Scribe – Six Sentence Story

Gerald deciphered the script covering the small tablet. The scribe who wrote it did not anticipate that he would have a reader four thousand years in the future. Indeed, given the evils of the conquering lord whose forces had killed almost everyone in his own house, all the scribe hoped for was the world’s imminent end.

At that end, when the real Lord appeared, every tear would be wiped away as praise and thanksgiving joined in an eternal caress. The scribe prayed for mercy, or so Gerald imagined reading now between the lines of the tightly written tablet.

In the meanwhile the currently reigning lord of calamity was busy devouring the land with no time to waste on mercy.

Denise offers the word “scribe” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories. And Eugenia offers the word “caress” for her prompt this week.

Sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean
Sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean

Author: Frank Hubeny

I enjoy walking, poetry and short prose as well as taking pictures with my phone.

43 thoughts on “Scribe – Six Sentence Story”

  3. Ah well. What a perspective. What will our words mean 4,000 years from now? What will they mean 1 billion years from now.

    I need to have a perspective of eternity and not today. Thanks for the insight.

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  7. Thought-provoking piece, Frank! Reading between the lines is only from the reader’s perspective and could be misconstrued not only is scripture but in anything that is read.

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  10. hey! while I agree with the above, imo, ‘reading between the lines is to invoke our personal ‘letters of transit’ that we, all of us, Readers have when we set out to sit down and go beyond the everyday.
    thought-provoking, yo

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  11. A thought provoking piece. So much changes over time- the times themselves, the meaning of words, and as we all know the intent or implications a writer sets forth is always open to interpretation by the reader. What I liked about this was the interplay of past and present. Sadly, some things never change, like the need for mercy.

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    1. It does (especially with only six sentences). 🙂 Thank you, Mimi!

      I enjoyed the descriptions, “scribe monkey” and “hired monkey”, in your story. They stood out well.

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    1. Probably the main thing that changed was the Resurrection of Jesus during that period of time. But as far as those reigning lords of calamity devouring the land go, they are much the same. Thank you, Denise!

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  18. I sometimes reflect on how much attention scribes must have paid to each word that they wrote, an attention that we perhaps lack in our busy modern world.
    And action needs always to be tempered with mercy.

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  19. “Tell me the old old story.” Here on earth one lord succeeds another and all with about the same agenda. And still time goes on and conquerors have their brief day. Until that final Day when the Creator says “Time is over.”

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