Smoke and Mirrors

Everyone's a god these days. There's the constant battle of heaven and hell, angels and demons, good and evil. How we get our wings or crash and burn always seems beyond our power, like some higher entity controlling our fate. If you believe in predestination, than I suppose you're alright with the idea of having no free will, an absence of identity, pure blind faith. But, if you're anything like me, that's not enough. You need a reason behind what goes on, some understanding, more than verbal threats that one side or the other's gonna come down and wreak His vengeance on you.

Some people call this karma.

I call it hypocritical bullshit.

Then again, why believe me? I'm only a mortal, like you, trying to make it in a world with self-proclaimed devils and saints. Not exactly an atheist, but not the type to waste my Sundays singing "Glory, Glory, Hallelujah" while a priest rattles on why and how I should live my life. If I want that, I can visit the closest bar and listen to sad, wasted saps drink themselves under the table as they recount the details of their horrible, pathetic lives. Not my favorite option, though. In fact, I have my own, standing in my apartment-sized bedroom, leaning out the window, staring through the blind like some fiend hiding in the shadows 'cause he's afraid of the sun.

I wonder if I really am scared of the light. Is it the beams itself that give me chills, just all things bright and beautiful in general? No. It's what they resemble, their symbolic references, the hallowed power behind the streams that scares me the most. During these times, alone with no one to influence me, no peers around to twist my quotes, nobody to argue with or say I'm wrong, I explore these concepts, sucking the sacredness out of the topic as if religion was no more than another cigarette.

Is that all Christianity is to me, the smoke of God and Satan in alliance with each other, the mirrors of illusion that either entity actually gives a damn about people?

Slender fingertips rake across the blinds, nails-turned-claws scratching off every wrong and righteous image imagined. "Smoke and mirrors," I whisper harshly, dangerously defiant, "you're all just smoke and mirrors."

Resting my cigarette in a pitchfork-like grip, I blew air out of my mouth, a puff of hell bound smoke burning my nostrils as if they merged into a fiery pit.