[Writing Prompt] Write one of the Bible stories, but as a grandfather poorly explaining it to his young grandson
Grandpa Jim Botches The Story Of Abraham
“OK, OK. Lay down already and I’ll tell ya a story.”
Grandpa Jim helped his grandson Nicky into bed, tucked him in under the covers and cleared his throat.
“Alright, so a bed time story, eh? I got one of those. All the best stories come from the Bible little Nicky. Ya know why?”
Nicky shook his head no.
Grandpa raised a shaky finger up toward the ceiling and looked up there once himself. “Cause they was all written by God himself, and God was a good story teller. Alright, let me think here, which one to tell.” Grandpa Jim’s lower lip came up over his upper lip in that way it always did when he thought hard about something. At last he came back from wherever it was his mind tended to go. “Right, OK, I got it. The story of Abraham and Isaac. This is a good one. You’re gonna love this one.”
Nicky smiled a little and waited expectantly. Grandpa Jim cleared his throat again and began.
“A long time ago, in a land far, far away from here – ya know, out there in the desert somewhere prolly – there lived a man named Abraham, and his little son, Isaac. Now Isaac was Abraham’s only son, the most important thing in the whole wide world to Abraham. Abraham loved Isaac more than he loved his own life.
“Well, one day, Abraham is goin about his business, ya know, prolly pickin whatever fruit grows in the desert I guess, or maybe, uh, hunting lizard or sumthin. But, ya know, whatever, Abraham was doin his stuff, whatever that might’uh been, when he hears dis voice, right?
“Oh! Abraham, it’s me, God. That’s what the voice says, ya get it? Abraham, listen up, I need ya to go down to that rock, ya know the one, that rock over by that river over there, and I need you to kill Isaac!”
Grandpa Jim raised his hands up in mock surprise. Nicky gave Grandpa Jim a confused look. Grandpa Jim said “Right? What’s that about?” Then he continued.
“So, Abraham, ya know, he’s upset, right? He stops what he’s doin, maybe he, ya know, drops his bundle of lizards or whatever, and he looks up at the sky and he says, ‘Hey, whatdya, whatdya? Whatdya mean I gotta kill Isaac? That’s crazy, you’re bein crazy. Why would I do that?’
“But God was real serious about this, he wasn’t gonna take no for an answer. He said ‘Hey, listen up pal, this is God here ya talkin to. This isn’t a democracy, either you kill Isaac or you’re both gonna be in some trouble. Serious trouble.’ Then, to prove his point, God sends a lightning bolt down and it zaps… I don’t remember, Abraham’s hat off his head or sumthin.
“But Abraham, he gets the message, ya know? He decides, if that’s what God wants, Isaac dead, then that’s what God’s gonna get.
Nicky is clearly baffled at this point, as this story isn’t really making a whole lot of sense. But Nicky is also nothing if not a extremely polite and soft spoken child, and so he just keeps on listening, saving his questions for the end. Grandpa Jim goes on.
“So, Abraham runs back to his house, or his tent or whatever, and he grabs Isaac and ties him up without explaining anything, and he puts Isaac on the back of a camel… or maybe they walk – I don’t know how they got there – but eventually Abraham gets Isaac to this rock God was talking about. Abraham puts Isaac up on this rock and he takes out this knife and he’s all ‘Son, God told me to stab you in the heart and so, you know, I got to do it.’
“Isaac ain’t too happy about this of course, so he says, ya know, ‘Dad, what are ya talking about? You’re gonna stab me because God said so? I mean, are you even sure it was God, maybe it was just your imagination ya know? Maybe ya just need some medicine or sumthin.’
“But Abraham, he wasn’t hearing it. God told him to kill Isaac, and that’s what he was gonna do. So Abraham raised up his knife.” Grandpa Jim raised an invisible knife in the air, “held it over Isaac, and said ‘For you, God, I do this thing!'”
Grandpa Jim paused dramatically and Nicky leaned in a little, his tiny face expectant and worried. Then Grandpa jumped back into the story.
“And then Abraham plunged the blade into Isaac’s chest. Isaac was all, ya know, ‘Holy crap, you stabbed me! Oh my God, you stabbed me!’ And Abraham was all, ya know, ‘I thought God would stop me! I didn’t mean to, I just figured it was a bluff.’
Grandpa Jim gave a sad face and nodded slightly.
“But it wasn’t a bluff. God just really didn’t like Isaac for some reason, no one knows why. It’s just one of those things. Isaac died and Abraham went to jail I think, for a long time. Ya know, whatever the maximum sentence was back then. Maybe it was just a stoning, he might have been stoned, I don’t know. I don’t really remember. But anyway, that’s the story of Abraham and his son Isaac.”
Nicky’s mouth seemed to be stuck slightly ajar and he looked up at Grandpa Jim with eyes filled with confusion. Nicky started to ask a clarifying question, but Grandpa Jim cut him off.
“Eh, eh, eh, we said one story, and that’s what you got. But don’t worry, they’ll be another one tomorrow night. For now, you get to sleep, you.” Grandpa Jim bent down and kissed Nicky on the forehead, completely oblivious to Nicky’s distress at the story. Shakily, Grandpa Jim got up and turned off the lights in the room. “Alright, G’night Nicky.” Then as he left the room and shut the door, Grandpa Jim added jokingly to himself, but accidentally loud enough for Nicky to hear, “let’s hope God doesn’t tell me to do anything crazy tonight.”
Laying in his race car shaped bed, in the dark, Nicky did not sleep a wink.
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