Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Left: Remained, or Departed (11/20/25)
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TITLE: One Last Drop | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jack Taylor
11/27/25 -
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Her hand brushed the limp cloak hanging by the doorway. She should have sold it or buried it with the rest of what had been her life before the fever took her husband. It was all she had left to remember him by.
He’d left her with tears and a few coins, both long gone now. Grief sucked joy, energy, and now hope. She had nothing to offer her son, except the weight that crushed her spirit. It was clear that the God her husband once lauded had little time for those whose pockets and praise were empty. Why?
The thin dusting of flour along the bottom of the container mocked her glances. The clay vessel clung to one last drop of olive oil. There was nothing more to stretch. Shaking her head, she turned from the blistering orb in the sky and faced her final act. One last meal for her boy.
“Ima?” The boy’s voice quivered, as brittle as a withered reed.
She brushed his thinning hair and ran a finger across his hollowed cheeks. “It’s coming, child. Patience one more time.”
It felt like a lie. How could she dance this charade one last time? She meandered to the empty chicken coop and tore the last two sticks from the pen. Hardly enough for a tiny fire.
The stranger seemed to step out of a mirage. Dust-covered, weary, eyes steady. What mockery was God crushing her with now?
“Please,” the man said. “A little water.”
She didn’t have the strength to beg another drop from her neighbor. There was enough only for her boy. But how could she refuse? Hospitality was the only dignity left. She hung her head and shuffled inside.
“And please. A small loaf of bread.”
She stopped, fastened like a pillar to the ground. Bread? How could this be happening? She turned slowly. “As the LORD your God lives, I don’t have bread. Only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug.” She held up the two sticks. “I collected these last sticks so I could prepare a last loaf for my son before we die.”
The man stepped closer, his eyes filled with compassion. “Don’t be afraid. Go, make me a small loaf and bring it to me. Afterward, you can make something for yourself and your son.” His gaze held her fixated. “For the LORD God says ‘this container of flour won’t be used up and the jug of oil won’t run empty, until the LORD send rain on the earth.”
A prophet? With a promise? After there was nothing left? Her hands trembled as gnarled fingers gripped the two sticks. A choice had come at the point there was nothing left. Despair or hope? Death or life?
She sifted the scraps of flour, glancing at her bony child eying her actions. Could she dare sacrifice it all for a stranger? She tapped the last dusting into her hand and held the last drop of oil over top. There was just enough.
She baked the small cake as her son tried to crawl off his mat toward her. She glanced toward the empty vessels, took a deeper breath, and turned her back on her only son. She hesitated a moment at the whimper behind her and stepped outside. She placed the cake and partially filled mug of water into the waiting hands.
He blessed it, gratefully.
When she returned to her kitchen, she reached for the empty pot, but wait. Her heart pounded. She lifted the jar. For some reason, there was more. How had she missed this? There was enough for another cake for her son. Maybe enough for her. Without thinking, she reached for the jug of oil, and a small stream of liquid gold dripped freely onto the flour.
Her knees crumpled. What was this? Tears flowed again, not of grief, but stunned relief.
“Ima!” her son whimpered.
She sprang to her feet and turned to him. “There will be bread,” she whispered. “There will always be bread.”
Who was this God who refused to depart when there was nothing else left?
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Congratulations on your first place in EC. A masterfully written entry. I liked how you told a well-known Bible story in a fresh way.
Well done.