Abeo's Flute

“With a dull, echoing thud, the wooden rowing boat came to a stop against the riverbank. Those days, those long vanished, golden days, were a time of mass movement, of travel; the world was alive in a way which today it no longer is. I recall vividly the splashing of the oars as the Old Man wrenched them from the river, shattering the silver glass. On that day, the sky was blue, a blue as deep as the sea. The light played a crystalline pattern across the ripples, made rainbows of the droplets...