"So Pashhur bound God's messenger in chains, and kept him in a dungeon overnight. When they brought Jeremiah out in the morning, mice had gnawed through his rags. His hair hung down in clumps over his tired eyelids.
"How have you faired, o lowly one?"
"Lowly one, you call me? God has told me that lowered shall be your name, when the dogs lick your remains in dust-filled streets."
"Do you duel with me now? Have you forgotten you have no sword?"
"Letters are sharper than steel's blade."
Pashhur laughed. "Let this man go.", he said. So Jeremiah stumbled away, yet he knew that he would continue to proclaim God's word, for his soul was bound to God's soul, as lovers were bound together by a kiss."
"You skipped something Mommy! Did you skip something?"
"We'll continue the story tomorrow", she says, bending down to give her daughter a kiss. She turns out the lights on her way out, leaving the seashell-shaped nightlamp to illuminate her daughter's dreaming.
When her work is done and the laptop has been put to sleep, she pours herself a cup of coffee and reads over the skipped paragraph.
"But later that night, Jeremiah cried. "Cursed is the day I was born, that I am born for such a task. Why must my heart burn with His fire? I tell myself I will speak no more of His words, but even as I mouth the letters, I feel the flames rekindling, the prophecy filling the spaces between my teeth. Sing to the Lord, who is with me as a mighty warrior, to shield me from the enemies who would raid my hearth."
Then he made himself a cup of coffee."
As she took a sip of coffee, she reassued herself that she had made the right decision: Why should she force her daughter to face the moment of disillusionment, when the hero turns out to be human?
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