STORIES: Untitled

So.  That’s it then.  There really is no God.

Charles Alphonse Caretta leans back in his chair after pulling the chain on the desklight.  The tiny room is lit only in the blue-white glow of the computer screen, a small circle of light that expands outward like a fan, catching just the edges of his face, his chest, his right hand in its beam.  The clutter beyond is clean, belonging to the darkness of the shadows. He should feel something more than what he does, he thinks.  Five years of work–no, a lifetime less his youth spent at St. Anthony’s–and by the twisted paths of numbers, here facing him is proof that God does not exist.