the next morning…
The next morning he gave the innkeeper two silver coins and said, ‘Please take care of the man. If you spend more than this on him, I will pay you when I return.’ ~ Luke 10.35
The next morning the man half-dead woke up barely alive in an unfamiliar room. He realized the events of the day prior were far more than a parable. His memory an empurpled groin save for a no-good samaritan acting decently and the dim refrain of a couple of religious ninnies singing ‘walk on by’ – that latter part obviously a dream but by god it sure as hell sounded real. Following a refreshing continental breakfast his immediate challenge, of course, was summoning the courage to retrace his steps and go back up the road he’d just yesterday fallen down, no doubt passing the exact spot where those men stopped him to ask if he knew the way to San Jose and for the very life of him he didn’t. The innkeeper, sensing his dilemma, said ‘look buddy, your hero covered you for another day so why not carpe the diem, read something from our lending library or better yet go sit by the pool?’ The man thought the offer quite neighborly and almost accepted when suddenly he broke out in a dread sweat as memory came flooding in – the samaritan’s musky foul in his face, his farewell threat: ‘Your naivete almost got you killed. It’ll happen again if you don’t grow up. Don’t be here when I return.’
Thank you for the ear worm(s), and the rest of the story.
You’re welcome, GH…
*Ah. I love a good surprise ending.
*You made it seem like, just maybe, the good Samaritan had saved the hide of the prodigal son.
*When everyone was singing Dionne Warwick in my house growing up … I wanted to be Carol Bayer Sager… go figure.
Patricia, I like your thoughts about the prodigal…as I read that parable again it struck me how nice we make the good samaritan when he may have been quite the gruff goat…and hey, can’t go wrong w/Sager, never.