{"id":1095,"date":"2011-06-21T12:59:50","date_gmt":"2011-06-21T12:59:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/projectconversion.com\/?p=1095"},"modified":"2011-06-21T12:59:50","modified_gmt":"2011-06-21T12:59:50","slug":"storytime-the-siege","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/projectconversion\/2011\/06\/storytime-the-siege.html","title":{"rendered":"Storytime: &#8220;The Siege&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Once upon a time, I was a storyteller. All of our religious traditions use the power of fiction and metaphor to illustrate truth. Here is a short story I wrote last year called &#8220;The Siege&#8221;. I hope it gives you something to think about. Enjoy.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;The Siege&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>His mother tucked him in on the sofa with the green and blue quilt his grandmother had sewn for him. She was there<a href=\"https:\/\/projectconversion.com\/2011\/06\/prayer-hands.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-1096\" src=\"https:\/\/projectconversion.com\/2011\/06\/prayer-hands.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"259\" height=\"194\" \/><\/a> too, on her crackling, arthritic knees, praying at his side.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLord, we know that through you all things are possible.\u201d She tilted her age-creased face back and lifted her hands above her head. \u201cCleanse my grandson of this unclean spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His father, with a 12 gauge over his left shoulder, looked back at his family from the side of the dark bay window. The days-old stench of sweat and diarrhea soaked the air and curdled in his stomach as the illness siphoned life and fluid from his son. He coughed with his hand over his mouth and nose and said, \u201cHow\u2019s the fever, Grace?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His mother took the thermometer from the boy\u2019s mouth and shook the mercury. She squinted at the reading in a living room starved of light. A smile unzipped across her face as her son groaned below her. \u201cDown to 102!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPraise Jesus,\u201d he said with a nod and turned away. He stuck his index finger into the scales of closed mini-blinds and scanned for more FBI agents. A blade of sunlight cut through the darkness and painted a dusty yellow ribbon on the carpet just below the boy. The mother and grandmother clapped and danced around him, singing hymns to a god they believed didn\u2019t want the help of doctors. Dry sweat and mucus crusted on the boy\u2019s face. His voice trembled and cracked beneath the thunder of song and praise as a request for water withered upon his last breath.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Once upon a time, I was a storyteller. All of our religious traditions use the power of fiction and metaphor to illustrate truth. Here is a short story I wrote last year called &#8220;The Siege&#8221;. I hope it gives you something to think about. Enjoy. &#8220;The Siege&#8221; \u00a0 His mother tucked him in on the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":437,"featured_media":1096,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[16,94,104,137,233,245,287,301],"class_list":["post-1095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fringe","tag-andrew-bowen","tag-faith","tag-fiction","tag-hope","tag-project-conversion","tag-religion","tag-stories","tag-the-siege"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Storytime: &quot;The Siege&quot; - Project Conversion<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/projectconversion\/2011\/06\/storytime-the-siege.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Storytime: &quot;The Siege&quot; - Project Conversion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Once upon a time, I was a storyteller. 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