Chapter 13

SAN FRANCISCO, Dennis ate a fruit and nut bar for dinner. He had brought them home from his shop, along with some St. John's Wort tea.  

The tea was supposed to help with depression.

Yes. He was depressed.

He missed his wife.

He missed the television and all their shows. He missed the online atheist forums where he used to spend much of his free time.

He missed the old world, the one where atheists were slowly being more accepted and respected. 

Now society had taken a thousand steps backwards.

He remembered the last time he had visited the forums. It was a few months after Nancy died. There hadn't been enough so-called proof yet, and most of the atheists hadn’t lost their common sense. 

One of his favorite posters, though, had gotten a message. He was starting to question things. Dennis respected that. Being a skeptic wasn’t about saying absolutely no to the possibility of the supernatural. It was about looking at things with an open mind.

The thing was, though, there were people visiting the forum. Invaders. Trolls. They Criticized and attacked.

Just a few. But Dennis had a feeling there'd soon be more. He didn't want to see the intolerance towards atheists return. And he had this fear that one day he'd return, and all the atheists would be gone. Transformed. He didn’t want to be the only one left. He didn’t want to be the only one able to distinguish fact from fiction, science from pseudoscience, reality from hysteria, and hype from truth.

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