The mountain fell onto the town on the first day of May. The maypole had just been raised in the park, three hundred feet tall and gay with two thousand waving, bright silk ribbons. The whole town gathered beneath it as the children spun and kicked and leaped across the grass, when the mountain fell.

It fell through the sunlight and settled over the grass and the town like a wall of fog; silent and heavy and oppressing. The band played on; the maypole spun tighter and tighter; popcorn and soda cans rose waving into the air; lightning leaped from the ground to the mountain.

The last ribbon was braided on the pole as the mountain crashed into the earth, dragging the town with it.

Two weeks later grass grew over the cold darkness of the mountain. Within a month heather softened the stern outlines, purpled the mountain’s majesty with beard-growth. Three years, and trees grew upon the mountain, and the rains fell, and lakes gathered in the lively valleys, and cold and clear the rivers ran. Animals moved light upon the peaks and spoke in high clear voices. Beneath the mountain the band played on by the maypole.