On the balcony one night he told her, "You don't have to believe in Gods to be one." She was baffled for a while, determinedly biting into her lip, and raising a tiny hand to pick at its skin. Eternally chapped. Drawing her hand back to her side she finally replied,

"Surely a God would recognize his own worth."

He went silent, and soon her petite fingers were once again anxiously reaching for the shell of her lips. This time he intercepted. Her fist flitted in his palms like the smallest canary bird. He could count her pulse. Whispering, he breathed,

"Maybe that's the signature of a fraud."