“Have Faith”

I was on a roof of a house, dislodging tiles, thinking about despair, when a pair of nuns came and sat next to me, without greeting or acknowledgement.

Wordlessly, they passed a hip flask between them, a smell of vodka and Vimto fizzing out from within it.

We sat there for some time, the three of us, with not a word cast in my direction; and with nothing but the hip flask passing between them.

Without prompt, the furthest of the nuns from me said, as if to no one, “Have faith,” before leaping off the roof. 

I peered over the edge, two storeys down, anxious of what I might see.

To my great relief, a moment later she entered from the edge of my viewpoint, from where she ran off, clearly no worse for wear.

I turned to face the other nun.

She was staring in a deeper distance, seemingly unfazed, her only movement to blink. 

“She always does that,” she said, handing me the hip flask without looking, nor breaking her gaze.

vss #37