"We'll never fit in, will we?"
I can't help but laugh at Christopher's question. So obvious that only he could ask me and mean it.
No, Christopher, we will never fit in.
We're four kids from another universe's middle class suburbia, who somehow managed to save the world. It defies the odds. Not only defies them, but spits in their face and laughs at them as well.
We're the stuff of legends. April - the lady bard, the warrior poet. Christopher the minstrel, telling our tales to all who will listen, and they only grow more and more fantastic with every beer he drinks. David is the hero, of course. Every story needs a hero and preferably one as tormented and fucked up as he is. And me? I'm Jalil, the magician. Just a scientist, really, but to them it's magic. At least, that's how we all started off. Now we're more than that. We're gods. We're worshipped like gods. Whispered about like gods. We are gods. They've made us that way.
They're stupid.
Ignorant, I suppose I should say. Naïve, even. I've always been one to be politically correct. Being the smart black kid with the obsessive-compulsive disorder does that to you. But they are so, so stupid.
They think gods can make rain. They believe that their prayers and their sacrifices will bring them a good harvest or a healthy baby. I don't want to believe that. I don't want to. I know that rain is precipitation and temperature and wind currents, and that a healthy baby is a balance between genetics and health care. Invoking the name of Bongor or Jupiter or Zeus and slaughtering a goat on marble steps should do nothing. They put their faith in chance, in what they cannot see. In some supposed deity whose voice they will likely never hear, whose face they will likely never see, who will likely never distinguish them from the millions of other beings on the planet. They have faith.
I know that's something I will never have. And I don't know if I pity or envy them for it.