I sit, slumped in my seat, my buttocks aching from where they press against the hard wooden pew. Sunlight filters between the shades covering the windows, falling across the cheap wooden slats covering the ceiling, the brick walls, the dusty carpeting from the sixties, and finally the body of believers.

Their eyes are wide open, despite the harsh rays falling in strips across their faces. Pupils fully dilated, their eyes burn, tears falling down their cheeks as they finally unconsciously give in to the urge to blink. Enraptured, besotted, they scribble notes down on the backs of their bulletins without even looking to the paper. Their pens wander carelessly from the sheets to their arms to their laps; they don't notice.

The speaker system coughs and shrieks out pious words of holy men. Steam rises above the aisles as holy water leaks out their eyes, melting trails down their waxen faces. My head begins to throb. The speakers cry out, proclaiming how embarrassing it is when the dead pretend to be the living. Heads nod sagaciously. My throat begins to hurt.

A bleeting sheep trots into the stagelights and the praises begin. Hundreds of voices fill the air, feeding the invisible beast floating above their heads. The sheep almost falls over and I'd laugh if I wasn't filled with such hate. The holy waxen sheep, knowingly feeding the wolves amongst them.

I yawn a cracking painful yawn, desperately trying to clog my eardrums, to drown it out, that horrible blind pious bleating. Scattered among them, the products of incest, the freaks of nature, they shout and slobber and speak in tongues. These waxen beings they look at each other, smiling their wide, loving toothless smiles.

Flapping their naked gums, they say, oh isn't it just the cutest thing? When it kicks its father, when it strangles its mother, when it cries out the names of little girls. Isn't it marvelous? It's almost as if it's halfway there to being a person like and you and me.

The speakers shriek that musical instruments aren't sufficient to feed the beast like spilled blood. Way back when, it was the law: lambs, and calves and baby birds. Tie your children to the altar. It's just a joke, knock on wood. The wooden pews, so chipped and faded, the modern day altars of waxen sheep.