Joseph’s Wings and Other Little Stories

By Edward Reed

A collection of timeless little stories—each filled with a goodness and warmth that will touch your heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728316628

Edward Reed

Edward Reed, author of Strayaway Child, resides in rural southeastern North Carolina where he teaches high school mathematics and writes in his spare time. His other works include The Whipping Boyfriend, Badge, A Prayer for Christmas, The Sound of Heartbeats, and Joseph’s Wings and Other Little Stories.

Book preview

Seasons

I t’s the hellos and the goodbyes we remember best, the beginnings and the ends, the first kiss and the last. So it was with the old man and me and our first walk along the path which cuts its way through the tall wiry grass of summer.

See that field? the old man asked, pointing toward the greening acres in the distance. The farmer planted in the spring, and he’ll harvest in the fall. Adjusting his twice worn out hat that barely kept the sun out of his eyes he added somberly, The problem is most people expect to plant and harvest in the same season. Looking squarely, he said, And son, that’s the problem with your mama. She had left me with him that morning along with a change of clothes and a promise to be back soon.

Time has passed since that day, still I see the old man. Only now in my shaving mirror, or in the evening when by the flickering light, I read from the box of books he passed on to me.

A man’s got to earn his keep, the old man insisted, pointing to the kitchen table, handing me a book. In the beginning …, he began, after which I picked up and read, until four seasons and a shoe size later, I reached the book’s final ‘Amen.’

With the smell of whiskey on his breath, he would sit close to me as I read to him every night I lived under his roof.

The books we read back then, are in that old box, along with all the places a boy can go and things he can do and the memories of what we talked about while walking the fields scaring up quail or sitting by the dark water of the river.

Who’s going to read to me when you’re off to college? the old man asked one evening as we watched the sun settling in the distant sky, lightning bugs beginning to dance to the sounds of night.

College, Papa? I asked, reminding him in a voice changing gears, as boys’ voices do, that I was just beginning high school.

You’ll be heading off to college before you turn around, and I can’t read. Seeing through the confused disbelief in my eyes, he added with determination, I reckon if I can read a deer’s tracks, I can read tracks on paper.

So began a boy’s journey of teaching his grandpa to read.

Our last walk through the tall wiry grass of summer is a memory now, of the smell of whiskey gone from his breath and how the old man talked of the Bible, and in his own simple way, of all the places he had been and people he had met since I taught him to read.

You can’t plant and harvest in the same season and expect to get very much, he added with sadness, for the books he would never get to read. Understanding what the old man meant, that like the fading sun lighting our way home, his season was passing, and I must let go of all but the memories.

Spider Dance

Watch the shadows and pools of light

As time drags them ‘cross the floor

Reflecting on the way things are

And how they will be no more

Listen to the breeze in the willow trees

Hear of its mournful sorrows

Of how there are more yesterdays

Than there will be tomorrows

Taste the dew which drips from dragon’s lips

That gather in the night

And feel the brush of angel’s wings

As they gather up in flight

Hold all these things with golden rings

While there is still a chance

To spin a web of mystery

And to watch the spider dance

The Life You Save

W hen the phone rang well after midnight, it should have awakened Anna Grace. It didn’t, though. Like the night before and the string of nights before, she was already awake, staring at the darkness; sleep wouldn’t come.

Hello, she said not recognizing the number, but answering anyway. Loneliness can sometimes make even a sales call from a stranger with a foreign accent better than no call at all.

I just want to say goodbye, the voice said, in an almost whisper which spilled out loudly into the silent darkness in which she lay.

Goodbye? Anna Grace said back to the stranger’s voice.

Yes, I’m going away tonight and never coming back.

Going away? Anna Grace asked wanting more clues as to what this stranger was talking about, admitting to herself that going away didn’t sound like such a bad idea and neither did never coming back. Her life was a wreck. There was something in the caller’s voice that felt familiar. She listened, rain falling cold in the windy night time, outside her window.

This person was serious. She swallowed hard at the thought of being confused with the person to whom the caller thought they were talking; their sister, their mother, their friend, the one person in their life that mattered