Life life life

"There isn't any God, boy. There's no such thing as the soul. There's just blood and flesh and bone. You weren't put there by a higher power. You were put there because I stuck something in your mother and the meat of you grew into something else. The meat needs to be fed, and you need dollars to do that, and that's the sum of all we are and ever will be"
The big man left without a further word. The boy lay back on his bed and watched the moon and thought about what had been said to him. He didn't question the lessons, he didn't resent the pain. That ship had sailed, then sunk, long, long ago. There was a time he remembered being angry and sad, but it seemed more like a dream than a memory now.
His father's fists had hammered that weakness from him, like a hammer smoothing and dimples from a sheet of metal. His father was his god, and his god was teaching him to survive.