The Family Bible

The black leather binding was cracked and faded from decades of wear, making the words inscribed on the front cover illegible.  Curious onlookers from utility companies, census takers, and door-to-door salesmen passing through town would sometimes inquire whether it was Old Testament or New and occasionally ask about the edition, King James?, American Standard?, New International? Warren wasn’t sure why none of them ever asked to look inside.  Maybe it was reverence for the book, which was placed prominently in the living room atop its own pedestal that Warren’s father had crafted from the trunk of a fallen tree.  Perhaps they simply didn’t want to be presumptuous or appear rude.  Whatever the reason, Warren found it odd that such an object could sit out in the open; the brazenness of it felt wrong to him, like the killing of a defenseless creature simply because one could. This mentality set him apart from the other boys his age.  He didn’t engage in the taunting and roughhousing that seemed to have become a constant activity among his peers.  He didn’t sneak out at night to egg cars or walk the railroad tracks searching for squirrels and birds to peg with rocks.  Not that anyone had asked him along to any of these illicit activities.  His family were outcasts in a town that was itself a pariah to the places that bordered it.  This distinction did not cause him to be picked on or bullied, just ignored and forgotten, which Warren was grateful for.