I gotta say, I’m kinda shaking typing this, like, what if someone I know somehow figures it out? Even if it’s anonymous, you know? But I’m just… I gotta get it out. It’s eating me alive, honestly. I’m a deacon, okay? In a small rural church. Been a deacon for, like, fifteen years? My dad was one, his dad before him. It’s just… what we do. It’s expected. And I go up there, every single Sunday, sometimes twice if someone’s sick or whatever, and I lead the prayers, I read from the Bible. I even preach sometimes, the shorter sermons, you know? And I look out at Mrs. Henderson, who made me cookies when I was little, and Mr. Davies who taught me how to fish, and my own kids, sitting right there in the front row, singing along, looking up at me… and I just… I don’t believe any of it anymore. Not a single word. It started slow, like, a few years back. Just little doubts. I’d read something, or hear something on the radio, you know? And it just kinda… made more sense. Logic, I guess. And I’d try to argue with myself, like, *no, no, you believe, you HAVE to believe*. But the more I thought about it, the more I read, the more it just kinda… faded. Like a picture left out in the sun. And now? Nothing. Just… empty. When I say the words, it feels like I’m reading lines from a play. A really, really old play. But what am I supposed to do? Tell everyone? Just stand up there next Sunday and be like, “Hey guys, good news, none of this is real!” You kidding me? My mom would have a stroke, honest to God. My wife, she’d be devastated. And the kids, they’re still in school here, you know? They’d be “the deacon’s kids” who suddenly didn’t believe. And my job, I’m in agricultural sales, pretty good position, been there twenty years. A lot of my clients are from these churches, this community. My reputation, it’s all tied up in this. It’s like, my whole life is a lie, but it’s a lie that keeps everything else afloat. So I put on the suit, I practice the readings on Saturday night, sometimes I even try to feel something, anything, you know? But it’s just… dead. And then I stand up there, in front of everyone, and I pretend. And everyone smiles, and they shake my hand after, and they say “that was a powerful message, Deacon.” And I just nod and smile back and think, *if they only knew*. I just wanna… I dunno. Scream? Disappear? I just feel so incredibly alone with this. Like I’m playing a part I never auditioned for, and the show just keeps going, forever. And I can’t tell anyone. Not a soul. It’s just me and this secret, every damn Sunday.