Within the great forest west of Mount Aso on the island of Kyushu in southern Japan, there once lived a clan of ten thousand red cats called the aka-neko. Known for their smooth auburn fur that glimmered in both sunlight and moonbeams, these cats lived well beyond twenty years and grew larger than a hunting dog.

Their song gave voice to the story of the mighty volcano and how, over many centuries, it had inhaled the land and trees around its ever-growing belly. The singing of the red cats carried the soft warble of streams that formed from melting snow on the volcano's five peaks. It announced the early arrival of cherry blossoms thrown open to the sun, having feasted all winter on the rich volcanic soil. It was a happy yet haunting tune that filled the forest with an echoing sigh as the cats would pad through; silent except for their melody. At both dawn and moments before dusk, the cats would gather at the edge of the forest and sing to the changing sunlight – a long wavering chorus that grew stronger as the sun came up and faded as it went down.

The concerto of the aka-neko had many dark verses as well. Aso's rumble, the crashing cacophony of boulders plunging down its sides, the heavens above it joining in harmony with claps of thunder that the cats would mimic with deep vocal cord vibrations. When the mountain exhaled its sulfurous breath in plumes of ashen darkness, the cats would crouch low in circles and whisper the notes, rocking back and forth with the tremors coming from beneath them.

There were many other cats on the island – white, black, brown, gray, mixed and solid – and each tribe had their own song, but none as complex as the aka-neko. Cats closer to the sea sang the song of the waves; worshipped the tide but kept their distance. Those who lived near the great port of Nagasaki, where man and his machinery had already established a beachhead, sang quieter songs and only out of earshot of their two-legged adversaries. And east of the mountains, on the great plains, a colony of more than fifty thousand white cats – the shiro-neko – could be heard singing in rhythm to the wind and sky.

When all the cats sang together, it was as though the largest choir in the world had unleashed their highest notes in a mighty crescendo, the entire tonnage of life cascading down on their island in waves of joy.

Yet despite the majesty of each of the other cats' melodic offerings, all chants ceased when the red cats sang. The wind became their megaphone, taking the song first east to silence the shiro-neko and then whipping it around to cover the rest of the island with their music. The power of Mount Aso was in their voice; its strength pushed the scales to their limit. From the smallest insect to the mighty brown bears that roamed the high peaks, the song of the aka-neko was the only sound one could hear.

Except for the knocking of one of the birds.

Kitsutsuki, the woodpecker, had no respect for the other animals. In fact, he had little respect for anything other than his own ability to annoy them. Kitsu, as the other birds referred to him, loved the sound of his own knocking, tapping, rapping, and any other particularly annoying rhythm he could create with his beak. But because he was cursed with this sharp appendage and nothing else for a song, Kitsu had become an unwilling one-note percussionist.

Kitsu always wanted a real song. Deep in his heart, he felt the musing to sing, to let loose a melody, but the hardened spike that protruded from his face and nearly locked his jaw stifled the ability to sing for his entire life. Anger toward some unseen creator never entered the bird's mind, but disgust with the lack of a bird's melodious voice bit deep into the woodpecker's heart.

From the moment the dawn teased his eyes until the night sky became the last image as he closed them, Kitsu attacked the trees in the forest as though his life would not be complete if he missed one. From hundred foot pines down to young maples sprouting their first leaves, tree bark became the drums his beak would beat on. His four-inch bill, that in his youth had split large chunks of wood with a single blow, hardened over the years as his fury over a lack of musical talent increased. There were many nights recently where Kitsu had hammered a tree in frustration long after the stars had grown tired of his racket.

But all those years added to the rust in the old woodpecker's jaw and dulled the tip of Kitsu's beak to where depth yielded to noise on most of the trees in the forest. He would get obnoxiously louder as soon as the red cats started to croon, flying to wherever they had gathered and starting a discordant beat on the closest hardwood. The cats ignored him for as long as they could, but often just sang with more volume in the hope that the woodpecker would eventually grow tired of the competition and fly away. Kitsu rarely did.

And now, winter was coming to Kitsu's forest. He was certain it would be much harder than last year when he almost froze to death. Had it not been for hundreds of his friends that gathered around his nest to keep him warm, the oldest of the woodpeckers would have been silenced forever.

Throughout the flock, Kitsu's musical desires were well known. As the bird aged, his gripes and groans to have his song released had overtaken any other need, sometimes even food. With the weather turning colder, most of his friends had already stocked their nests. Yet Kitsu's cupboard was still bare. While he sat listening for the red cats, the other woodpeckers were busy punching holes in trees and gathering provisions; their rhythmic hammering keeping time with the last flapping leaves as the wind tore through the forest.

It was a day that was too late to be autumn and too soon to be winter. High in the trees, the woodpeckers were finishing their tasks. Below them, a line of red cats was making for shelter from the coming storm along the forest floor, singing a work song in the same key as the breeze and moving with determination. Kitsu watched them, listening to their boisterous chant but too chilled to battle with his beak.

Suddenly, a gust of wind blew through Kitsu's nest and before he could steady himself, the icy blast had him tumbling toward the ground. Had this been years past, he would have recovered instantly and flown back up to safety. But time had slowed Kitsu's clock and his reactions were more governed by fear than instinct at this stage of his life. The procession of red cats was directly below him, coming up fast. In the last moments before he smashed into Hiro the lead aka-neko, Kitsu managed a single bleat, a high pitched note that alerted his unfortunate target. Sadly, it was just enough time for the cat to swing one paw across the bird's chest, as it tried to defend itself against some unknown falling mass.

Had the cats not been singing, had the wind not been blowing so loud, had Kitsu been able to cry out sooner, his life might have continued. But even the roaring wind was muted by the song of the aka-neko. Kitsu's fall was a silent death drop that none of the cats heard until it was too late.

Hiro's claws sliced through the thick feathers and into Kitsu's chest. The wound was fatal but not instant. Kitsu felt the darkness descending on him and opened his beak to cry, but instead he sang the most beautiful song any of the animals had ever heard. The words were the story of his life – the anguish of having lived without song for so many years, of never having a mate because of his silence, of never bearing children who could learn a song from their father, the pain of dying with such unhappiness.

Kitsu sang with notes so clear and crisp that the cats began to hum along with him. The aka-neko in the procession formed a ring around the dying bird, swaying back and forth as music so pure and painful poured from his mouth. The sadness of his journey, fulfilled at the last moment, brought tears to all the animals on the island but none were as sad as Hiro who looked down on the dying woodpecker helplessly.

Kitsu's song seemed to go on for far longer than his life. The wind was still, the other birds were hushed, and the aka-neko's soft humming drifted into a whisper. And when he died, the woodpeckers dropped from the trees and carried him off in silence. Hiro and his fellow cats watched the winged funeral until it vanished over the treetops and began a new song of their own. Their music sent out waves of deep sorrow for the loss of a life, as all lives were precious, yet also filled with the joy that a song of life, long held captive had been released.

All of the cats on the island joined in the sad refrain, tears flowing from their eyes as word of the accidental death reached every furry ear on Kyushu. The cats stood on their hind legs and cried a song of anguish, of loss, of pain, of heartbreak in the shared experience of Kitsu's death at the paw of one of their own. And when it was over, there was silence. The cats remained standing as the clouds parted and a long shaft of sunlight burst through to illuminate the ground where Kitsu had died.