One day, God-With-Us and his groupies pulled into a small town and stopped at On Higher Grounds, a local church-run coffee shop where community leaders gathered each day to sit alone and stare at their screens. God-With-Us took James and John inside for a chai latte. When they came out, he found his other groupies bickering with some of the regular patrons.
He asked what started the squabble and a man stepped forward, saying, “Teacher, that young man there is my son. He has an attitude of bigotry which robs him of all civilized speech.”
The young man in question was sitting at an outdoor table, sipping a doppio and typing furiously on his laptop. Outwardly, he was as quiet, well-groomed, and respectable as any other customer, but online, he was nasty and vindictive and no one could silence him.…
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God-With-Us had come to Churchland and, since he was trending wildly across social media, many pastors were inviting him to speak in their sanctuaries and convention centers. They praised him for his authenticity and his wokeness, but they also kept a careful eye on him.
One morning, God-With-Us was ministering in a poor neighborhood when he came upon a line of invalids that stretched for blocks. Every year, a prominent doctor came down to host a one-day clinic for the economically disadvantaged. However many people he could see before sunset would receive professional medical care at no cost, no matter how deficient their health or health coverage.
God-With-Us saw a man who had been in a wheelchair for thirty-eight years and asked, “Do you want to be healed?”…
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Maisie’s like a celebrity in my hometown. I mean, we don’t really have celebrities, but people talk about the girl that stopped.
I was a toddler when it happened, so I don’t remember it, but my parents told me about it when I turned ten, all big eyes and low voices because they didn’t know what made Maisie stop. Some people thought it’d jinx children if you told them, but my parents explained everything. It was like they were afraid it’d happen to me, and they thought as long as I knew about it, I wouldn’t stop too. And maybe they were right, but the rest of the world is still moving.
Thing is, no one ever restarted Maisie. There were family and friends over, doctors and doctors and doctors, even a priest, but no one could figure it out.…
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I was born with a wooden toe. The nurses attempted to conceal its hardy composition by swathing me in a white cotton blanket, but the moment my mother laid her hands on me she counted my fingers and toes. You can imagine her disappointment.
As soon as I could stand, my mother bought me Straight Last shoes in an effort to conform the toe. They were stiff and lacing, a far cry from patent leather Mary Janes. I wore the orthopedic shoes every day for months and years, and still I walked funny. My left foot continued to curve inwardly due to the weight of the wooden toe. I became aware of gravity at a terribly young age. At Whittling Class the other kids threatened me with knives, asked to see my stub. …
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Can I come in sir?
The middle-aged man in the room looked up from the book he was reading. God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.
I am here to take the resit exam sir. Pablo Paul. MIS0202. 0202. Oh. Yes. Resit. For the World Literature course.
Yes sir. Is this the right room? Number 77. Yes. Ah, yes. You’re three minutes late.
Sorry sir. I don’t know this building very well. The rooms don’t follow a sequence.
Yes. Not familiar with this building. I can, yes, see that from your attendance record. Yes. MIS0202. Only three classes last semester. Yes. Those too were probably proxy presences from helpful friends.
I am sorry sir. I wasn’t very well. Can we start the test?
Yes, yes.…
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We were up in my grandmother’s big oak trees, the ones in front with the moss hanging down like witches’ hair. A Tarzan movie had come on the Early Show and me and my Cousin Johnny Wray were up there hanging on limbs with our shirts off making muscles. Johnny Wray could sound just like Tarzan when he called the elephants. That was the coolest thing that Tarzan did.
The problem with playing with Johnny Wray was that he always had to be the cool dude. When we played Gunsmoke, I had to be Chester, when we played Wild Wild West, he was always Jim West and I had to be Artemus Gordon. The worst was when we played Roy Rogers. I had to be Pat. …
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After Gabriel García Márquez died, I picked up my copy of Love in the Time of Cholera – or rather your copy, since your name is still written on the first page. For years, the book’s been a permanent fixture on my shelf; until yesterday, I forgot how it ever appeared.
You may not remember, but you gave me the book for my birthday, a day I hated and which I still hate, even though I have, in my old age, resigned myself to the fact that birthdays are like funerals – events which the guests require but which the person of honour would be just as happy to avoid. I never liked to talk about my birthday but somehow you got it out of me, which was a talent you had.…
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