Piccolo Picaro, C. T. [ereader that reads to you txt] 📗

The piper stood before the king, the king's dog, and the king's wife in a room where the banana, he was told, had been tied in a knot.

“Picaroon!” howled the dog but he was wrong. There was no pirate in the room, the equatorial war room, exactly where the king fought to succeed against enemy forces, the least of which was the weather. The war room tied everything together...the railroads, the radio, the shipping lanes, and the banana

“Picaro!” said the king's wife, her lips smeared white with frosting from fresh banana cake. “He is a rouge for sure.”

“Hush!” said the Banana King. “Let the fellow speak. He has arrived by parachute from who knows where...with his piccolo and his pied apparel. I like the way he looks...like a commando but he he says he is no enemy to us.”

“I am on a diplomatic mission from the Kingdom of Understanding,” said the piper who had indeed parachuted into the warm, damp, and fructose core of a gigantic plantation. “I understand your kingdom is suffering from an infestation.”

“Rats!” said the Banana King. “Rats who walk on two feet, steal the fruit, and desire their own land! Vermin who refuse to work on the Sabbath!”

“I can rid you of them,” said the piper. “Of that you can be sure.”

“Exterminator!” howled the dog and he was somewhat correct.

“Picaro!” insisted the king's wife.

“How much? What will you charge me for the service?” asked the king.

“How much is the death of the rats worth?” asked the piper.

“We will know when your work is complete,” answered the Banana King. “Probably you and I will not be disappointed.”

“I am sure I will not,” said the piper who quickly left the room and raised his piccolo to his lips. He knew just the song to mislead the rats, or more exactly, to hypnotize them to seek their own demise.

“Let me know if you need any ammunition,” the Banana King called after the piper and the dog barked. “I have bullets.”

“I shall not need any bullets,” said the piper, pausing his blowing to answer the king. With a tune upon his piccolo, the piper then walked about the giant plantation. Some say his feet and legs beneath his strangely pied pants, not his flute, contained the magnetism which caused the rats to leave their trouble behind and follow him. But all the while he walked, he played a tune, and the rats followed the piper through the banana fields toward the horizon where the clouds piled up like whip cream on a verdant plate of desert. The rats followed the piper up a steep path. They ascended the local volcano and at it's peak , dove through the thin and moaning smoking crust into a waiting pool of red hot magma. They were never seen again.

“The rats are gone...deceased,” said the piper to the king. “I have sent you the pictures to prove they surrendered themselves to geology.”

“I watched the rats follow you up the path to the crater! How you did it perhaps we will never know! But now for your payment...I will pay you with bananas! I will pay you with fruit,” said the plantation king.

“No. I will not accept fruit for payment,” said the piper, perturbed. “The fruit is paid for. Many in the Kingdom of Understanding buy your fruit. I will take what you are not selling,” said the piper. And he lifted his piccolo again to his lips.

“What are you going to do?” asked the Banana King.

“Rouge,” said the king's wife as she sat and peeled a banana and put it in her mouth. The dog barked.

As the piper began his long walk North, back to the Kingdom of Understanding from where he came, he was joined by nearly half of the banana king's plantation labor force. They were drawn and captivated by the new tune the piper was playing. The Banana King could neither convince his workers to stay nor prevent them from leaving.

Soon the piper and his followers were scooped up by a large airplane. They arrived by flight in the Kingdom of Understanding. The Banana King's servants then became servants of a new but equally as crude and cruel king.

Copyright C.T. 2018

Publication Date: 10-25-2018

All Rights Reserved