Your True Tales
August 2007 - Page 2
Shadow Piper
by Jack
My story takes place in North Lanarkshire, Scotland. It happened when I was 20, which was three years ago. I live one and a half miles east of a town called Airdrie. It was late one night and there was a beautiful full moon, so I decided to take a walk in the moonlight. I was walking across the plains full of nothing but grass. It was very peaceful. After an hour of walking, it was getting late, so I thought I best head back home.
On my way back, I saw a man sitting down in the grass with music coming from his direction. He was far in the distance, so I couldn't really tell what was going on. As I came closer, he became more clear. He was wearing old worn-out clothes with holes everywhere, a great long black-and-red striped scarf and a hat with the roof of it hanging on the side by a couple of threads. The music that I heard was a flute that he was playing. The tune that he was playing was beautiful and strange at the same time.
When I came up close, I told him that he was really good and I asked him why he was out at this time of night (midnight). He didn't answer; he just kept playing, and then he looked at me with his dark black-ringed eyes. I believe he was wearing eye-shadow or that's just how his eyes were. By now I had seen him completely and he looked like a tramp. I slowly started wandering home while his tune was still able to be heard.
After getting about 20 meters away from him, I started hearing a rumbling. I turned around and saw nothing but the man and the hills' shadows. I continued to walk home. After no less than two minutes, I heard the rumbling again. This time as I turned around I could see the man playing his flute and farther away on the hills there were hundreds of shadows marching across and down the hills! They stretched across the hills as they marched. Some where in the shape of humans and some didn't even have a shape. I wanted to see what was going to happen, but I didn't want to be right up close, so I walked as far as I could without losing the sight of the man and the shadows. They all walked together until they reached the man, where they all stopped in rows of lines in front of this strange man. He played his flute for another ten minutes while these shadow-like characters stood there and watched.
Then the shadows started forming a circle around the man while he was playing the strange and mysterious tune. At this point I didn't know what was going on. But I can tell you I don't do drugs and never have. I hadn't drunk ANYTHING except water that night before my walk and I definitely wasn't dreaming! Anyway, the parade of dark figures stood around him while he was calmly playing his tune as though it wasn't the first time! They weren't human because I could see the man right through them!
After about 20 minutes of this, he stopped playing and the figures got back into their lines and marched back over the hills and into the night. When they were out of sight, the man got up and started walking toward me. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to run, but I just stayed. He was walking quite happily and knew that I had been watching the whole time. When he walked past me, he smiled and said, "I was just having a get-together. What about you? Why are you out at this time of night?" I was speechless and couldn't say a word. He didn't care and kept walking back to Airdrie with a smile on his face.
I don't think I will ever know what happened that night. I'm quite sure he wasn't a ghost. I told one of my dear friends, who had been in this town for years, and she said she has seen him twice. She said, "The homeless man walks out to the plains at sunset with a flute in his hand on occasion. Don't know why he'd bother; the fields would take two or three hours to get to." I will never forget the tramp and his shadow parade.
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