Bob Schwartz

JOB
Explain it to me. I talked to my friends, I talked to God, but I didn’t get an answer. The good prosper, the bad prosper, the good suffer, the bad suffer. You’ve talked with God up close. Do you have any ideas?

MOSES
I am as in the dark as you. You can’t win an argument with God. I’ve learned that. Sometimes I felt like a glorified secretary taking dictation. I didn’t know why God even needed me. Why not just make a general announcement to everybody? So, no, I don’t have an answer for you.

JOB
I got pretty far with God, just not far enough. God chastised my friends for being know-it-alls. Between me and God, I didn’t win but I didn’t lose. In the end, I said let’s agree to disagree, and that was that. I got everything back, but that really didn’t make up for what I went through. You know how it is, though. You want some kind of reasonable principled explanation, but never get one.

MOSES
I never got one. The question we’ve got to ask, you, me, your know-it-all friends, all those I led who look up to me, is whether there is an explanation at all, and if there is one, whether we are owed one. You and me, we are both famous, maybe me a little more than you, and I think when we get through all the fine and fancy words—a lot of words—maybe nobody knows anything.

© 2022 Bob Schwartz