Abandoned

The Storyteller

The village was ruined, right down to its bones.

Who would remember the past here, would remember the children that used to laugh and sing? Who would recall the joyous ringing of the bells on a wedding day? Who would immortalize the adventures of those who had recently passed, of those who had moved onto larger cities and brighter lives? Who would remember where they stood once, content and safe and home?

This place didn't look like anyone's home. A wooden bucket floated in the murky water that had pooled in the well. The walls of the cottages were rotted and askew, torn apart by the endless howl of the wind and the misery that hung in the stagnant air. Windows had long since shattered; no glass survived long in the town of wind. Tire-ruts in the road had been filled by mud until one couldn't tell they'd ever been there at all. Resilient pieces of straw and grass still littered the ground, unmoved by the passing years. They didn't know to leave this cursed village. Gnarled trees rose from the dirt, bent and sprawling. Gold-and-russet leaves were the only spots of color in the umber town, with its whitewashed doors and stone arches. It wasn't a ghost town; even the ghosts had fled long ago.

The guard towers were the only thing that told of the once-proud fort. The stairs to the top spiraled into oblivion, too high for most to fathom. One could see for miles from there. Not that that was needed anymore; the plains around the town were as desolate as the town itself. Any attempts to grow anything was met with disaster. Howling winds, pelting rain, hail... 

You cannot live here, the world decreed. Nothing can live here.  

Despite that, silence was rare. Wind moaned and whistled through the alcoves still standing. Branches slapped against windows. No doors slammed, though; those were gone, too. Sometimes, on a cloudless night, the wind seemed to whisper like spirits praying to the stars for deliverance. 

It's awful, isn't it? The way everything had faded. The way everything seemed a gust of wind away from collapsing. The way it was silent, and cold, and lonely. The way that, even now, the storyteller couldn't seem to remember what it was supposed to look like. He couldn't remember how the brides had dressed, how the people had danced at revels.

And that was the worst part.

He couldn't remember how any of it was supposed to be.