Once upon a time in a tiny cobble-streeted town on the banks of a
fast-flowing river, there lived a little boy who did not get along with the
other children of the town; they picked on a bullied him because he was
poor and his parents were drunkards and his clothes were rags and he walked
around barefoot. The little boy, however, was of a happy and dreamy
disposition, and he did not mind the taunts and the beatings and the
unending solitude. He knew that he was kind-hearted and full of love and
that someday someone somewhere would see this love inside him and repay him
in kind. Then, one night, as he sat nursing his newest bruises at the foot
of the wooden bridge that crossed the river and led out of town, he heard
the approach of a horse cart along the dark, cobbled street, and as it
neared he saw that its driver was dressed in the darkest of robes, the
black hood of which bathed his craggy face in shadow and sent a shiver of
fear through the little boy’s body. Putting his fear aside, the boy took
out the small sandwich that was to be his supper that night and, just as
the cart was about to pass onto and over the bridge, he offered it up to
the hooded driver to see if he would like some. The cart stopped, the
driver nodded, got down and sat beside the little boy for a while, sharing
the sandwich and discussing this and that. The driver asked the boy why he
was barefoot and ragged and all alone, and as the boy told the driver of
his poor, hard life, he eyed the back of the driver’s cart; it was piled
high with small, empty animal cages, all foul-smelling and dirt lined, and
just as the boy was about to ask what kind of animals it was had been
inside them, the driver stood up and announced that he had to be on his
way. “But before I go," the driver whispered, “because you have been so
kindly to an old weary traveler in offering half of your already meagre
portions, I would like to give you something now, the worth of which today
you may not realise, but one day, when you are a little older, perhaps, I
think you will truly value and thank me for. Now close your eyes." And so
the little boy did what he was told and closed his eyes, and from a secret
inner pocket of his robes the driver pulled out a long, sharp and shiny
meat cleaver, raised it high in the air and brought it scything down onto
the boy’s right foot, severing all five of his muddy little toes. And as
the little boy say there in gaping silent shock, staring blankly off into
the distance at nothing in particular, the driver gathered up his bloody
toes, tossed them away to the gaggle of rats that had begun to gather in
the gutters, got back onto his cart, and quietly rode on over the bridge,
leaving the boy, the rats, the river and the darkening town of Hamelin far
behind him.
