Two teenagers, a boy and a girl, sit on the bleachers in an old gym painted blue and grey. Her dark hair flows loosely onto her shoulders and frames her face as she absently plucks the strings of the old guitar in her hand. His dirty blond hair is messy and sticking up slightly in places while he spins a basketball on his pointer finger. He flips it in the air and catches it firmly between his hands.
"Do you believe in fate?" The abruptness of the question cuts through the air between them.
There's a slight pause before the answer comes. "I don't know." Another pause before, "Do you?"
This time there is no hesitation before the response. "No."
"So you don't think that everything happens for a reason? That everything we do has consequences and affects something else?"
"No." The retort is short and curt.
"Why not?"
"I just don't think it makes any sense. How can it be true that people are meant to die when they have so much life left to live and one person can fall in love with someone whose completely wrong for them and that there are children out there who are just meant to grow up missing parents?"
There's a longer pause this time before the answer is spoken quietly. "But what if it is meant to happen? People die to make way for new opportunities and we fall in love with the wrong person to see if we're strong enough to handle whatever they bring with them. Maybe children without parents are stronger then the ones who have them. Maybe they're not. You can only be the person you let yourself be, right?"
The question is carefully avoided. Soon a new question is asked. "Do you think we're like them?"
There's a smile before the response comes this time. "In some ways, yes. We came from them. They made us who we are and I think part of us will always carry part of them. But at the same time, no. We are who we are and we're going to do great things on our own. And eventually the stories that they left behind for us will be replaced by something new and completely different. Something that belongs just to us."
"But what if you're wrong. Maybe we're all just here. Not going anywhere. Just wandering around with no direction or purpose. Everything could just be by chance, right? What if it doesn't mean anything at all?"
"What if it does?"
Instead of continuing their discussion, they fall into their silence.
The girl starts to make a melody that the boy recognizes. The song is old and he doesn't know why she's playing it but he does know that she plays it well. Before she can start singing, however, he stands up and shoots the ball towards the hoop. Even though he's well past the three point line, the ball softly swishes through. As it hits the floor and bounces away from them, he sits back down and leans back.
"Show off."
He smirks and tilts his head back. He's always felt the calmest here. He knows the history of this gym and would be lying if he said he didn't love it. He loves to think of everything that happened here over the years. The history that was made. Even before he was born. When he's in this room, everything feels possible. Like he could do anything in the world, conquer any dream he could think up. He couldn't explain the feeling to anyone, not even the girl sitting next to him. A small smile tugs at his mouth as he gets lost in his thoughts.
"What are you thinking about?"
"Nothing." His smile grows. "Everything. Them. Us. The past. The future."
Instead of an answer, all that can be heard is a frustrated sigh.
"I hate when you answer me like that. Why do I even bother asking anymore?"
He doesn't reply and neither of them says anything for a moment. They're content to just sit with each other in this silence.
"Do you think that if they knew then, what we know now, things would be different? That they would have made different choices if someone had told them everything that was going to happen?"
He shrugs nonchalantly. "Maybe. But isn't that what makes it mysterious? No one knows if the way things are is the only way they could have been. People mess up and they think next time, next time I'll do something different. Or, on the off chance that something actually goes right in their lives, they think that they have to keep doing things they way they've been doing them to keep their luck. Otherwise, things will start to change for the worse. What if it's not like that, though? Maybe whatever's going to happen is going to happen and all the things we do to change our lives don't actually mean anything."
The girl raises an eyebrow and smiles sarcastically. "So now you take a stand on the whole fate thing."
"I guess."
She leans back next to him and says, "Sometimes I wish I could go back. Back to before it all began and warn them. Or at least prepare them. Tell them what's coming and exactly what they need to do to change it. To make it better. Easier."
There isn't any response to this declaration. They sit together and both get lost in their own thoughts. The girl eventually picks her guitar back up and starts strumming out the melody again. As she begins to hum softly to herself, the boy eyes the ball and weighs his yearning to play and how he doesn't feel like getting up to retrieve it. Eventually, his laziness wins out and he leans his head back again. As he shuts his eyes, he thinks about what the girl had just said. What would he do if he did have a chance to warn them?