Short Prose
Isaac’s Bullet
The lynch mob moved as one, stampeding down the dark dusty road. “Hang the witch! Hang the witch!” shouted the preacher at the head of the mob. “Hang the witch! Hang the witch!” echoed the rabble.
A single shot sliced through the sky. A single bullet went hurling straight into the heavens.
Isaac stood calmly on his front steps, half-eaten apple in one hand, smoking gun in the other.
The angry mob paused momentarily at the sound, then surged towards their goal. The bullet’s velocity paused instantaneously at zero and began its voyage down. Isaac looked directly into the preacher’s eyes, confident in his knowledge of the world.
The preacher raised his Bible over his head and spoke, “God shall punish thee for thy sins, Newton.” The bullet sunk itself in his skull.
They buried him in unconsecrated ground.