by beginlovely

Created on: August 03, 2008

In ancient times,in what would become Pacific Grove, California, the humble people were suffering and starving. The sardines that spelled life and sometimes wealth for the fishermen had failed for several years to reappear and fill their nets. Folk who tilled the fields wailed because the winter rains had not returned, and sun and wind allied in brutal force to stunt all crops.

As if aligned with the adverse powers of nature, the wealthy landlord and his cruel henchmen demanded ever-increasing taxes and tribute from the despairing townspeople, who vainly combed the sea or scraped the land for mere sustenance.

The landlord's wife, a woman of surpassing beauty and gentleness, daily left the wealth and comforts of her hilltop manse to tend the sick and he aged - the wailing widows, and the swelling numbers of undernourished, ill-clad orphan children.

She was beloved and glorified by the wretched people, who told tales of how the birds approached and sang wherever she went, how rabbits, raccoons, opossums and other forest animals bounded and pranced before her like a royal retinue.

But though she could bring joy to people's hearts, could cause cats and dogs to purr or smile or wag their tails, she could not summon clouds to bring needed rain or change the habits and responses of finny creatures.

So one evening, returning from it seemed her hundredth funeral in the village and the tearful walk to the cemetery to inter another child felled by disease and malnourishment, she steeled herself to confront her fearsome husband, the owner-landlord-dictator-tyrant of all who dared breathe air, from the mountaintop where he lived in luxury and comfort to wherever sea and land met sky in any direction.

She found him lying on a pile of otter-skin cushions in the great room of the grand palace, swilling wine from a jeweled goblet and picking his teeth with a small bone from the pheasant he had just consumed.

"Good sir," she hesitantly began. "Your vast dominion craves your sympathetic concern. Whilst we live in comfort - dine on bear, venison, and abalone in grand rooms warmed and scented with burning oak and fragrant sandalwood - your simple people struggle and die trying to feed themselves earn the tax and tribute you demand.

For the love of God and for the salvation of your soul, soften your heart! Revoke taxation at least until the drought doth cease and the evil red tide withdraws so that sardines and salmon will

return. This I beg of you as a loyal wife concerned not only for

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