GALE ACUFF
Exodus
In Sunday School today Miss Hooker said
Let my people go! Or Moses said that
to Pharoah, not to me. But then again
maybe I have some, people I mean, I
keep as slaves but not real slaves but slaves all
the same. I have to think about that one.
And I don't live in a pyramid or
wherever Mr. Pharoah lived. I live
in a little white frame house about one
mile from church so I walk here and of course
back again. It's a kind of exodus,
unless that's one of those new foreign cars.
I forget. And I sleep in the attic.
Maybe that's a kind of upper room.
I'd like to try a manger out to see
what that sleeps like but I'm ten years old so
it might be a little small for me but
just right for Jesus, even though He was
--or is--a kind of king, even bigger
than old Pharaoh but a little later
in history. I'm not stupid--so what
if I failed the second grade. Not by much,
I'm proud to say. It's not false pride, either.
But the only slaves I think I own are
my dog and goldfish but I treat them right.
They're free to come and go as they please--well,
not the goldfish, they would drown in the air.
And my dog doesn't seem to want to leave.
Good boy. But I do have parents, Father
and Mother, I mean. Father goes to work.
He's a geography teacher so we're
poor. Mother stays at home but still works hard.
She works hard for Father and me and he
works hard for us and maybe I don't work
as hard for them as they do for me but
that's natural, I guess, and I'm a lot
smaller and not so educated and
I don't drive or shave. Not that Mother does,
shave I mean, unless you count her legs. She
has two, last time I checked. Ha ha. Maybe
I do own slaves, then. I hadn't thought much
about it. I don't have much to think with
yet. One day I'll have more. Then they'll be free,
Father and Mother. I'll let my people
go, but by leaving them. I'll graduate
and get a job and get married and have
babies and be their slave. That's what you call
justice. I'm going to pay for my crimes.
I just hope that I don't go to Hell but
if I do and I should see that Pharoah
I hope he doesn't laugh at me. Too much.
Anyway he drowned and now he's in hot
water again in the flames of Hell or
something like that. If he laughs at me I'll
point that out, that God made him all wet, then
turned up the heat. If he says back, You're here,
too, I'll say, Well, yeah, but I'm proud to be.
So there. And that he let my people go.
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