The Interrogation
I gesture to the chair opposite.
The old man strokes his white beard
and looks grateful
as he sits heavily with a grunt.
I have just a few, but important, questions.
He makes no response.
What are we to do? Why should we do anything?
Silence.
I’ve been told you have answers. Have you no reply?
More silence.
Speak! Are you not God?
He lifts his head and whispers, “You say so.”
Then who are you? Do you know who I am?
The old man simply stares.
I stop peppering him with my inquiries
and look deeply into his dark eyes
shimmering with the mystery
of a million suns in the night sky.
No longer hopeful of learning from his words,
I rise from my chair and use it
to bash his head in. Rich fertile soil pours
from his mouth. As if stepping through a waterfall
a doe emerges from his left eye
and a squirrel scampers from the right,
dropping an acorn in the humus.
It splits and begins to grow.
When I can no longer see the oak’s crown,
the squirrel leaps upon the deer’s back
and they bound up the trunk,
the squirrel shouting, “Follow us!”
©2019 Kenneth W. Arthur
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