When I turned about 14, I developed a friendship with this guy

Host: The evening was swollen with heat, the kind that makes the air hum with an almost electric tension. A neon cross flickered outside the window of a small diner off the highway, casting its red glow over the chrome, the coffee cups, and the faces of two people who looked like they had already lived three different lives tonight.

Jack sat at the corner booth, his shirt sleeves rolled up, his hands inked with faint tattoos that peeked like memories trying to escape. His grey eyes were fixed on the window, watching the neon cross flicker like a heartbeat struggling to keep faith.

Jeeny sat across from him, her long black hair resting on her shoulder, her fingers tracing the rim of a half-empty coffee cup. Outside, the sign buzzed, glowing, then fading, as if it couldn’t decide what it believed in.

Jeeny: “You’ve been staring at that cross for ten minutes, Jack.”

Jack: “Yeah. It reminds me of something I heard once. Marilyn Manson talking about Ernest Angley — the faith healer. Said he was like ‘Liberace mixed with Jerry Falwell — glitzy, high-tech, and holy all at once.’”

Host: His voice was dry, almost amused, but there was something unspoken behind it — the weight of irony, the kind that only comes when faith and performance blur into the same stage light.

Jeeny: “You mean those televangelists? The ones who heal people through the screen?”

Jack: “Yeah. The ones who sell salvation with a microphone and a suit.”

Jeeny: “You sound like you envy them.”

Jack: “Envy? No. Maybe I just… understand them. They figured out the oldest truth in the world — people don’t want the truth. They want theater.”

Host: The lights from passing cars swept across their faces, turning their shadows into ghosts against the wall. The jukebox in the corner played something slow, a melody too soft for the kind of conversation they were having.

Jeeny: “You really think faith is theater?”

Jack: “What else could it be? You ever see a man cry because a preacher told him God loved him — right after asking for his credit card? You ever see a woman fall to her knees, not because she was healed, but because someone told her she could be? That’s not faith. That’s performance art.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe that’s human need, Jack. The need to believe in something bigger than yourself. Even if it’s wrapped in sequins and spotlights.”

Jack: “You sound like you’re defending it.”

Jeeny: “I’m defending us. Humanity. We’ve been chasing signs since the beginning. Burning bushes, talking serpents, glowing crosses — maybe glitz is just the modern form of miracle.”

Host: Jack laughed, but it wasn’t cruel. It was the kind of laughter that bleeds out of disbelief.

Jack: “So you’re saying Ernest Angley was a prophet with a stage crew?”

Jeeny: “Why not? Prophets always had audiences. Moses had the desert. Jesus had the hills. Angley had cable television. Different centuries, same craving.”

Jack: “Except Moses didn’t have sponsors.”

Jeeny: “Maybe he would have if they’d offered him airtime.”

Host: The rain started, tapping lightly on the roof — not enough to drown their words, just enough to make them sound like confessions in the dark.

Jack: “You know what scares me, Jeeny? The way belief looks so much like manipulation from a distance. You take a lonely man, promise him a cure, add a little glitter, a song — and he’ll hand you his whole life.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s not manipulation. Maybe that’s mercy. Maybe it’s the only way some people survive — by believing in the performance long enough to find their own truth inside it.”

Jack: “So the show saves them?”

Jeeny: “Sometimes the illusion is all that keeps the real world from breaking them.”

Host: The neon cross buzzed, a sudden flare, then dimmed again. It looked like it was breathing, or maybe praying.

Jack: “You sound like you’ve forgiven the world for lying.”

Jeeny: “No. I’ve just accepted that we all lie a little when we talk about hope.”

Jack: “You ever had faith in something that turned out to be a show?”

Jeeny: “Every day. People. Love. Even you, sometimes.”

Host: Her words hung between them like smoke — visible, bitter, and true.

Jack: “That’s cold.”

Jeeny: “It’s honest.”

Host: He leaned back, the booth’s leather creaking, his eyes narrowing not in anger, but in thought.

Jack: “Maybe you’re right. Maybe faith is just performance we agree to believe in. We want the lights, the music, the promise that someone — anyone — knows what they’re doing. We pay for the illusion because the truth costs too much.”

Jeeny: “Then what’s the truth, Jack?”

Jack: “That nobody’s healing anyone. We’re just holding hands in the dark, pretending the warmth means salvation.”

Jeeny: “And maybe that’s enough.”

Host: The waitress passed, pouring more coffee, her eyes glancing at them, half-curious, half-tired. The diner smelled of burnt toast, rain, and philosophy.

Jeeny: “You know, when Manson talked about Angley, I think he was fascinated not by the faith — but by the spectacle. The way humans will dress belief in rhinestones if it makes it easier to look at. Maybe that’s art too.”

Jack: “You’re saying faith and art are the same thing?”

Jeeny: “Both try to make the invisible visible. One uses God, the other uses paint.”

Jack: “And both lie, beautifully.”

Jeeny: “No, both reveal, painfully.”

Host: The rain had grown heavier, beating against the windows now, the sound like a thousand hands clapping for something neither of them fully understood.

Jack: “Maybe you’re right. Maybe there’s no difference between a preacher’s stage and a rock star’s stage. Both promise redemption — one through divinity, the other through noise.”

Jeeny: “And both only work if the audience believes.”

Jack: “So the faith healer and Manson are the same?”

Jeeny: “Different costumes. Same longing.”

Host: The neon cross outside flared one last time — a pulse of red that filled the diner, washing their faces in the color of sin, love, and showmanship.

Jack: “Funny, isn’t it? How we mock the showmen, but still need them.”

Jeeny: “Because they remind us that even illusion can be holy for a moment.”

Host: The rain slowed, the light dimmed, and the world softened around them. The jukebox clicked, changing songs — a low, haunting melody that felt like both an ending and a benediction.

Jack: “You think any of us actually know what we believe in anymore?”

Jeeny: “Maybe not. But maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe the act of believing — even falsely — is the last sacred thing we’ve got left.”

Host: He nodded, silent, watching the last flicker of the cross fade into the night, until all that remained was the reflection of their faces in the window — two souls, half skeptic, half believer, both haunted by the same light.

And somewhere between faith and theater, between truth and illusion, the world kept spinning — still selling salvation, still buying hope, still applauding every miracle that came with good lighting.