Michael Malone - Weebly

think you can subpoena the universe to answer your
charges. But God's like the government. He can't be
sued."
When he pulled the cord to turn on the stockroom
light, Mr. Smalter found Luke Packer huddled on a
footstool. Quickly the boy picked up a cardboard box
and, with a muttered greeting, turned his back on the
pharmacist. He moved like someone who continued to
function after having, unawares, suffered a concussion.
Immediately Smalter realized what he cursed himself for
not having remembered earlier, that he had once seen
Luke and Joy Strummer in conversation, and that the
boy would have naturally been given the news.
When he returned to the front of the store, he
continued to curse—
the fact that the girl had to die, the fact that Luke
had to know and to come to terms with her death, the
fact that anyone had to come to terms with death,
whose terms were so unconditional and outrageous, the
fact that everyone's body (whether beautiful like Joy
Strummer's, or deformed like his own) was a rotting jail