Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Piper's Call
I am fascinated by two stories. One is the story of the Pied Piper and one is about Neverland. Most people wouldn't even think or know about these two tales, such a pity. For now, I just want to talk about the Pied Piper maybe I'll talk of Neverland some other time.
The Pied Piper tale goes out since fairy tale times. It's about a certain musician that agreed to rid the rats of a town in exchange for something, the something changes through each person it is made known to. But then, the townspeople didn't pay up. So what did the Piper do?
He took the children away. He played his hypnotic hymn and lead the children out of their homes into who knows where. That's the end of the story. But it seems to end so peculiarly because there was nothing more to be told. They never said where the Piper brought the children or what did the parents do about it. Which is why I am so fascinated by this story and I somehow find certain... messages in it.
Why children? Is it some sorts of pedophilic gesture or maybe, a more intiguing detail? For me, I find that each of us has that child in us that somehow responds to a Piper's call. As we grow older, our ears deafen to the music he plays because yes, I do believe there was indeed a Piper. You notice that when you grow older, everything seems to be well... run out of color? I mean, why do people describe the aged as being gray? Gray connotes being dull and bland and even in death, a corpse turns pale and colorless as the life is run out on it.
I take details such as this to another level than just knowing about it but instead, I want to know why. It's part of the drama, I suppose and yes maybe Martin was right, I do have a heart of a poet. But think about it at least. Is your colors running out? Are you deafened by the Piper's call? When we are kids, the world is an oyster filled with mysteries and questions that entertain and fuel our imaginations to staggering possibilities yet as the world is made more and more known, we somehow feel that feeling wherein we say to ourselves, "Is that all there is to it?"
The Sky was an ocean to me where stars swam freely, glittering across the dense blanket of night. Yet I knew that the sky was called an atmosphere, that stars were big balls of hot gas and the night was just an effect of the world's rotation in its orbit. Yes, growing up takes the fun outof anything and while some people around me are in a hurry to grow up, just the same, I find some grown-ups yearning to be a child again. Is it because of the Piper's call? Just what is it?
The Piper's call is different for each person just as a child you see the world differently. I saw my sky as ocean, maybe you saw it as monster or a person, a plant, a nothing that's something, it's all the same, it's his call. We deafen our ears to misconceptions from when we were ignorant and didn't know about things but that's what made that time of our lives great. Everything was a mystery and the questions seem to add colors to our lives. The call seeps through everyone yet only the children can hear it since the grown-ups were already deaf in the sense. Age and knowledge somehow ran the colors of their lives dry.
So I don't know about you but I want to hear it. That's why I never fully appreciated science or math. They make it too formal and methodical, having answers to everything. Would you really want to know that the beauty of the stars are actually just because of hot gas? I leave it to the imagination,
Will you do too?
Will you let yourself hear the Piper's call?
Or weep for the child that has left you forever?
Riding the Lightning
5:57 PM
