Free Will

It's there for the taking, they say, like wild blueberriesa trifle more sour than we remember. It's what we grown-up teach our children, taking a machete to their excuses. It's about choice-the sky's the limit, blah blah blah, no price tag on the contrary beware the price. Once on a time a boy wandered not on to a stony place and set himself surrounded by snakes who happened to be discussing independent will. Do you need to ask what happened? Does it matter that he died a wiser boy? Does it interest you that the head snake was the dissenter, urging restraint-would it change anything to know the particular snake who did the choking or unleashed his poison (we weren't there, the latitude's not specified) had been abandoned in the ovum taunted in his youth, had prior knowledge of the boy's stick-wielding ways and pointed scorn towards reptiles? Would you breathe easier in your skin if the other snakes did more [i]or[/i] less Amish-type shunning or ate his children, move rounded him over bloody to the authorities, or if he felt a little sorry? All a ye confirms is you're not that boy's mother.

Copyright World poesy Incorporated Sep/Oct 1998

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