Once I was travelling in a distant place where you hear rustling sounds in the trees at night, or occasionally a weird knocking or a cackle.
I arrived in a frontier town of whitewashed buildings. They held a market in a small square beside the bus station, where they sold foodstuffs on one side and used car parts, household items or toys on the other.
There was a boy in the town and he had a pipe which he blew. When he blew, there came music that weaved in and out like a deer running between trees or sometimes like a kite soaring above and sometimes like a child giggling helplessly. When you heard the music at first you felt very still and then you might sway to the melody and you felt very kind and humble.
The boy stood on a stool in the market near the sellers and played and people gathered.
They were first very still then they swayed with the melody and then some began a low humming. When the boy stopped and came down from the stool the people went and helped each other mainly with rather banal tasks like fixing dripping taps and sewing on missing buttons or sweeping kitchens.
I approached the boy. "That is quite incredible". He looked squarely at me, holding out the pipe. "Do you want it?" I said, "It is astonishing, I would love it." "Take it", said the boy." "But how much do I pay you?" I asked. He said, "Don't pay me. Tomorrow take the train across the border and play in in the village on the other side."
I said, "Is that all?"
"That's all." he said, "Good luck.".
I didn't know what he meant by that, but instead of finding out I replied, "And what about, you will you never play again?" He said " I'll find another pipe."
Later, I went out on my hotel balcony to test the pipe and down below people in the night filled square were sweetened and began to embrace.
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The following day, as the boy had instructed, I took the train from a collapsing station to the next country. I hadn't thought much about the next country.
After trundling at a walking pace for a few hours through woodland, the train stopped at a clearing where there was just a platform with a trestle table and a hut. A group of customs offers dressed in khaki with serious faces came on board the train. There was an apprehensive atmosphere in the compartment.
An officer approached me. "Passport," he said. He carefully examined each page. Still with the passport, he said, "Come with me. Take your bag". I followed him to a table on the platform where another officer now waited. I put my bag on the table as they requested. "Open your bag," said one. I opened it: at the top was the pipe, wrapped in a t-shirt.
He took the bundle and unwrapped it. He put the pipe to one side. He took the others things from the bag: clothes, toiletries, a novel, and some trinkets, and placed them in another pile.
"You can enter the country but you can't bring this", he told me quietly, almost indifferently." Why is that?" I asked. "Music is not permitted", he said, sternly this time. I said, "Can't I play in my hotel?" He replied," We have rules in our country. Music is not permitted."
Then he took a walkie talkie form his belt and presently a senior officer appeared from the hut and came across: the two officers turned from the table to greet him. The first officer gave him my passport and they began an exchange.
I sensed my moment and reached down and took the pipe and began to blow. The officers span round.
I had managed to get a few notes out but the music hadn't changed their stern expressions and they did not sway or embrace or sweeten or set off to perform mundane domestic tasks for their neighbours.
The senior officer stepped forward, grabbing the pipe from my hands. He broke it across his knee. He put the pieces smartly on the table.
"We have rules in this country," he said.
He handed me back my passport and I continued, pointlessly, to the village.
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Read to the River Writers` Group in February, 2021
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