Judge Solomon King's Wisdom: A Modern day Fictional Story based on 1 Kings 3:16-28

Mara and I shared an apartment since our junior year of college. We were living the life- partying it up, sleeping around, and having a good time. We were good friends. But at the beginning of our senior year, I noticed a change in her. She started getting very jealous. At first it was just over clothes and jewelry, and was just kind of dumb. But as time went on, it got more serious. She started getting jealous over the guys I was seeing and over the grades I was earning. She became very bitter and angry toward me, but I couldn’t figure out why.

            Halfway through the year, we found out we were both pregnant. I didn’t know who the father was. Really, it could have been any of the guys I had seen recently. Having a child did not fit into my plans, but I knew that I wasn’t going to abort it. Mara decided to have her baby also.

            Nine months later, my son Avidan was born. Mara gave birth to a boy, Douma, three days later. One night soon after their births, Douma was having trouble sleeping in his crib, and Mara laid him in bed with her. But in the middle of the night, she accidentally smothered him. Mara was furious that Avi had lived, and she took him, and delusionally insisted that my baby had died instead of hers. She packed him and some baby items up as I slept and they were gone the next morning. Frantically I searched for them, searching for any hint of where they might have gone. When I finally found them, I called the police and told them about the abduction. She kept insisting that it was her child, and since no one other than us had seen the baby, I couldn’t prove her wrong.

            They decided to call a trial so a judge could make a decision on who would get to keep the baby. The morning of the trial, I slowly got dressed. Dreading yet anticipating, hoping and wishing that somehow justice would be served and I would get my baby back.

            When I entered the courtroom, Mara was already there with the baby. No one else was in the room. “Judge Solomon King presiding,” a voice announced. Two massive wooden doors opened and a tall man with a long black robe and kind eyes came out. He sat down, and my stomach started rolling like a hurricane was going on inside it. I had to do everything in my willpower so I did not get sick.

            Judge King turned to me and said, “Explain your side of the story.”

            I said, “Please sir, we live in the same apartment, and I had a baby. Three days later, she gave birth to her child. Because we were still settling into routines, we did not have anyone over to see the babies yet. A few nights later, her son was crying and so she put him in bed with her. During the night, she rolled onto him and accidentally smothered him to death. When she woke up and realized this, she quickly put her dead son into my son’s crib, and took my son. When I got up to feed my baby, I saw that he wasn’t breathing. Something didn’t look right, so I looked a little closer and realized that it really was not my son dead, but her son in my baby’s clothing.”

            Mara interrupted, “My son is the living one; yours is dead.”

            And we argued for several minutes. The judge banged his gavel, “Ladies, Enough!” He said sternly, “Since you both argue and I don’t know who is telling the truth, the baby will just be placed in the foster care system. Neither of you gets him.”

            Before I could stop it, a cry of anguish ran from my throat, “Give her the baby!” I said. “I would rather have her raise him then have him be bounced from home to home where he may not be loved.”
            Mara cynically laughed, “Put him in foster care. He won’t be mine or yours.”

            For a long moment, the judge stared into my eyes. Then he looked at the bailiff and said, “Give the boy to the first lady. She is his true mother because she showed compassion for her son.”

            Judge Solomon King made the newspaper that day. From then on he was known as “The Man who has the Wisdom of God” by everyone who heard of him, because he fairly and justly made decisions.

 

*I wrote this story after reading it in 1 Kings because I thought it would help me apply and remember it better.

I have a fascination with names and their meanings. When I write, I pick the names out based on the characters and their personalities/meaning/etc. All three of the names in this story are of Hebrew origin. Mara means "Bitter", Avidan means "God is Just" and Douma means "Angel of the Stillness."