@kauer@aus.social @Axolotl1@gaygeek.social
One day, a villager was walking to the nearby beach, across the woods, for an early morning swim, when he saw an old man sitting under a tree, humming an oddly hypnotic melody to himself. He went over to listen closely, then walked back to the village and told them about this mysterious outsider who had entered their secluded realm. Soon, there was a small crowd around the tree. They talked to the old man, who told them tales of the strange lands he had traveled.
After a while, they brought him some food, and he regaled them with songs and stories.
He was a jolly old man, and cracked jokes from time to time, and rather irreverently mocked the village authorities, who were beginning to be suspicious and resentful of this stranger. They didn’t want him around, but couldn’t throw him out, since he was getting to be a popular, avuncular figure with the people, and often laughed childishly with the children.
One evening, when nobody was looking, the village chief decided to bribe him with a bag of gold coins, which he held in front of the old man. He told the man to leave, but he was completely ignored, as the old man kept on singing in extempore verse.
Later, he brought in his hired goons, and they pointed swords at the old man’s face. The old man was unfazed, and started telling them another of his weird fables. They were perplexed, and backed away.
The man stayed on, with the villagers bringing him food every day. They no longer took the chief seriously, as the man’s witty verses had skewered the chieftains blustery attitude too many times. The chief chafed, at being reduced to another of the people, but couldn’t do anything.
Years later, one day, the old man got up, bade the villagers farewell, took a cane out of his bag, and tapping it like a blind man, walked away into the distance.
The chief was relieved, for he thought the man was a holy fool, who could neither be tempted, nor threatened. Life in the village had changed a lot in those years, and everyone treated the chief like a commoner. The chief was aghast to realize that the old man had been blind all along, and his urgent communication simply never reached the old man.
