Jonah Hirnbrecher was doing something with his hands, on or behind the shoulders of Jim Snapjudge. He seemed to be unfastening an invisible something, probably a garment. Then he drew it off and folded it carefully with his ritual hands. The object was still invisible, and yet its shape, including the very fancy fringes of it, could be guessed from the movement of those Jonah hands.
"I am removing your Prophet's Mantle, Snapjudge," Jonah said then in a liturgical voice. "It is best removed some hours before death, for the prophetic faculty is already lost when the doubting and questioning begin. When one dies and the Mantle has not been symbolically removed, then the trees in the sacred talking groves (there are still some in nearby Scioto county) will wail out 'A Prophet is dead!' and I hate to hear grown trees cry."- - R.A. Lafferty
Today's earrings: gingerbread men, fire trucks
Bedtime reading: Iron Tears, R.A. Lafferty
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