Ominous double meanings in each of God's commands

The first thigh of the bird was set aside for the false messiah, hungering in his error for centuries. The second thigh was set aside for the first-born-son on the eve of the birth of his first child. The rest was distributed among the needy, the hysterical women who heard ominous double meanings in each of God's commands, and the one-eyed or one-armed exiles from the community, sitting in disgrace in the park in ratty overcoats, cursing the laws by which they themselves had forfeited their places at the banquet. The exiles lurched back and forth and talked over a plan to kidnap the rabbi's sister and hold her for ransom in a warehouse in the middle of the desert, laughing until they coughed up blood and became silent watching dusk fall softly on the city, where each is an exile unto himself.

An excerpt from Alexander Nemser's midrashic miniatures in The White Review.