matthew?” Gatsby says.
         “Because. My reason is that if anything, this is proof that God exists. It means that something higher up than us is governing and controlling the world we live, and the things that happen in it.”
         Gatsby replies, “If that is indeed so, why must he permit this suffering?”
         We are both silent for a while. I don't know what to say to this seemingly harmless question, yet as deep as the deepest fathoms of the ocean. In this quiet moment, there is nothing but the constant drum-beat of the waves. It is that, which makes me understand one thing, understanding that my previous statement was incomplete, and utterly untrue. I look to the sea, to where the boats are lined along the boardwalk, anchored to the wooden posts by lengths of thick rope. I watch the rising and falling of the water, like something alive and breathing, some monstrous beast. Then I notice my own heartbeat, matching the beat of the waves and the beat of the sails flapping in the wind.
         “You know, Gatsby. I think it's all in us. In us to do the things we do, and because of that, that is why things happen. If you think about it, God does not appear to exist, but if you don't think, and just listen to the things around you, you realize that God is as real as the sea.”
         Gatsby looked me in the eyes, and smiled, “Thank you, my friend. Thank you.”