The Flaw

The village was silent. The sound of the stream was an afterthought, the normal sounds of the forest drowned out by the heavy shade of the deeds of that fateful night. The villagers and the assailant had no idea what had happened. Paolo knelt next to his victim, whose blood ran downstream, tinting it with an unavoidable crimson that confirmed the unmistakable, he was dead. The tale of this night would be passed down for many years as the only enduring moment in the village’s silent history.
Paolo’s village was deep in an area of the world that was untouched by anyone but the natives and their ancestors. They lived in a village with no name, no religion, and no way out. The village was simply a collection of huts that sat in a clearing and with each hut a family and a grove of trees to supply it. The village was surrounded by trees on all sides and the only path out was a foot worn one that was used only for fetching water. The village had no history, no written records, not even stories passed down by the elders. There was no economic structure, the villagers simply lived and did whatever was required to do so. They lived off the native fruits that grew in abundance and seldom had to venture to borrow some from another family’s grove. The lack of outside influence was combined with a lack of a social structure. No villagers ventured to talk to another family group except to possibly arrange a marriage.
In this village of solitary living and devoid of identity, the villager who most exemplified their daily rituals was Paolo. He was born with a very pale complexion, an albino, but no one knew the term or the reasons for it. He had creamy pink eyes, a stark contrast to the dark eye color shared by his brethren. The villagers had segregated him for his difference and made sure he had no part in any of their families. He had lived alone in a lone hut on the edge of the village near the river path for as long as he could remember. He couldn’t remember who his family was, or why he lived alone, but to him it was no matter.
Paolo lived off the native fruit like the rest of the villagers and went to fetch water from the stream when the need arose, but only at night. He didn’t want to encounter one of his fellow villagers, and they didn’t want to encounter him. He had no way of communicating because he never learned the native tongue. He was larger than his brethren, both in height and size. When he was young the villagers simply did their best to ignore him and make him know he was not welcome and hoping that at some point he would simply die or leave. He did neither. Paolo saw how the villagers lived and saw that his way of living was not so different from their own. He simply had no family. But over the years the villagers grew to despise him only for his difference, the first thing the villagers ever collectively did. They whispered amongst eachother about him. The village’s quiet routine had been broken, and they decided together to cleanse their village of its only flaw.
Finally, the night came when the villagers felt it was time to act on their plot. It was cool and devoid of light. They conspired to banish him from the village when he was away fetching water. As Paolo left for the stream, he noticed the normally pungent smell of the villager’s fires that would be lit on a cool night was not in the air. Yet he thought nothing of it and continued on his way. As he walked out of sight, the villagers gathered at the path’s entrance at the southern end of the village. When all were in attendance, they started their walk toward the river.
Paolo knelt next to the stream taking small sips of cool water that refreshed him and soothed his dry throat. He was so startled to see the entire village standing behind him as he turned to head back that he fell back into the shallow, cold water. They started shouting at him and throwing stones. He didn’t understand the warnings and just sat there and wondered what was happening. As they realized this, they stopped throwing stones and shouting and simply talked amongst themselves as he picked himself up.
Finally one of the village elders stepped forward. He was much smaller than Paolo and had to use a cane to walk. He had a wrinkled face and a very long beard. He hobbled over to Paolo and stared up at him without expression. The villagers were silent. They stood that way for what seemed like an eternity, but it was only a few moments before the man picked his cane up above his head and struck Paolo across the face. Paolo fell back into the stream dazed. As he tried to get up, the elder was on his way towards him ready to attack again. He couldn’t understand what was happening. His life had always been one way and now in one night everything seemed to be upside-down.
As the elder was upon him, cane in hand, Paolo reacted. He took a hold of the cane and ripped it from the man’s frail grasp. The lack of balance made the old man fall back towards the villagers. His head struck a stone on the bottom of the riverbed, and he lay there motionless. Paolo dropped the cane. The villagers gasped collectively and clamored together but did not go to the aid of the elder for fear of Paolo. The concept of murder was a new one in the village, and no one had any idea how to react. As the cane drifted down the river, the elder’s blood joined it. Paolo fell to his knees weeping; the last image of Paolo that the villagers would have. Once the shock the night’s events wore off, the villagers silently trickled back to their huts two men shorter than they had arrived.
A few villagers went to the river early that next morning and found nothing. No elder, no Paolo. They were nowhere to be seen. The villagers talked of the happenings of that night and felt it so memorable that they should pass the story down to new generations, the first and only time they ever did so. Life in the village slowly returned to normal. The villager’s goal had been achieved in their minds. But really Paolo had changed the routine of the village in some small ways. Never again was anyone segregated from their family. The memory of the pale villager was one that would endure forever. In order to be sure their mistake would never be repeated in future generations the story of that strange night was almost always the topic around fires on cold nights and the villager’s future visits to the fateful river became much less frequent.