The Righteous Detector

The Hembly brothers, Brat and Sineoff were inventors. Inventing was all they ever wanted to do. They worked around the clock, everyday on whatever the current invention was, until they completed it and sold it to the public.

They were very successful. The only problem was … they hated to interact with people. Except for going to the market to buy food or supplies for their inventing, they never had to. Thank God, because it was like pulling teeth for them.

They enjoyed each other's company, mainly because they could trust each other. Many times when trying to sell their inventions, they were cheated by the business people trying to acquire them. The Hembly brothers never knew when people were lying or trying to deceive them. This angered them and caused them to be a little afraid.

One day, after being cheated out of the full worth of their Mouse Trap Clock, they determined this would never happen again. They began planning on the greatest invention of all time … A Righteous Detector, a machine that will indicate the people who were righteous in society. By using this machine, they would never be taken again.

They figured since there were already devices that could indicate when people were lying, a machine that could tell when someone had a righteous nature would also be possible.

Well they began working right away, testing people's brain enneagrams, hormones, rapid eye movement, breathing rates, skin pigmentations, and so forth around the clock, day after day, year after year in their dark little workshop for over thirty years, until finally one day, they did it.

They could not believe that is was true. After so long, their life's work was finally finished and they couldn't wait to try it out. They had dreamed of a world where people could not longer lie and get away with it. They imagined that their newest invention would change the world. Every business and court of the land would have one of their devices and dishonesty would be a thing of the past.

As they were getting ready to present their invention, they looked in the mirror and saw that they had aged. They were now old men. They never realized how quickly time had passed. They now had white hair and wrinkled skin and the only thing they had to show for it, was this new invention.

Well the time they had lost was not in vain, because they were the two inventors who had just changed the world.

There was a great stir in the general public over this invention. People had ridiculed the Hembly brothers in the media, saying that they were on a fool's errand. But now they had the world's attention.

The day came that The Righteous Detector was to be demonstrated on Wall Street and a large crowd was expected to be in attendance. The Hembly brothers, now well dressed and clean shaven were there in person on stage with their device to begin what they believed was the beginning of a new world, free from lies and deceit.

After the speeches were finished, it was time to demonstrate the long awaited device. The Hembly brothers, who were now nick-named The Righteous Brothers, stepped to the side of the podium and asked for a volunteer to come up out of the audience, so they could test the machine.

A large woman stepped forward, and walked up onto the stage and stood beside the now famous inventors. They pointed the machine in her direction and turned it on. The machine indicated she was not righteous, so indignant, she was asked to sit down and another volunteer was asked to step up onto the stage.

One person after another came forward, until they had tested hundreds of people, all shown to be not righteous. After awhile, the audience began to leave and the media branded the Hembly brothers failures.

As the brothers sat on the edge of the stage, being the only two people left in the auditorium, they talked amongst themselves, trying to figure out what had went wrong.

While they were thinking, a scripture reference that their mother had often told them came to mind. It was, “There are none righteous, no … not one”.

You see, The Righteous Detector worked, they just had no way of proving it.

This spiritual story was written by Mark Edgemon who has been writing for 30 years. He writes and publishes short stories, articles, poetry and scripts as well as, produces audio comedy productions for over 700 radio stations nationwide.