I Am The Local Atheist by Warwick Stubbs Page B

them being blacklisted, or whatever
else has put them where they are now.”
    Christie had
to concede the point. “True, but thank God that we have the Sallies
to help them put their feet back on the right path.”
    “ And that’s only if they choose to follow any kind of advice at
all. Right?”
    “ Well, yeah, sure. But God works his wonders in all sorts of
ways.”
    “ I would have to question how many of these people even believe
in God if this is where they’ve ended up.” Lucas put out a
defensive hand towards the caregiver. “Not saying this is a bad
place, or anything; just that what they’ve done has caused them to
end up here.”
    Christie countered: “Well if they put their faith – and their lives –
wholeheartedly into God, they would find that they would no longer
need to make those kinds of decisions that would land them here.”
She put out a defensive hand towards the caregiver. “Not saying
this is a bad place, or anything.”
    Lucas rubbed
his chin. “Yeah, but that’s only if they choose to even follow
God.”
    Christie took
a deep breath and tapped her foot impatiently on the bottom
step.
    Lucas turned
to her. “You alright?”
    “ My toes are getting sore.”
    He looked down
at her feet. “You should try a different pair of shoes then.”
    The staircase
made a lot of old creaking noises as we ascended it. Each step
seemed to have its own whine, like the timbers were complaining
about the amount of weight walking on them. After being told about
some of the mental patients and criminals that ended up here, I
half expected a resident to burst out of their room brandishing a
weapon and yelling at us to keep the noise down or he’d shoot our
bloody heads off! I also wondered if my over-active imagination
would get the better of me someday.
    I didn’t
exactly want to make my presence known, although the caregiver was
hardly doing anything to keep her noise down, giving casual nods
and boisterous ‘hellos’ to residents that walked past. Some of them
greeted her with just as much enthusiasm – one older man excitedly
shook our hands, each in turn, smiling gloriously like his day had
been made that much brighter just by our visit; others ignored us,
shuffled past and pounded down the creaking stairs trying to escape
our four-person crowd.
    All of a sudden we rounded a corner and the wood panelling
that created the hall in front of us seemed like an old run-down
apartment from Swat 4 , a game that I had recently completed without too many
hassles. I readied myself, shotgun in hand, pistol at my side;
creeping down the hall about to bust through broken and worn down
doors in search of terrorists and psychotics who were planning
either world domination or were simply taking revenge on sworn
enemies. I checked a couple of windows to see if they might offer
an alternate route along the outside walkways where I could get an
angle into their hideouts to fire from, but they were
locked. No good, will have to take the
direct approach .
    Lucas leaned
towards me. “You alright?”
    “ Yeah, why?”
    “ You seem to be acting a little funny.” He eyed the emptiness I
was clutching tightly in my hands.
    I released the
shotgun back into the thin air it had come from.
    “ And you’re smiling as though something is extremely
funny.”
    “ Or exciting.”
    “ Yeah.” He looked at me expecting me to say
something.
    I coughed
trying to get rid of the smile on my face.
    There wasn’t
much else to see, but the set-up of the rooms, and the facilities –
as worn down and falling apart as they looked – made me realise why
I had never seen all that many poor people or drug addicts on the
streets or sprawled in some dark and dingy corner of the city: the
reason was because most of them ended up here being looked after
long term and cared for when no one else would.
    We walked back
down the whining stairs and went through to one of the ground floor
wings where many of the older residents lived. The