The 24hr Fable

I get it, I’ve been out for a while. But if you have read my previous musings you’ll find that my excuse for not writing was not lack of insight but more of a drain of creative juices. Forced out of my mind from my classes, everything I’ve had has gone into college, work, or college. So I’m sharing some college with you. For my Classical Rhetorical Theory (COMM 420) class I had to write a fable. The criterion for this assignment was that it had to be less than 300 words yet contain a moral and substantial literary substance. I started it last night and in three hours time, with input from friends, this came to me:

Once, in what we would think to be a long time ago, and in a distant tucked away universe, sat a man unparallel to men.  Unfamiliar with the world in which we live Lich was born into a place where music was unbreathed. This unbirthed vehicle of emotion was nameless to men before Lich’s beginning, but it would be his end.

Born with exceptional creativity and the power of music, from birth to adolescence his crafts and artwork consisted entirely of stringed wood, oblong, curved, and in u-shape. Playing alone he would make sounds, lips sealed, droning tones of inflection. His father was a blacksmith, disappointed with Lich’s progress in the families business, he attempted to thwart these nonsensical actions by teaching him the family trade.

Late one night Lich snuck out into his father’s blacksmithing hangar and with his skilled hands forged this instrument from a rotting tree north of the town barter quarter.  From this he forged his world’s first instrument, and called it “Πρώτη φως”. (Meaning “first light.”)  With his fingers he created music’s first sound. The first sounds, so beautiful, immediately struck Lich at such a level it muted him. Virtually handicapped by this event Lich attempted to communicate the events that had taken place, but was unable. Forced only to play his new creation, and unable to explain it’s formation, jealousy filled those who heard but didn’t understand.

As Lich kept playing, the covetousness kept growing. Unable to speak, and unable to spread the wisdom of his newfound sound, Lich acquired jealous enemies. Green with envy they taunted him, interrogated him, but to no avail. Lich died at the hands of his listeners. Armed with knowledge and unable to communicate it, Lich and his music met their end. Hand to tool he lay dead at the feet of his listeners, hands cold and desert dry.

The vessel of information and knowledge, constructed and communicated poorly, leads a man to early end.