Crosby traces idle patterns in the condensation on his water glass, ice cubes clicking softly as his fingers move. “You know what I’ve been thinking about, John? How differently everything lands now. Take your old bits – the cheeseburger sketches, the college decadence – in your time that was rebellion, thumbing your nose at stuffed shirts. Now?” He gestures toward the fluorescent-lit kitchen window where orders await pickup. “Kids are fighting for a living wage at those same burger joints. The wild parties read more like privilege than protest.”

Belushi’s quiet for a moment, unusually contemplative. “Yeah, and what we thought was tragic? Nuclear war, environmental collapse – we played those for dark laughs. Now they’re just… Tuesday headlines. Kids are growing up with that as background noise.”

“Exactly,” Crosby nods. “So when we talk about finding the sacred in America now… it’s not just about tracking down old ghosts and holy places. It’s about seeing how grace moves through a world where Amazon delivers enlightenment and TikTok spreads prophecies.”

“And where every joke comes with a content warning,” Belushi adds with a wry smile. “But maybe that’s the point – the sacred isn’t where it used to be. We’ve got to find it in the drive-thru line, in the gig economy, in the digital spaces…”

“In the spaces between,” Crosby finishes. “Where comedy and tragedy blur into something else entirely.”

The fluorescent lights flicker again, drawing their attention to the rain-streaked windows of the diner. Batman-Perry looks up from his coffee, which has gone cold. “So we’re looking for where the sacred hides in the automated customer service calls and social media algorithms?”

“And in the comments section,” adds the waitress, appearing suddenly with the coffeepot. She tops off their cups with practiced efficiency. “Though that might be more Old Testament sacred – lots of wrath and lamentation.”

Belushi grins at her addition, but his eyes remain serious. “The thing is, we’re all still searching for meaning. Just doing it through different channels now.”

“Through TikTok prophets and Reddit shamans,” Crosby muses, watching the steam rise from his refreshed cup. “Through memes that spread faster than any folk song ever could.”

The neon ‘OPEN’ sign buzzes softly in the window, casting alternating red and blue shadows across their booth, like some kind of secular stained glass.

“Comedy and Tragedy are different because pain is different,” says Lynch. “We share our pain differently so we identify with different things in art.”

“Yeah,” Belushi nods, pushing his plate aside. “Back then, the collective pain was about authority, about being trapped in systems. Now the pain is about those systems falling apart and nobody knowing what comes next.”

Lynch stirs his coffee methodically, the spoon making a perfect circle. “The comedy of chaos isn’t funny when chaos is your daily reality. And the tragedy of loneliness hits different when everyone’s connected but nobody feels heard.”

“It’s like…” Batman-Perry pauses, adjusting his cowl. “In my day, we made jokes about being watched by big brother. Now people perform their whole lives for the algorithms, and the real fear is being invisible.”

The waitress leans against the counter, her order pad forgotten. “That’s what I see in here every night. People aren’t afraid of being controlled anymore – they’re afraid of being irrelevant. They come in here just to feel real for a minute.”

Crosby nods slowly. “So where does the sacred fit into that? When everyone’s both performer and audience, what’s the modern equivalent of communion?”

The ceiling fan turns lazily above them, its shadows wheeling across the formica tabletop like time-lapse stars.

“I know that’s what we’re supposed to be looking for, but I’m afraid to find out,” I say.

Lynch’s eyes focus on me with that unsettling intensity. “Fear is appropriate. The sacred doesn’t comfort anymore – it disrupts. It breaks through the filters we’ve built to manage our constant exposure to everything.”

“Like a glitch in the feed,” Batman-Perry mutters. “A moment when reality tears through the performance.”

Belushi leans forward, his voice unusually gentle. “Kid, we were afraid too. Every generation that goes looking for meaning is afraid of what they’ll find. We just didn’t have to livestream our search.”

“The difference is,” Crosby says, studying my face, “you know too much going in. We could still pretend our revelations were unique. You’ve seen every epiphany already hashtagged and turned into a meme before you even start looking.”

The waitress wipes down a nearby table with slow, methodical strokes, but her attention stays with our conversation. “Maybe that’s part of what makes it sacred now – choosing to look anyway, even when you know how it ends.”

The diner’s chrome surfaces reflect our faces back at us, distorted and multiplied, like everyone’s multiple online personas caught in a moment of unexpected authenticity.

I nod my head, acknowledging the importance of his observation. “I remember when the Cult came out with their album, “Electric”, back when I was in High School. I was disappointed that the riffs sounded so familiar, that rock was running out of steam. But now I’m really glad they kept going. They really kept on rocking even when the novelty wore off. But the thing is, that energy is familiar now. So many people go to that space. I feel Gia gave me something different, something psychic. I have to find a different space, a different presence to even talk about it.”

Lynch sets his cup down with exacting precision. “That’s exactly it. The familiar energies – rock, rebellion, even psychedelia – they’ve become part of the cultural operating system. But what Gia showed you…” He pauses, searching for words that won’t diminish the experience. “That’s like finding a door in the code.”

“The raw feed,” Batman-Perry says quietly. “Before it gets processed into content.”

Crosby nods slowly. “We used to think altered consciousness was the doorway. But now consciousness itself is what’s been altered. Everyone’s brain is already rewired by the digital age. So finding the sacred might mean finding your way back to some original signal.”

“Or forward to a new one,” Belushi adds. “Something that doesn’t need likes or shares to be real.”

The waitress touches the coffee pot but doesn’t lift it. “You know what this reminds me of? How people used to worry that recording music would kill its soul. But it didn’t – it just meant we had to learn to recognize soul in new forms.”

“Yeah,” I say, feeling something click into place. “Maybe that’s why I’m afraid. Because whatever Gia showed me, it can’t be shared like everything else. It’s not even about being ineffable – it’s about being unpluggable.”

The overhead lights catch the steam rising from our cups, making momentary architectures that refuse to be captured by any lens.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” asks Batman-Perry.

Belushi bursts out laughing – that real, unfiltered laugh that used to startle audiences. “Finally! Someone asking the real questions.”

“Look,” I try again, “it’s like… remember when computers first hit big, and everyone thought virtual reality would be like Tron or The Lawnmower Man? But instead we got Facebook and Twitter – these flat, text-based things that somehow rewired us anyway?”

Crosby picks up the thread. “And now we’re all living in this consensus hallucination built on likes and retweets…”

“Speak for yourself,” Batman-Perry cuts in. “Some of us are still trying to punch actual bad guys.”

Lynch’s eyes gleam. “But that’s just it. The villains aren’t wearing masks anymore. They’re wearing verified checkmarks and corporate logos. The hero’s journey has been monetized.”

“What I’m trying to say,” I persist, “is that Gia showed me something that doesn’t fit in that framework. It’s not better or worse, it’s just… perpendicular. Like finding out there’s a direction that isn’t up, down, left, right, forward, or back.”

“Oh,” says Batman-Perry, suddenly quiet. “Like when you’re fighting someone on a rooftop and for a split second you forget which way is gravity.”

The waitress adjusts her apron and leans against the counter, folding her arms. “So what you’re afraid of isn’t finding it. You’re afraid of having to build new senses to hold it.”

“A new system of probabilities, like bebop or cool jazz coming out of swing,” says Crosby.

“Right,” I say, warming to this. “But it’s not just a new style – swing to bebop was still working with the same basic human nervous system. This is like… having to grow new nerves.”

“Evolution in real time,” Lynch murmurs. “The way the first mammals had to develop new brain structures to handle warm blood.”

Belushi whistles low. “No wonder people prefer to scroll through their phones. Growing new nerves sounds painful.”

“It is,” Batman-Perry says unexpectedly. “Ask any kid who’s had to develop a sense for when a comment thread is about to turn violent, or when an AI is trying to manipulate them. Those are new nerves we never had to grow.”

Crosby’s fingers tap out a complex rhythm on his mug. “In jazz, we called it ‘big ears’ – when you could hear where the music was going before it got there. But what you’re talking about… it’s like needing big everything. New organs of perception.”

“And the worst part,” I add, “is you can’t unlearn it once you start. You can’t go back to not sensing what Gia showed you, any more than you can unlearn how to read.”

The waitress slides into the booth next to us, her shift apparently over. “So we’re all becoming new creatures, whether we want to or not. Some of us are just more conscious of the process.”