THE GYPSY IN THE DRIVEWAY

On a Sunday morning in October, when the clouds resembled stacks of forgotten library books and the air smelled faintly of chimney smoke and wet pecan hulls, Ezekiel Crowder arose at precisely 6:17 A.M., a fact he knew because the brass clock on his dresser had stopped at 6:17 three times in the previous month, though only on Sundays.

Ezekiel was preparing for church.

He put on his brown suit, the one with the missing button hidden beneath his tie. He drank coffee from a mug bearing a faded picture of a cat that had belonged to a traveling salesman who had once sold encyclopedias door to door in Arkansas. Why Ezekiel had the mug nobody knew.

As he opened his front door, he froze.

A woman stood in his driveway.

She wore a bright green shawl embroidered with silver moons. Beside her sat a red wagon containing three birdcages, none of which contained birds. Instead, each cage held a different object.

The first held a pocket watch.

The second held a potato.

The third held what appeared to be a left-handed baseball glove.

“Good morning,” said the woman.

Ezekiel blinked.

“What are those for?”

The woman pointed at the cages.

“The watch measures time.”

“The potato measures appetite.”

“The glove measures ownership.”

“Ownership of what?”

“Days,” she replied.

This answer explained nothing.

The woman then removed a folded paper from her pocket. On it was a list of names.

“People are always selling their days,” she said.

“To whom?”

“To hobbies. To worries. To television. To arguments. To money. To regret.”

She tapped the cage holding the watch.

“Especially Sundays.”

Now Ezekiel was late for church, which irritated him because punctuality was one of his favorite virtues.

The woman pointed toward the road.

“Where are you going?”

“Church.”

“Good.”

Then she smiled.

“Most people think Sunday belongs to themselves. They merely loan an hour to God.”

This statement bothered Ezekiel.

Not because it was strange.

Because it was true.

For several weeks he had attended church while spending the entire sermon thinking about lawnmowers, property taxes, and whether squirrels intentionally mocked people.

The woman reached into the potato cage and produced a tiny brass key.

This should have been impossible.

She handed it to him.

“What does it unlock?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why give it to me?”

“So you’ll remember.”

“Remember what?”

“That a day can be locked.”

The woman suddenly pulled the red wagon down the driveway.

Its wheels made no sound.

At the corner she turned.

“The Lord’s Day doesn’t belong to the strongest man, the busiest man, or the richest man.”

“Who does it belong to?”

She laughed.

“The One who rose on it.”

Then she vanished behind a passing bread truck.

Ezekiel hurried to the corner.

There was no wagon.

No woman.

No birdcages.

Only a single silver thread lying on the pavement.

Years later he still carried the brass key in his pocket.

It opened nothing.

Yet every Sunday when he felt his thoughts drifting toward a hundred lesser things, he touched the key and remembered the lesson.

A day surrendered to Christ is never lost.

A day claimed by self always is.

And so each Lord’s Day he quietly prayed:

“Lord Jesus, this day is Yours before it is mine.”

The key never unlocked a door.

But it unlocked a habit.

And that was enough.

BDD