Adventures in Flandendale

Garon walked up the rocky path towards the top of the mountain with a well-worn wooden staff in his right hand. The sun was setting in the West, and he was headed in that general direction, although the path wound back and forth around trees that had probably been there for centuries. The leafy canopy above him  protected the lush, low bushes that hugged the forest floor, but the path he traversed was too well-traveled by men to be populated by any flora.

The trees also proved to be a theatre for myriads of singing birds, whose calls back and forth flooded his ears. In addition to the birds, insects, such as the ubiquitous cicada and the occasional cricket, lent their raucous sounds to the orchestral performance. And although the forest was peaceful at this time of the evening, it was by no means quiet.

He came to the top of the mountain, where a clearing sloped gently towards more trees and the valley beneath. He looked west over all the land of Ashbon, a vast, fruitful valley between two major ranges of mountains. The people of this valley, by virtue of the mountains surrounding them, were rather isolated from the rest of the country. They had their own ways of living, and were seldom influenced from the outside. Most who travelled through Ashbon saw its isolation as a good thing. Not much good can be said for the moral development of a society as it grows more interconnected and more urban. Ashbon had avoided the moral degradation that afflicted much of the world outside the valley, and was consequently home to many pious and wise philosophers--old men who had tired of the wild and fast-paced world their former homes had become.

His journey today took him to the home of one such man, Elendor of Flandendale. Elendor was an old man now, slow moving and grey-haired, but still one who silenced a crowded room with a single word from somewhere behind the grey mass of beard that extended halfway down his torso. His words were rare and significant, always clearly and precisely pronounced. One knew when Elendor had spoken. Garon had been Elendor’s apprentice many years back, when Elendor’s hair was only speckled with grey. That was back in the country to the east, a land that was now no longer named in polite society. Elendor had left the land to the east shortly before the Great Revolution, and found his solace in the hills above Ashbon. He preferred to live away from people, not wanting to have to move again from a dangerous society. Thus he built a small cottage on the mountain tops, and lived overlooking the valley, unable to see or hear any squabbles between the peoples, but available to those who sought his counsel, if they would take the effort to come visit him.

Garon studied the cottage as he approached it. Smoke still twirled listlessly upward from the chimney, and the garden was still lush with crops--Elendor had cultivated vegetables from his youth, and found great enjoyment in the practice. The picket fence that protected his plants was looking a bit out of shape, but Garon knew Elendor would not leave it that way for long. He always mended his fence in July. The stone walk had been extended slightly, and was still precisely straight. Garon opened the gate, and it creaked, but only slightly. Although he usually walked quietly, he measured his steps even more carefully inside the garden, as if the beauty of the garden demanded reverence. He closed the gate behind him and moved to the porch, where he ducked his head under the low roof and used his staff to knock on the door.

As the door creaked open, the old man smiled widely, and said, “It has been to-oo-... lo... ng... si...n...ce I...”

“Why is Windows doing updates in the middle of my game?” exclaimed a perturbed George. His favorite game, Adventures in Flandendale, was about to get to the best part--the voice of old Elendor. But no, Bill Gates software decided that it knew better how to run a computer, and was doing automatic updates just to kill CPU time. He hit escape to pause the game, and irately grabbed his wallet, slapped his bedroom door open and stepped onto the sidewalk of the bustling city street where he lived. He was supposed to meet his girlfriend for dinner at the quaint Italian restaurant on twelfth street, and he might as well be early. “At least Bill Gates isn’t making me late for my dinner dates,” he thought to himself as the sound of horns and the whine of a diesel engine attacked his eardrums.