Job was a blameless man. He had land, livestock, children; rooms that never stayed quiet.
The news arrived in bursts, messengers out of breath, each one worse than the last. By the time they finished, he tore his robe, shaved his head, then dropped to the ground. He repeated his children’s names.
His skin didn’t hold together. It split and festered, sores running from his feet up to his neck. He sat outside the city, in a heap of ash. And he would sit there every day.
His wife stood over him. You’re still holding on? she asked. Job said yes.
Three friends came from a distance. When they reached him, they sat in the same ash. They didn’t speak for seven days.
When they did speak, it came out certain. They told him there was a reason for it all. That a man doesn’t lose everything without cause. Job must’ve done wrong.
Job told them they were physicians of no value, forgers of lies. He stayed in the ash, defiant. They moved away from him; he became an outcast.
There arrived a younger man. When he opened his mouth, he said suffering was only correction, and always temporary. The measure of a man is not his wealth but the shadow he casts in the service of others.