Tale 2: Worlds in the Attic

He was very old by now. His long, white hair, uncut for fifteen years, was loosely spread all over the back of his coat. His shoulders were brought forward by age, his fingers weren't as deft as they had been. If there was one thing he was very happy for, it was that when he had started, he had used the higher shelves first. It meant he didn't have to climb steep, uncertain ladders all the time now.

There were hundreds, thousands of jars and bottles and little tin boxes neatly stacked on the shelves, hung from the ceiling by thin chains or ropes, some small and precious glass containers brought together by ropes hanging from the ceiling like clusters of grapes or braided into garlic-like strands.

The man had wanted to be a writer, or a sculptor, or a painter, or some other sort of artist that could show all the worlds that lived inside people. A long time ago, he had understood the fact that he had no talent. It didn't affect him now. He was content to be nothing else but a keeper of what he had wanted to bring forth.

He learned how to listen and came to master the art. He traveled far and wide, he talked to people and they told him their stories. He would listen intently, love them and capture the very essence of both the tales and the men into small bottles, or jars, or boxes, or whatever he felt suited them best. Then he brought them home.

He robbed nobody of anything. It was as if he were taking photographs, impressions of all that a person was and saved them forever. So many died unknown, their worlds never told. Even the best of them, the artists, the self-expresses par excellence, they barely managed to get even a splinter of themselves across. Yet the old man had all, remembered all, loved all.

A little girl in a toy shoe, who was never allowed to climb trees, dreamed that up on the branches spread an infinite world and one could get lost in Titania's lands if only one took the right paths. A businessman in a snuff box thought that the best moments of his life were when he drove towards home at night, listening to soul music, alone away from work, from his wife and from his children. A young woman in a delicate perfume bottle knew that she was half-insane, but had never confessed it to anybody because she didn't want to bother them: delicate and wild, creative and optimistic and always melancholy. A singer in a pipe poured his soul in his music and never understood why people constantly asked how he could compose music so different from his way of life and upbringing. An accountant in a matchbox used prayer beads, not to pray, but to relax, to feel the smooth wood under his fingers and the numbers that he counted slide by. And each of them had so many, so many other facets, so many sublime depths and heights.

He was very old by now and his story wouldn't be kept. He had never been interested in himself. Compared to all other men, he felt he was too common.

He sat down on his chair under the window and looked around, peacefully. He had gathered much, seen much, heard much. And he had enjoyed it all, drank it all to the last drop, loved each of the people in his attic. Some of them had died by now, others thrived. Some remembered him, most didn't. It didn't matter for the old man - he wished them all good luck and happy lives and many dreams, just the same.

He looked up at the subtle sound of unheard footsteps and he smiled. "So you have finally come for me," he said. His voice shook not from fear, but from the tiredness of his body.

The old man listened to the newcomer's story as patiently and as lovingly as ever. He smiled and laughed in all the right places, cried when he heard the saddest parts, marveled at the most beautiful moments. All throughout, he was entranced. In the end, he was weeping with happiness. When silence settled as softly as dust in an old attic, he took the Teller's world and put it on the very tip of a sharpened needle which he discreetly stuck in a garlic strand-like rope. Then he went back to his chair, sat down in it, murmured a thanks for his last tale and closed his eyes never to wake again.

Death touched his cooling forehead kindly. The old man had had no family. There was nobody to bury him, nobody to see he was dead. So It turned his body, clothes and all, into dust. It opened the window and let the breeze in to carry him and all other dust away. It placed the old man's world in the chair he had died in. With a last glance, It saw that all was tidy and right and nothing was misplaced.

Opening Its wide wings, Death flew away into the warm sunlight, happy that the old man had been glad that It collected worlds and stories just as he did.