By Ricky Garni

Beneath the article is a photograph of Sean Penn.

I haven’t read the article. I am not certain I want to know who is an atheist among celebrities or even my friends. I think that if someone knew whether or not there was a God, I wouldn’t ask him. I would be happy to know of course, if there were. Perhaps I would like someone to just surprise me with the news. They could say: “Guess what?”

But I still wonder about the photograph of Sean Penn. He doesn’t look very happy. Then again, he never looks very happy. Perhaps he is an atheist and it weighs heavily on his soul. Perhaps they asked him if he was an atheist and he found it upsetting, because he loves Baby Jesus very much and he also gets upset easily anyway even when he can’t find a parking space or a sharpened Number 2 pencil. Perhaps that was the only photograph they could find of a celebrity that looked like an atheist and frankly he kind of does. Or perhaps Sean Penn is an atheist, plain and simple. And perhaps the photographer just surprised him with good news, that there really is a God, a really great one, and he can’t be an atheist anymore. Who wants to know that they’ve been wrong their whole life? It’s really upsetting. And embarrassing. I wish the photographer had surprised me instead. I would be happy. And I never hit anybody. Except for Charlie when I was about 6 and anyway he just stole my double decker Corgi bus and so it was sort of his fault.