I swear to God — no, I swear to… something else, I guess — this is killing me. Every night, same thing. Everyone kneels, eyes shut tight, hands clasped. And I'm there, at the head, leading them. My voice, reciting the words I’ve heard since I was a child. The words my father used, and his father before him. And my kids, my sweet, innocent kids, they mimic the reverence, the hushed tones. My wife, bless her heart, she looks at me sometimes during it, a soft smile on her face, like I’m some pillar of righteousness. And I just… I go through the motions. I PROJECT it. I project FAITH. Because what else am I supposed to do? Blow up their whole world? What would that even LOOK like? It’s like I'm a character in a play, and the stage is my living room. And the performance… it’s flawless, I think. Nobody suspects. Nobody could. Because the real me, the one who lies awake staring at the ceiling and asking the empty dark WHY, that guy… he’s locked away. He’s been gone for years, honestly. Just a slow fade, a quiet erosion. One day you’re all in, heart and soul, feeling the Spirit, whatever that means. The next, you’re looking around, and it all just seems… made up. A story we tell ourselves to feel better about being flung onto this rock, knowing it’s all gonna end. But you can’t say that. You CANNOT say that here. Not in this house, not in this town. It would be a BOMB. Sometimes I think about just… stopping. Just one night. Just sitting there, silent, when they all look to me. What would happen? Would the world stop spinning? Would they look at me like I’d gone mad? Or worse, would they just… pray louder? Pray FOR me? The guilt, man. It’s a physical thing. Like a stone in my gut. I see their faces, those trusting faces, and I think, I am a FRAUD. I am a damn fraud. And yet, the alternative… the sheer, unimaginable CHAOS of revealing this, of ripping away the comfortable blanket of belief from my family… I don’t know if I’m strong enough to do it. Or maybe I’m not weak enough. Maybe I just love them too much to break their hearts with my inconvenient, godless truth. We humans, we build these elaborate structures, don’t we? And then we live inside them, even when they’re crumbling around us, because it’s better than the void outside. It’s just easier. For everyone. Except me, I guess. Tonight, another night. Another prayer. Another lie. And the silence afterwards… it’s the loudest thing in the world.