Day 28: Gloomy

Genre: Urban fantasy
Universe:  QuickSilver
Rating: G / TW: None
 

On the planet Earth, there lives a man who is a vessel of stories.

This mental collection of books lies sleeping in the vault of his mind, spanning thousands of years. Much of what he knows has otherwise been lost to time. He can tell you about a young boy from ancient …. who saved his village from a bandit raid in such a clever way that the story made it all the way to the bars of …. There is the tale of a woman who outsmarted her cheating husband with a typhoon, a grandmother who raised her grandson alongside wild animals, a man who founded a gold-rush town that prospered for a decade until it was lost to a fire.

He knows the finer details of more well-known tales, as well. Do you ever wonder what it was like being the niece of Confucius? Or the guy who sold Winston Churchill the best cigar he ever had? Perhaps you’re curious about the man who inspired the tall tale of Bunyan or about the first hands to fold a thousand paper cranes. He knows these as well.

Why is he not famous? Why isn’t he telling stories on TV, writing books, recording audio?

They say his voice is uncapturable, his handwriting unreadable. Perhaps even more tragically, the only way he can tell his stories is if he is asked - then he can tell them in any language requested.

How can such a man exist? No one has an answer. What we do know is that every time he is found and allowed to dig into his treasure trove of stories, he vanishes again by the full moon’s next rising. He then takes on a new face, a new name, a new home as if he had always been there.

He is often quiet, patient, and waiting. He is an old man with shaking hands and a kind smile to those who call on him. What brings sadness into his life is that fewer and fewer people ask him to tell them a story. Years can pass between tales.

He sits, even now, in a gloomy mood. He watches the sky as the rain pours outside his apartment window in such thick sheets that is obscures the sun. He wishes dearly that soon, soon someone will request a story and allow the words to flow over his tongue once more, sweet as honey and three times more fulfilling.

Do you know this man, perhaps? It wouldn’t hurt to ask.