Issue 301, Volume 28
December 2024 / January 2025

All Previous Priorities Rescinded

by Jean Jones

Ripley: What was your special order?
Ash: You read it. I thought it was clear.
Ripley: What was it?
Ash: Bring back life form. Priority One. All other priorities rescinded.
Parker: The damn company. What about our lives, you son of a bitch?!
Ash: I repeat, all other priorities are rescinded.

So, you tell me, your friend is not the friend you thought she was,
The one you've known over twenty years,
But she doesn't have your back, does she?
What are you to do, hmm?
Well let me tell you this:
There's a reckoning coming, and
It's not limited to Gotham City and
The Dark Knight Rising. No,
No, this involves
A settlement of accounts, a day of reckoning,
As it were, and it's a storm that's coming.
When that day comes,
All previous priorities will be rescinded,
And what you thought was important
Will be found not to be important,
A job, a place to stay, air conditioning,
Food, shelter, a safe place to lay your head,
Those will be the things people will not
Take for granted anymore. When will the reckoning come?
Let me tell you about the sheep and the goats.
(When the man comes to town…)
When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the
angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his
glory: and before him shall be gathered all the nations: and
he shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd
separates the sheep from the goats; and he shall set the
sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
What will happen then?

The days of punishment are coming,
the days of reckoning are at hand.
Let Israel know this.
Because your sins are so many
and your hostility so great,
the prophet is considered a fool,
the inspired person a maniac.
Hosea 9:7

Jean Jones attended St. Andrews Presbyterian College and received his B.A. in English from the University of North Carolina Wilmington. He later went on to receive an M.F.A. degree in creative writing from Bowling Green State University.

Find more by Jean Jones in the Author Index.

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