Tag: Religion

Eternal Wager by Josh Rank

“Why do you do that?”

I turned around, halfway up the stairs, and pretended I didn’t know what he was talking about.

“Do what?”

“Slap your leg?”

We were in his basement, which had a same-leg staircase.

“Wanna play horse?” I asked.

He paused for a second, and then said, “Sure,” before running past me up the stairs.

I don’t know how it started, these little games. But they still linger. The initial motivation might be gone, but they’re worn in place. Products of habit. Annoying tics that my wife can’t stand.

Timothy the Turtle and the Spiritual Awakening by Lisa Fox

No one would ever know if Timothy the Turtle’s arrival at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Roman Catholic Church was a well-timed prank, or a tiny miracle.

Sometime between the First Reading and the Responsorial Psalm at the first Friday children’s mass after Easter, he’d wandered through a maze of potted lilies on the altar. Prehistoric feet pressed into the plush carpet as he ventured out, one agonizingly long step at a time. Timothy stopped at the altar’s edge, facing the pre-pubescent, parochial-school-uniformed congregants giggling on either side of the center aisle.