Ray Bradbury: "The Golden Kite, The Silver Wind"

Ray Bradbury
"The Golden Kite, The Silver Wind"
a short story
found  in Twice 22


This, of course, is a fairy tale, and that means it's not true.  This is fortunate because there's a great evil in the story.  The problem is that the great evil is what many believe is responsible for the superiority of Western Civilization.  Of course, they don't believe it's evil, but a good thing, and if Western Civ were ever to give this up, it would no longer be superior.  Anyway, here's the tale . . .

The Mandarin was upset.  He had watched the neighboring town of Kwan-Si grow in size so that it was as large as his town.  What was worse, now, was that the people were building a wall.


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(from the story)

"'But why should a wall two miles away make my good father sad and angry all within the hour?' asked his daughter quietly.

'They build their wall,' said the Mandarin, 'in the shape of a pig!  Do you see?   Our  own city wall is built in the shape of an orange.  That pig will devour us, greedily!'

'Ah.'

They both sat thinking.

Life was full of symbols and omens.  Demons lurked everywhere.  Death swam in the wetness of an eye, the turn of a gull's wing meant rain, a fan held so, the tilt of a roof, and yes, even a city wall was of immense importance.  Travelers and tourists, caravans, musicians, artists, coming upon those two towns, equally judging the portents, would say, 'The city shaped like orange? No! I will enter the city shaped like a pig and prosper, eating all, growing fat with good luck and prosperity!'"

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The daughter has an idea which the Mandarin immediately accepts.  He calls the stonemasons together and tells them to rebuild their wall in the shape of a club "'which may beat the pig and drive it off.'"


"Rejoicing, the stonemasons rebuilt the wall."  But the celebration was short-lived for the people of Kwan-Si rebuilt their wall into the shape of a great fire which would burn the Mandarin's club.   The Mandarin then retaliated with a  wall built in the shape of a lake that would extinguish the fire. The people of Kwan-Si rebuilt their wall in the shape of a mouth which would swallow the lake.   In short, a wall-shape-race had begun.  And so it went, for many months.



Finally it became too much, for the people stopped doing everything except reshaping the wall.

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 (the story)
"Sickness spread in the city like a pack of evil dogs.  Shops closed.  The population, working now steadily for endless months upon the changing of the walls, resembled Death;himself, clattering his white bones like musical instruments in the wind.  Funerals began to appear in the streets, though it wads the middle of the summer, a time when all should be tending and harvesting.  The Mandarin fell so ill that he had his bed drawn up by the silken screen, and there he lay, miserably giving his architectural orders."

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The race ended.  The people could do no more.   The daughter told him to send for Kwan-Si.  They met; both mandarins were ill and had to be carried to the meeting.  The Mandarin's daughter appears and orders the servants to carry the mandarins outside.  There she points out several kites.

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(the story)

"'What does it (a kite) need to sustain it and make it beautiful and truly spiritual?'

'The wind, of course!' said the others.

'And what do the sky and the wind need to make them beautiful?'

'A kite, of course--many kites, to beak the monotony, the sameness of the sky. Colored kites, flying!'

'So,' said the Mandarin's daughter.  'You, Kwan-Si, will make a last rebuilding of your town to resemble nothing more nor less than the wind.  And we shall build like a golden kite.  The wind will beautify the kite and carry it to wondrous heights.  And the kite will break the sameness of the wind's existence and give it purpose and meaning. One without the other is nothing.  Together, all will be beauty and co-operation and a long and enduring life.

.  .  .
And so, in time, the towns became the Town of the Golden Kite and the Town of the Silver Wind.  And harvestings were  harvested and business tended again, and the flesh returned, and disease ran off like a frightened jackal.  And on every night of the year the inhabitants in the Town of the Kite could hear the good clear wind sustaining them.  And those in the Town of the Wind could hear the kites singing, whispering, rising, and beautifying them."


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Of course, this is a fairy tale, so it is not true.  Competition is the great thing, and co-operation is OK, in its place, a small place though.    I'm sure most would agree, right?