SKEPTIC

Brothers and sisters, the preacher
warned us, God is not mocked.

I was nine and impressionable.

He told a story, true he said, about
a car full of laughing young people.
It came screeching up to the stop
sign where an old man stood waiting
to cross the street. He said to
the driver where are you going
in such a hurry? The driver tossed
an empty beer bottle at the man and
said we're going to hell, wanna
come along? A mile down the road
the car crashed into a bank, three
of them were killed. O brothers,
O sisters, what you sow you shall
surely reap. The wages of sin is
death as it says in the holy book.

I was nine and impressionable.

But I wondered if he hadn't made the whole thing up.