"Josef's Angel"

Published on Amazon Shorts, 2006

I wrote this story several years ago when my teenage son embraced Orthodox Judaism. I was trying to understand his faith... and my own spirituality, such as it was. Where does faith come from? Once we come to some sort of faith, do we always have it? What destroys faith? How does faith emerge from suffering or tragedy? Are we "predestined" to believe, or is it free will? All of those thoughts were rambling around my brain. "Josef's Angel" was a way to frame those questions around what I hope you will find is a mysterious but satisfying story.

Excerpt

Sunlight glinted off their black leather boots when they marched. Strutting, goose-stepping, even kicking if you happened to be in their path. Josef learned to scuttle to the other side of the compound when they came his way. At the same time, there was something perversely reassuring about the boots. Seeing them meant another night had passed, and he was still alive.

He'd kept his stuffed lamb with him from the day he'd come to this place. Just a dirty, scraggly lump of wool, it was the only thing he'd salvaged from his life before. One morning, though, while veering away from the boots, the lamb dropped in the dirt. He bent down to retrieve it, but the boots had already picked it up. Josef gazed past the polished black leather, the gray uniform, the shiny gold buttons, into a face with cold, measuring eyes.

"Bitte." He held out his arms for his lamb. Please.

The face smiled and held out the lamb. Relief coursed through him. Woolig was coming back. Then the boots tossed the toy to a huge, snarling dog straining against its leash. The dog's jaws clamped down on Woolig, shook it from side to side, and tore it to pieces. Josef heard the boots laugh.

He was always hungry. Not the kind between breakfast and lunch when Mama gave him a biscuit to take away the empty feeling. Or the kind when he took tea early and ran back outside to play. This hunger scraped his belly so raw that he scrabbled in the dirt, eating roots, nuts, and objects covered with sand just to dull the pain. All the while knowing he'd probably throw it up later.

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