Village Shepherd

Old Father Time was feeling not only old, but tired and lonely and very, very cold. He had been standing in the same position for years and years and years, swaying and twisting to the demands of the wind, but with only the occasional bird for company. It had been all right at first, but Father Time had soon discovered that very few people ever visited the top of the church tower, and nobody at all visited the top of the pole on the church tower on which he stood.

Today the wind was blowing from the east, which meant that Old Father Time was facing directly into a very bitter wind indeed. He preferred it when the wind blew from the south or the west, for those were warmer winds and he didn't mind facing in either of those directions.

Now, after many years' service, Father Time fancied a rest. He took a quick glance down at the hourglass in his hand and noticed that the sands of time really did seem to be running out. Then he glanced at the pile of sand behind him and thought perhaps it was a little higher than normal. Father Time frowned and fingered the scythe in his other hand. It had been exposed to the weather for so long that it was growing rusty and losing its sharpness.

Suddenly, Father Time was gripped by anger that he'd been left alone for so long with never a thank you and scarcely a passing glance. Suddenly, he was gripped by the desire to do something, to make people notice him before it was too late and he crumbled into a pile of useless metal dust. After all, for all these years he'd done his job faithfully and well, showing the direction of the wind to every passer-by who cared to look. It was time he had a break.

Without further thought, Father Time swung his scythe. To his amazement, it actually moved, and it felt like fun! For a moment, Father Time wondered why he hadn't tried this earlier. All those years he'd been standing still, moving only at the whim of the wind, when he could have been having a good time, laying about him with his scythe.

He swung again, and the scythe cut through pile of sand which always stood behind him on the weather vane. To Father Time's delight, the sand scattered everywhere, some of coming to rest in little heaps on the top of the church tower, the rest falling down, down, down into the churchyard.

Father Time giggled - which was very unlike him. Usually he was sombre and serious, as befitted the important job he had to do. He began to swing his scythe all around him with happy abandon, from this side to that and back again. Even when his base began to creak ominously, he took no notice. And when he heard a loud crack and saw a fissure appear around his ankles, he was too far gone into the momentum of his movement to be able to stop.

Now there were bangs and cracks all over the place, and Father Time began to wobble. The next gust of east wind sent him flying from his perch, and he landed in a heap of broken and tangled metal outside the church door. His dying thought was, "That's it, then."

But it wasn't "it." He didn't know how long he lay dead, but Father Time came to, being lovingly re-fashioned in the hands of a metal craftsman. "But it was all my own fault," Father Time thought wonderingly. "If I hadn't been so stupid, I'd still be on top of my pole on the church tower, showing the direction of the wind. I thought they'd throw me in the dustbin and forget all about me."

Then he heard the craftsman chuckling. Almost as though he could hear Father Time's thoughts, the craftsman said, "We wouldn't want to do without you, old fellow. I don't know what you were about, to throw yourself off the roof like that, but we all love you whatever you've done. There now, I think you're finished. And I hope you'll be more comfortable now, for I've given you two extra coats of varnish to keep out the weather. Is that OK? "

Father Time didn't reply. He was too busy inspecting his new, shiny surface. He couldn't wait to get back on his pole on the roof of the tower, for he looked and felt better than he ever had in his life before. "If they love me that much," he thought to himself, "I'll never be so stupid again. I'll do my work for ever and ever, because I've discovered something amazing. I love them too."