09/09/2025
The stolen village drum.
"The Day the Drum Went Silent"
Come closer, children. Let the fire warm your faces. I will tell you of the day our village lost its voice.
Long before you were born, Kachiro’s heart beat in the meeting hut. It was not made of flesh, but of iroko wood and cowhide, blessed by the hands of our ancestors. That drum — ah, it was the voice of the earth! It called us when a child was born, when lovers were joined, when danger crept near.
But one dawn, the sky itself seemed to hold its breath. The chief went to greet the morning with the drum’s call… and found only emptiness. The mat was torn. The place where the drum had rested was bare.
That day, the sun rose over a silent village.
We searched the forest, the river, the dusty road that leads to the world beyond. But the drum was gone. Some whispered of thieves from far lands, others of jealous neighbors. Yet the truth was this: our spirit had been taken, and the air itself mourned.
Without the drum, our festivals faded. Our dances lost their feet. Even the wind forgot to join our songs. Children grew without knowing the deep thunder that once lived in their bones.
Then, moons later, a boy named Kojo returned from the forest, his eyes wide with a fire I had never seen. In his arms, wrapped in old cloth, was our drum.
Ah… but it had changed. A crack split its side. Its paint was faded. It looked like something that had traveled through sorrow.
We bound its wounds with leather. We spoke to it in prayers. And when the chief struck it once, it did not roar as before — it whispered. But that whisper carried something stronger than thunder: the truth that what is broken can still live.
From that day, we began every gathering with three beats. Not to summon the people — no. To remind ourselves: a stolen heart can return, and even in its scars, it can sing.
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