The Land of the People who Smile and Dance(a short story)

The Land of the People Who Smile and Dance

Long, long ago, in a land not far away, there lived a happy race of people. In this land - known as the land of the people who smile and dance - no-body was rich and no-body was poor. There was enough of everything to go around. Everybody had a place to live and enough good things to eat and people had enough time to talk to each other and, of course, to smile and dance.

The King, who was neither rich nor poor, was well pleased with his land, and doubly pleased when he mused that it was almost 1,000 years since last their country had been at war and that everybody had been smiling and dancing ever since. Of course there was that slight invasion a few hundred years ago, according to the history books, but apparently, everybody was so busy smiling and dancing, that hardly anybody noticed. The invaders, it seemed, were so taken with the way of life here, that they smiled and danced and soon completely forgot that they were invaders.

One night, a few months before the Millennium, the King had a dream. It was a beautiful dream and when he woke, he told the Queen all about it. In the dream, there had been many people, smiling and dancing and much merriment - and - beautiful MUSIC. Music, yes music. Did I forget to mention that in 'the land of the people who smile and dance' they had not yet discovered music? Sorry, I forgot.

"It was so beautiful." said the King, with a tear in his eye. "It even matched the dancing"

Over the next few days, the King found himself thinking back to the dream and sometimes his smile became a little wistful and he found he was missing the music.

"How can you miss something you never had?" asked the Queen. "Cop yourself on." she smiled.

The King's smile sank a little. "But what if....? What if....?"

"You're a dreamer, Kingie babe, but I love ya"

"You may say that I'm a dreamer - but I'm not the only one." sang the King.

"Oh, that sounds nice." said the Queen. "What did you do?"

"I spoke, but with music - I told you it sounds good - but there's more to it than singing, much more."

"Maybe we could do something for the Millennium" sang the Queen - a trifle wobbly, but catching on to the idea.

Later, after much consideration, the King decided that traditional music was probably the best sort to begin with and had posters put up announcing the plans for the Millennium. The ambassadors of 'the land of the people who smile and dance were sent abroad to seek out whatever musical instruments they could find. A website, asking for instruments, know how and information on traditional music, was even set up.

Soon, instruments were arriving from all four corners of the globe - Hyde Park was particularly fruitful. Teach yourself to play books came in good supply too. It was a time of great excitement all over the land. People were astonished at the variety of shapes and sizes - not to mention sound made by these magnificent curios, things that went 'ping', things that went 'toot or tweet'. There were even things that made sound by sawing the stretched gut of a cat with the tail of a horse!

A special 'Millennium, Traditional Music Gala' event was put on, in the Palace grounds so that the people could democratically decide which instruments were the most suitable for their traditional music. It was held in the games stadium and those who considered themselves to be knacky with the instruments were given a couple of minutes to demonstrate the range of an instrument and the people would vote, by a simple system, involving apples, oranges and bananas, on whether an instrument was 'just right, showed potential or just wouldn't do at all'. Some that made the 'just right' group, later proved to be not so - i.e. the Tuba. But all in all, it was a good fair way to sort it out and what a week it was. The smiles got bigger and bigger, some occupying entire faces, even encroaching on the torso and, it was said, one man's went right down to his belly-button and eve off the sides of his face - nobody actually saw this smile, it was always, a friend of a friend. Needless to say, there was also plenty of dancing.

The favourite instruments were the fiddles (the cat/horse one), the smaller ones, as the cellos and basses were hard to hold under the chin and smile and dance with. Squeeze boxes of all shapes and sizes were also popular as were bodrans, sticks and bones. Plucked instruments like guitars and mandolins met with much approval - though some said, "Not too many guitars, please". Whistles, it was generally agreed, had a great sound although the musicians didn't seem too keen to play them. The Illean pipes went down a Bombardier with the audience and the musician. While many liked the Sitar, and it made the 'maybe' list, it was decided it sounded a tad too foreign to be of much real use. The brass sounded too 'brassy', much to the relief of the musicians, the harmonica sounded nice - although no-one seemed too keen to play it.

Over the next few weeks, bands were formed across the land and there was much clamouring for the fiddles so some bands had two of three fiddle players and maybe a couple of box players. Bodrans, sticks and bones were snapped up quickly too. Guitars, bazoukis and mandolins all found themselves busy but all over the land, it became apparent that nobody wanted to play the whistles, flutes, mouth organ or even the ill fated tuba. One group almost came to blows over this and probably would have if the King and Queen hadn't happened along as thing were heating up.

"What's wrong?" enquired the King.

"Pat won't play the whistle - and he's very good at it" said a fiddle player.

"So are you, better than you are on the fiddle. And I want to play the guitar" said Pat. He was the smallest of the band and fighting his corner.

"But we've enough of those already," said Mick "and sure you're great on the whistle, brilliant - or what about the harmonica, go on ya boy-ya." encouraged Mick, the largest of the bunch.

"Don't you like the sound of the whistle?" the King asked, "I think it's lovely - it's one of my favourites Pat. Sure, go on."

"I love the sound of the whistle. I do. I do. I really do but I just don't want to play it, nobody does - or the harmonica or the tuba or anything you put in your mouth! Ask them." smiled Pat.

"Is this true?" asked the King, with his gravest smile.

After a few moments, everybody nodded, smiling sheepishly.

"But it sounds so lovely. We surely have to have the whistle. Don't we?"

Enthusiastic nods all round.

"King," it was little Megan, "can I say something?"

"Of course you may," said the King, "if you think it will help."

"Maybe I shouldn't." said Megan, her shyness getting the better of her.

"You can whisper it to me." smiled the Queen, warmly.

So she did.

Later, the Queen explained to the King, that Megan didn't want to play a 'blowing' thing because whenever she did, her smile went away and she thought that this might be a problem for the other musicians too - though nobody had said anything about it.

And so it came to pass that a few days later, the King had every available poster site covered with the announcement of the 'Millennium Musicians Charter'. This was received with great delight, especially when it came to paragraph 44, subsection d, which stated that, 'as a consideration for 'blowing thing' players, who may have difficulty smiling, while they play, that ALL player of traditional music, refrain from smiling whilst performing'

Little Megan, on reading this, was overjoyed and, at the next band practice, was pretty quick about securing her place - only for a while - as tuba player.

The land is still there but now it's known as 'the land of the people who dance and smile (when they're not playing traditional music)' and in
one thousand and one hundred years, they have not been at war though there was almost a punch-up about a hundred years ago - according to the history books.

Sean O'Neill copyright 2,000