The piper plays
his pipe...
Author's Note:
Another old fable
with a hash and dash for today's audience.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Must it be always
a land far away and why not land nearby so that people can visit the land, but
I guess we just learned to visit than learned to belong.
So our story began.
If you are the Mayor of this
small town with a population of five hundred and twelve plus one Mayor, you
will have those headaches which I am having daily. The town is divided into two
groups; the singers and the musicians. They both numbered six on the band and
two hundred and fifty supporters on each side of the support fans. Me, I am no
fan of both nor do I sings or likes the music they play.
It's not that bad
every time, for the town is united when the tourists came during the festivals
and weekends. There the two groups; singers and musicians would get together
and serenade your blues away. As one tourist put it in her blog on her return from
this village;’ it's a splendor to be with them, so loving and caring that I
even come back to forgive my cat for eating the fish in the aquarium.’ Sure feels
nice to be a mayor of the town.
But once the
crowds are gone, the animosity starts between the two groups. They walked by
each other with their sulking looks and grimace in imaginative pains. I would
just sit there and ponder the issue every year. I saw a bag left by a tourist,
and it was a pipe and a ‘book with the title 'how to do it the other wrong way
of playing the pipe.’
I took up the book
and the pipe, and look right; look left, and finally look upwards. I told HIM;
‘I am not stealing. I am just holding in trust for the owner if he does come
back.’
But these are not
the only items I have added to my list of ‘lost items’ or ‘lost owner items’ in
my office. But I was fascinated with the pipe. As said, I am no singer nor a
musician so what could be it be that interests me about the pipe? Well, there are no pipers in the musicians,
and I reckon the singers may require a piper musician to back them up on these
days. I turned to page one of the book to start my first lesson.
It said; ‘put your
mouth to work and shut up’. Wow, that's rude by any writer’s standards, but I
did as I was instructed. When I did that, the pipe started to play as if I am
blowing it and beautiful music came out of it, followed by voices that sing
beautiful lyrics with it. I tried to put down the pipe, but I find myself drawn
by the music. I find my music got some ‘uninvited guests’ showing up to listen
to the sound the pipe is producing. There were the home rats, all five of them;
the termites, big pillars of them; the roaches with their queen in the paper
carriage, and many others.
Then the music
sweeps itself across town and the other pests soon appeared. They all
congregate at my house to listen to my music. I could see the pests’ all around
and inside my house so I walked out of there. They all followed me to the road.
When I walked down the road, I attracted more pests; following me with a keen
ear to my music.
It was then I had
a brilliant idea. I walked to the Foundry factory ( the only one we have ) and
I got the foundry caretaker to open the foundry doors. I directed my music into
the burning fire, and true to my expectation, the mass of pests’ all marched
into the fire. It's unbelievable but I have cleared the town of all pesky inhabitants.
The townspeople were happy and they rejoiced at my effort.
But they soon
turned back to their old ways. That made me very sad again. So I looked at the
book again. It said on the second page; ‘there cannot be too many stars in one
sky’.
And an idea came
to his mind. I plan for over a week before I raise the pipe to play again. This
time I got a following of the singers and their group of supporters who
accompanied me. They joined me on the street and it was like a festive parade;
as there were dancing and good loving among those people. But there was a
difference; all of them loved my music and their favorite singers joined as my
backup piece.
I marched them
down the street and out of the town and into the far hill. Soon the remaining
town folks were the non-matching musicians and their supporters who were only
the ones left in town. Soon they heard the loud bang sound, and the far hill
collapsed. When the debris and smoke cleared, the town people could only see a
wide ravine where the hill used to be. They find themselves not able to cross
over to the other side. So they went back to the town and tried to continue
their life again.
One boy who was
following the singer's group came back alone to said 'he saw me leading the people
into the cave and was not seen again'.
The next day, they saw me walking back to the town. I was alone and I
had no pipe with me.
‘What did happen
to the singers? Did they all died?’
‘Nope, they are
alright. We went through a tunnel to the other side of the hill. They now lived
across the ravine in their town. Incidentally, I am also the Mayor there. If
you want to go across, you need to use the bridge I am going to build. But I am here to secure a pledge from you all
before I allowed you to cross the bridge. ‘
‘Oh, please. We
all agreed. We do miss the singers and we feel we can’t live without them. Tell
us what is to be done.’
‘Well for one; if
I allowed all of you to live together under one town, you will revert to your
old self soon. So I decided to create two towns so that you can live comfortably
without being associated with each other. But you are all of one community, so
I will be allowed you to be together on those occasions when there is a need.
Or on other occasions, you may go over but not stay there longer than needed.’
They all agreed
and I walked back to the other town. The singers there also agreed to the pledge.
When the tourists
came this time, they have a bigger place to visit; two towns to be exact and
they need to cross over a bridge with a token payment of ‘one needs to keep on
smiling when over the other side’. So the two communities learned to live comfortably
with each other and value each other’s contribution.
I lived to old
life with the name of Hamelin but I was more remembered as the Piped Piper
Hamlin, although I only play the pipe twice. The pipe and the book are still
with me but I am not reading Page 3. Not now, but maybe one day.
( Separate to
unite than to be united and then separate. )
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