A Drunken Conversation With My Shadow In The Graveyard

By Danny Johnson

“Do you believe in the hereafter?” I sat in front of my mother’s grave, whiskey bottle in hand.

“I don’t know, do you?” My shadow only spoke when no one was around.

“Sometimes I do and other times I don’t.”

“What makes the difference?”

“I think things like, ‘this can’t be all of it’, then I have this dark fear that this just might be all of it.” I rolled over to prop up on my elbows, getting the long view of my dark twin.

“Are you afraid of going to Hell?” For a shadow he asked hard questions.

“No, that’s the fear, that neither Heaven or Hell exist.”

“I see.”

“I’m glad you do, because I don’t. What makes us believe in something we have no proof is there?” I took another swig.

“Faith?”

“Whose faith? The Jews, the Catholics, the Christians, the Islamist, the Buddhist?”

“Any of them.”

“You mean they’re all right?” Even drunk I wasn’t buying that.

“What I mean is, it only matters what you believe.”

“What if I die and I was wrong?”

“Who will know?”

“I will.” I drained the last drops from the bottle.

“I guess you will have to deal with it then.” He could be a smartass.

“But it’ll be too late.”

“For what?”

“To have chosen the right way.” I was getting exasperated.

“What is the right way?”

“I don’t know.”

“There you go.”