Chapter 4: The Breaking of the Bread
That night, Elias sat in the dirt outside Silas's shack. There was no neon here. The stars were visible, cold and distant, yet somehow intimate.
He began to talk. He didn't know if he was praying or just losing his mind. He talked about the static in his head. He talked about the girl he had let go because her "compatibility score" had dropped. He talked about the crushing weight of trying to be his own god in a world that was falling apart.
"If You are there," Elias whispered, "I don't want a filter anymore. I want the weight. I want You."
In the silence that followed, there was no lightning bolt. No booming voice.
Instead, there was a sudden, profound shift in the atmosphere. It was the feeling of a hand on a shoulder. It was the scent of rain on dry pavement. Elias felt a surge of affection so powerful it felt physical—a love that didn't ask for his resume or his credentials. It was a love that said, I have been standing in this room the whole time, waiting for you to notice.
Elias wept. He wept for the years he spent in the static, and he laughed for the joy of the clarity he found in the dark. He realized that the "Love of Jesus" wasn't a sentiment or a slogan. It was a gravity. It was the force that held the atoms of his soul together.