The Sifting by Azure Boone Read Free Book Online Page A

however he wished it to be?”
    She gave a long pfffft followed by giggles. “You people amaze me, truly.”
    “You people?”
    “Yes…” She nodded and tapped her temple with a squinty eye. “You people who are sooooo smart and have the… audacity to think that there is no intelligence lurking beyond all those silly little Bible words.” She held up her hand as though expecting stupid words from him. “I know, I know, contradictions… inconsistencies. Or?” She leaned forward a little and held up a finger. “Or. Clarifications, and variations.”
    He couldn’t keep from grinning at how cute she was tipsy. But he couldn’t afford to go easy on her. “So the truth changes.”
    She shook her head real big. “ I’m sayin’ that…the truth…no wait, back up, back up. Saying that humans are like… crystals. And none two are the same.” Her brows drew together. “None two? No two? No two. And when the truth passes through these crystals…” she nodded with a wait for it smile, “…its reflection… varies .”
    Micah got hard despite his inebriation. She was so fucking bright in so many ways. She was as different and beautiful as that explanation she just gave. And whenever she got passionately pissed about what she believed, wow, a major turn on despite how ludicrous he found her ideals.
    “So I’m supposed to believe that we inherited a genetic flaw, and that your god imputed the inheritance—that we have no control over if it’s genetic—to us as sin, and will punish us with eternal hell if we don’t take his Jesus pill?”
    She stared at him then busted out laughing. “Oh my God, Micah,” she shook her finger at him, “that is actually exactly it.”
    “And you find it just to impute genetic flaws as sin?”
    She took another swig of wine. “M-mm,” she shook her head, “not the kind of sin you think. Different kind. This one’s inherent , it’s a defect, the one sin that we can’t undo or not commit by choice.” She hiccupped. “But all the rest…” she waved her hand, “we commit all of ‘em, every single one.”
    “So why impute a defect as sin?”
    “No, you’re not getting it. Say two red roses… mix with a carnation.” She shook her head, “no, scratch that, stupid analogy,” she muttered. “Say you have a lock and there is only one perfect key that fits that lock. Now say that the one perfect key is the first perfect couple on Earth. Now say that couple sins one time. Are they still perfect? No, they’re not. And therefore they can no longer open that lock, which is Heaven by the way. Now those two perfect people who were no longer perfect had imperfect offspring. They passed that state of imperfection to their kids. Like a genetic flaw. ”
    “Okay, stop right there,” Micah cut in. “They sinned, why not punish them and be done, why not create another woman instead of damning everybody.”
    “I thought the very same thing,” she gasped. “ I thought, God, why not start over? Why let this one screw up mess up the whole plan? Then I’m thinking, wait a minute. If this God really did create everything then it’d make a lot of sense to assume he knew what the fuck he was doing, right? Plausible. Very.”
    Micah licked his lips, ready to eat her in her chair if she got any fucking sexier. Her passion for god moved through her body like a fire. A fire that Micah wanted to taste and tame. Then conquer.
    “ Are you read for this?” she said, sitting forward in her chair. “God damned the entire world for the sins of one man so that He could come back later, and… free the entire world by one. Man’s. Righteousness !” She flopped back in her chair with a grin and took another swig. “He’s the fucking bomb if you ask me.”
    Micah had to chuckle. She was priceless. And beautiful. “What if I don’t take his Jesus pill?”
    She pffed. “That’s fine, your loss, you don’t have to have it.”
    “But according to you, if I want heaven, I do. It’s all