Verse Read Free

um…” I look at her screen. Some code or something. “What are you working on?”
    “A website.”
    “Sorry, I didn’t want to distract you.”
    “That’s okay.”
    We look at each other a moment and she goes to back to her screen and I go back to mine.
    I read about NDEs and the messiah and make some notes for books to find.
    The bell rings.
    I open my backpack and look for my schedule, it’s not in my notebook, maybe I shoved it down in there? No, I don’t see it. Or inside a textbook?
    She says, “What are you looking for?”
    “I can’t find my schedule.”
    “We have Chemistry.”
    I look up. “Oh, are you sure?”
    She smiles. “Yeah.”
    I zip my bag up and we leave and go down the hall.
    I should ask what her name is.
    I can’t ask her her name, she recognized me from class, I should know it.
    But I should say something, make some conversation.
    We get to class and I follow her inside.

Chapter 7
     
    My lab partner says, “Why’d you make that announcement?”
    I snap, “Why are you interested?”
    I look at him, he’s taken aback. He says, “I don’t know I guess I just think it’s interesting.” He’s just a skinny kid with glasses. He’s not teasing me, he seems curious.
    I say, “You’re interested cause it’s interesting?”
    “Uh, yeah. That’s why people are normally interested, right?”
    “Yeah, that’s true.”
    I put the spark lighter over the Bunsen burner.
    He turns the gas on.
    I spark it and it catches fire.
    I say, “Well, I drowned in the pool, did you hear about that? While I was dead, God told me I was the messiah.”
    He gapes at me.
    I continue, “And I just realized this is who I am.” I grab the beaker and the stand and place them over the flame. “I just realized that I’m me. You know what I mean? I mean I always knew I was me, but it was almost like I discovered the ‘I’ existed.”
    He grabs the pitcher of formula and pours it into the beaker. He says, “I know what you mean.”
    “You do?”
    He puts down the pitcher and turns to me. “I was talking to Jim and um, well you probably don’t know them, some of my friends about— they didn't have any idea what I was talking about.”
    “Like what? Like what didn’t they understand?”
    “Like I was asking them, what did they think the meaning of life was?”
    “Yeah,” I say. “Exactly. The meaning of life. Who we are, where we come from. Why we are the way we are.”
    “Yeah, but why do you think you’re the messiah?”
    “I— don’t know. I was chosen. That’s just who I am. It’s the same for everybody. We are who we are and there’s a reason why. If I’m me, there must be a reason I’m me. You’re not me. I’m me. And not just I’m me . I’m me.”
    Stop. Stop rambling.
    He’s looking at me.
    I say, “Don’t you feel the same way?”
    “That I’m you?”
    I laugh. “No, that you’re you. And that at the core of yourself, you can feel the uniqueness of your experience. And that’s it’s real, that you’re real, so life must be real. And so there must be reason for all of this.”
    “What reason?”
    “The meaning of life. There’s so much evil in the world. We see it every day. Most people just ignore it or go on with their lives. But it’s up to us, to any of us who are willing, to stop it.”
    “You think fighting evil is the meaning of life?”
    “It’s the meaning of my life.”
    “But fighting evil how? Like how do you mean?”
    “Anything. From stopping a big kid bullying a small kid to stopping a dictator from massacring people.”
    “I don’t know. What can we do?”
    “What can anybody do? We all have the same ability to do something. Each one of us has as much ability as anyone else.”
    “Yeah. I mean I guess you’re right.”
    I nod and look at him and we meet eyes.
    He looks down and then at our beaker, which is boiling, and says, “Maybe we should finish this.”
    I say, “Yeah.”
    I check the name at the top of his