Somewhere in the east, where the clouds hung too low after having been tumbled down from pale brown mountains, a scribe knelt on his mat of woven rushes, and considered a pot of deepest blue ink.
It had been a long time since the scribe had known any companion, save the reeds that grew in wretched clumps up to his seated shoulder. It had been so long that he had forgotten the sound of his own voice, or even the fact that he had forgotten.
The sound he heard most now belonged to the winds that roamed over the world, and then came to whisper the secrets of everyone's lives through the reeds.
Reeds always tell in the end, the scribe thought placidly. The Greeks of old told the tale of the king cursed to wear the ears of an ass, and of his barber who, unable to resist telling the secret, dug a whole in a riverbank, and murmured into it. No sooner had the barber refilled the hole than the first reeds began to grow, and to rustle their secret at passers-by.
And so the scribe sat peacefully, listening to the lives described to him. and recording them in elegant brushwork. In this way, he actually felt rather than saw the coolness of a shadow passing over his back.
Looking around and behind him- which caused the muscles in his neck to creak like a ship's rigging before the first storm of winter- he saw a woman standing as though deep in thought, weary and dusted with travel.
"You write of people's lives, don't you?"
She spoke without greeting. The scribe inclined his head with some grace, to indicate that this may be so.
"You write of sickness, -" The first reed piths began to wither. "-and it comes to pass. You write of conflict, -" The winds all fled in disarray "-and it comes to pass. So you shall write three words in one man's life, and they too shall come to pass."
The scribe spoke at last, as though it wasn't at all important. "After hearing your voice, it may take me many years to hear the wind in the reeds." That is my voice, thought the scribe. It is thin and echoless.
The woman inclined her head with some grace, to indicate that this may be so. "Will you write these words?"
"Which words do you wish written into this man's life?"
The woman told him the words, and the scribe considered. "And if I write these words, will you leave me alone to the silence of the reeds?"
The woman nodded. "My word on it."
So the scribe knelt at his mat and brushed the three words down onto to paper to give to the woman, who would in turn give them to someone else. The woman left then, left that place to the winds and the reeds and the scribe.
The three words were these:
Happily. Ever. After.

© Naomi Claydon, 2002