The Song Weaver: The Story

Perhaps by now you have begun to notice, dear reader, that the little boy has discovered many things which he ought to have known before. "How is it possible," you may ask, "that he never knew there was a cave near his own house, or that he had never seen the lamb dancing on the cliff before?" These are good questions, and you ought to be proud of yourself for having asked them of me.

The reason for the boy's ignorance of local geography, you might say, was in part caused by his ignorance of local time. Allow me to share a story which may better illustrate his predicament. In the forest on the mountain, there is a lake. It is around this particular lake that the little boy learned this particular lesson.

The story does not begin, however, anywhere near that lake. It begins at the very edge of the forest, not far from the boy's home, and it begins with a bird flitting among the tree branches. The little boy stood, watching the bird soar here and there, back and forth. It was quite a beautiful bird, very small and colorful. After some time it began to fly further into the forest, taking no notice of the boy, who followed along behind in a kind of daydream and paid no mind to where his feet carried him.

For some time, the bird continued to fly and the boy continued to follow. Quite suddenly, the ground was no longer beneath the boy, for in giving his attentions to the small bird, he had failed to notice the lake to which you have previously been introduced. At first, the boy was wet. Then he was both wet and confused, for the lake (as I have failed to mention and beg your forgiveness) was a deep purple. On its surface floated many flowers with golden petals and green leaves. The boy was quite certain that if he reached out and touched one of the flowers, he would find that they were not merely gold-coloured, but actual gold.

You may ask how actual gold would have floated on water. I might point out that the water in question is purple, and so you really needn't concern yourself with such things.

At this point the boy had been wet and confused, but he now found himself saddened, for try as he might, he could not see the bird any more. And so -- wet, confused, and sad -- he climbed out of the lake to discover that he was also lost. He had walked for some time without minding his path, and so could not remember how to return home. Sitting down on the shore of the lake, he began to consider how he might solve this problem.

A voice came floating across the water. The little boy looked up, across the lake, to see a woman in the distance, singing to herself in some language he did not understand. After watching her for a moment, the boy realized that she might know the way back to his village. He stood excitedly and ran around the edge of the lake to ask her. When he reached the other side of the lake, however, what he saw caused him to forget all about home and birds and lakes.

There, floating in the air before the woman, was a quite long and yet unfinished tapestry. It bore a complicated design, beginning on its left with an image of a weeping girl, a heart, and a mountain in the background. The pictures progressed, through cycles of winter to spring, and joy to sadness. The girl grew, and began to speak kind words (and sometimes, unfortunately, unkind words) to other people. There were storms and calms, and many more things besides this girl's story.

That was not the most amazing thing about the tapestry, however. The most amazing part of it, you see, was that it continued to weave itself out of thin air, adding images and stories to itself. But no, the boy realized, it wasn't weaving itself. Instead, as he watched it appear out of thin air, he came to realize that the images were formed from the song the woman sang. As she sang more quickly, the tapestry wounds its threads around each other with great speed. As she sang higher notes, the colors grew brighter. Somehow, in the magic of her song, her words became fabric and came together in beauty.

The woman noticed the little boy, and stopped singing for a moment.

"May I help you?" she asked with a smile on her face. The tapestry had ceased to extend itself, though it continued to float in mid-air before them.

The boy stood speechless for a moment. He ought to ask about his home, he knew, but another question jumped to the front of his mind and asked itself before he could stop it: "Where will it end? The tapestry, the story? What will happen?"

The woman laughed, but it was not a cruel laugh, not making fun of him. She looked at the boy and told him quite seriously, "I do not know where it will end, young man. I only know that for now, I must continue to sing its song. Perhaps one day, I will see the end of the story as it all comes together into a single image. But if I think too much about the end, I find, I cannot enjoy the tapestry itself. Isn't it beautiful as it is, right at this moment?"

The boy was very disappointed. He could not see anything beautiful about an unfinished tapestry, with its ragged edges and incomplete stories. He looked from the tapestry, to the woman, back to the tapestry. Finally, he decided that it was time for him to leave.

"Do you know the way back to my village?" he asked the woman impatiently.

She smiled again, and thought for a moment. "I'm afraid I don't," she told him. "I've never seen your village. Now if you'll excuse me, I really must get back to work." With that, she continued her song. The boy, who had once found the song magnificent, was now simply annoyed by it. Without a way home, however, all he could do was sit down and wait. Maybe the bird would come back, he thought, and lead him back the way they had come. Perhaps Milly or his mother would come looking for him.

He waited. As he waited, he watched the tapestry unfurl. There were detailed pictures of so many things upon it -- flowers, wrens, home-cooked meals like the boy's mother made. The images floated past the boy's eyes, and gradually he came to see their beauty. He realized that he didn't need to see the tapestry's end. Every piece of it was beautiful, and that was enough for now.

As he thought these things, a new image began to weave itself near the bottom of the cloth: a mountain. But that was not all. As the woman continued to sing, the detail of the mountain began to increase. Now the boy could see clouds floating around it, now he could see the trees growing on its side. Then, with great excitement, he realized that he could see a lake amidst the trees -- a purple lake. Before he could even begin to hope, his very own village appeared at the mountain's base. He examined the picture carefully, and saw that he could return there very easily; the bird had not taken him so very far from home after all.

The bird. He thought about the bird for a moment, wishing that he had not lost sight of it, wishing that it had not flown away from him. Maybe he would see it again one day, he thought. Then he remembered the tapestry, and his village.

Maybe he would see the bird again some day. For now, however, it was enough for him to turn and walk away from the lake, towards his home.