Into his mouth went the lizard, and before I could accuse, out it came again, squirming and alive and ready to bite once again. Bewildered, he pushed the dead lizard around in the sand, and once assured that it wasn't going anywhere on its own, he picked it up and handed it back to his older brother. The younger boy played with the lizard for a while, teasing it until it reared its little head as if to bite, then he picked up a rock and mashed the creature's head. The boy took the lizard from his mouth and handed it to his younger brother, who sat beside him in the sand. "Unclean! Unclean!" I screamed, pointing at the boy, so my mother would see that I knew the Law, but she ignored me, as did all the other mothers who were filling their jars at the well. There was a light older than Moses in those eyes. His eyes were like dark honey, and they smiled at me out of a mop of blue-black curls that framed his face. He was six, like me, and his beard had not come in fully, so he didn't look much like the pictures you've seen of him. Just the tail end and the hind legs were visible on the outside the head and forelegs were halfway down the hatch. The first time I saw the man who would save the world he was sitting near the central well in Nazareth with a lizard hanging out of his mouth. You think you know how this story is going to end, but you don't.
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