Unclean

More trouble than can be cured

UNCLEAN

The crowd was pressed hard around him,

but suddenly began to melt away like Summer snow.

Rapidly giving room to a small group of ragged men,

whose bones could be seen glistening where flesh had been.

Their hand bells sounded a gruesome warning.

Unclean unclean.

Only he stayed unmoving as the group came nearer.

“What do you want of me?”

“Lord we know that you can cure us.” they said.

“So be it, your faith has made you whole.”

Overjoyed they looked at each other and saw that it was so.

With wild cries of delight they headed off to their homes.

A week later they came back to see the Master.

“You have come back to thank me?”

“Not exactly” they said, “We cant go home, our families do not believe we are cured.”

“We can't find work, no-one will work with us.”

“Our leper colony won't let us share the food that kindly folk leave in the desert

nor the shelter we built and lived in before we were cured.”

“They say we are frauds as there is nothing wrong with us,

so now we are homeless and starving.”

“So what would you have me do about this?”

“Make us unclean again.”

Reviews

[Intelligidiot]

Very well done! I love alternate perspectives on classic stories like this one.

[Samuel Dickens]

Very well done. Sadly, some people really would prefer disease over starvation. I guess you've got to do what you've got to do.