“Of All The Daggers That Have Rusted In My Back, I Think I Like You The Best”

The rusted apparatus was surgically grafted to the gnarled hump in the old man’s back. He smiled a simple smile just as timeworn and burdensome as the junkmachine itself and said,

“I do this for God.”

“Why” I asked him.

He just reached back, pulled a lever, and started the machine.