The Forgotten Piper by Josh Lever (President)

The wind was howling through the wild groves of the forest. Earth was flying through the air and rain poured down onto the great trees that reached for the angered sky. The gods thundered in the heavens and spat down with great strikes of electricity. The smell of fire, spread throughout the vast forest, followed shortly by a dark fog. A man stood still. Unperturbed and Resolute. He stood there, his shovel, cold in his hand. A vast colony of stones lined up before him, the earth gently disturbed in front of each rock. He couldn’t remember who he was before. He couldn’t remember a lot. His mind had emptied of thoughts, like the falling of snow in an avalanche. Not that these lands were common in snow. He remembered the snow. He wasn’t sure from where, or when or even how. But the white blankets were still there in his mind. He danced and sang in the cold, the children following him as he sung, and night swept in over those pleasant hills. He fell on one knee staring at a rat the lay empty on an ivy rotted stump. His tears were spent.

He didn’t remember his name. Only his task. He came to the wild jungles to kill somebody. A harmer of the animals. A stealer of the wild. He had always loved animals and wanted to protect them. He didn’t remember where he was before these stories came about. But he knew that somebody was convincing the animals to serve them. He was going to find them. The wind had pressed him on his task. He picked up the small rat, and placed it in a shallow bed of earth, before burying it in the ground. His quest was almost over. He remembered he had been here before, to this very spot. He gave up a life. Something stirred. The fires began to close in, the forest growing dark of ash. He began to choke. He stood up unclear, but certain. He ran away from the glowing fires that lashed and spat in the rage of the forest gods.

He remembered a city. He saw it within the fire. The people screaming as he danced through the streets. Rats, everywhere. Children crying. He had came into the city, playing the flute. He played it, and the air danced in magical waves, all to be lost in the burning of the city. He tried to remember, the flames, the flames, dancing through the streets. The animals had attacked. The city was destroyed. But who attacked? He remembered he was there, but he tried to calm the people. He had played music in joyous light of dawn. The joyous light of fire.

He stopped the fire no longer chasing him. He pulled out his flute. He wiped a tear for the dead animals of the forest and played a humble tune. He came to a great lake, where the animals sat in the water. He played and danced once more through the forest.

The animals cowered in his wake, his memory did fail and crash. And wherever did that piper dance, the fire did burn to ash.

#Prose