The Old Man's Tale

It was way past midnight and unquestionably way past Mr Belleville’s bedtime. But the old man, however, had always been iron-willed and did not plan to leave until he found what he was looking for, so he paid no heed to the dull ache in his knees and the heaviness of his eyelids. 

He was sure that his wife was going to be disgruntled and say something about his tendency of acting half his age or searching for adventures that weren’t meant for a man with a sore back and grey hair. 

He couldn’t help it! The old man spent day after day in a building that held over a thousand stories, and so it was only natural that he had begun to crave at least a fraction of the excitement that he read about in novels.

‘I should’ve never proposed that you get that job as a librarian! Page by page, those books are turning you into an entirely unhinged man!” His wife had told him. He remembered thinking that her reaction was entirely unwarranted and highly exaggerated, for he had only done what any hero of a fictitious tale would’ve done. Very well, perhaps he had crossed the line by spending the fairly small amount of money he had saved on a beautiful horse, that he knew, very, very deep down he would not even be able to ride. But it was truly magnificent, and the man that had sold it to him at the auction was very persuasive, seeming to know exactly what to say. He had painted a lovely picture for the old man; him galloping on a meadow, with the wind in his hair, though he did not have much, feeling as free as ever. 

Mr Belleville visited the auction the next day, at the command of his wife, downhearted and frustrated, thankfully managing to return the horse, because she had told him that he either give it back or find himself and his pet a new home. 

She loved him really.

He was in the place he treasured most- the library, searching for… Well, in all honesty, he had not the slightest clue about what it was exactly that he so desperately wanted to find. Mr Belleville just hoped that once his eyes would land on the item, he would know that it was the mystery object of his desire. 

It had all started when Mr Belleville was about to close up the library for the day. He had gotten out his bronze key, turned it two times, and pivoted towards his car, balancing a new stack of books that he had checked out for himself with one hand. 

And then it hit him! Oh, it would have been a truly disastrous thing if he had forgotten his spectacles. They were small, brittle things, held together by tape and string and things that the old man had found lying around just as they had begun to fall apart again. But they did the job, and he couldn’t imagine a single day without them! 

And so, he had placed the stack of books atop his car roof, and hobbled back to the library, muttering about what a wasted night it would’ve been if he wasn’t able to read because he had left them at work. 

He turned the key two times again, but in the opposite direction, and once he stepped into the library, he almost ran back out again! 

It was winter and the night came quicker, shrouding the whole city with its dark blanket. Mr Belleville could hardly see a thing, but he could have sworn that something in the shadows had moved. And it was not just his wild imagination. 

He was about to reach for his cell phone, scrambling and turning his pockets inside out to find it, and call the cops! The old man was convinced that in his library, there was a wicked thief, about to place their grubby hands on his books. Now, most would probably think slightly more pragmatically, asking themselves what kind of thief breaks into an old and dust-filled library. But not Mr Belleville; to him, literature was worth far more than gold, and so he did not question the thief's incentive.

It was when the troublesome stranger stepped out of the shadows, that the old man started to question what their actual motivation was.  

The odd individual had on himself a cloak. And it was not one of those modern ones that Mr Belleville had seen in a shopping mall with his wife, but one that belonged to a villain! It was dark and looked like it was made from the night itself, concealing the stranger's entire face in what seemed to be a black fog. 

And dare he say it, It almost looked magical!

The old man wondered how the cloaked figure even managed to step foot into his library, for there were no signs of break-ins and he was indisputably sure that he had locked the door. 

He waited by a bookshelf, either unnoticed by the stranger or just ignored, and watched as they took out an item from beneath the secret confines of their cloak, and placed it on a shelf. 

‘This is the opposite of a thief!’  He had thought. ‘Perhaps it is just someone that had forgotten to return one of my books, deciding that a late trip to the library was just what they needed.’ He grimaced- thinking rationally was certainly not made for him. 

Something peculiar was going on, and this time, he was confident that it was not just inside his head. 

The stranger then seemed to pause for a moment, and tilt their head, ever so slightly, in the old man's direction. Mr Belleville had thought that was it, staring wide-eyed and helplessly just like a deer in headlights, unsure whether he should try to run or call for help or plead with the cloaked figure for mercy. But just as he was getting ready to do none of those things, but throw a punch or something of the sort, the stranger stepped back, and it almost looked as if they had dissolved into the shadows.

The cloaked figure seemed to be gone, almost as if they hadn’t even been there in the first place. But just to be sure, Mr Belleville walked back to his car, which was parked right outside of the library, and waited very patiently until his watch told him it was midnight. 

He aimed to make sure that once he’d begun his search for whatever the stranger left behind, he would not run into them again! 

But now, seeming to have rummaged through the whole library, he had begun to wonder if it was a bad idea. 

The old man felt as if he were looking for a needle in a haystack, or worse, looking for something that wasn’t even there. What if whilst he had been waiting in his car, the stranger had returned, and taken the item back? Or what if it was just his old mind playing tricks on him?

He began to feel foolish, thinking himself nonsensical for spending so many hours on such an unavailing task. 

But then it hit him. He had been doing this all wrong, for if he wanted to find the item, he needed to recreate the situation from before! 

With a newfound sense of hope that seemed to add a bounce to his steps, he tottered over to the light switch and flicked it. 

Darkness enveloped him and it took a while before his eyes adjusted so that he could roughly make out where everything was. 

Just as before, he stood behind a bookshelf, recalling in his slightly foggy and tired mind where precisely the cloaked figure had stood. 

Mr Belleville wanted to kick himself for not thinking of this sooner, because there, lying ever so innocently on the shelf, was a book that he had not seen until now. He wasn’t about to dive into the science behind how on earth it had just appeared out of no where, because he had never been someone who believed that there had to be a logical explanation for everything, but someone that didn’t run to seek elucidation for things his mind simply couldn’t comprehend. 

The old man walked towards it, a little hesitantly, half-expecting a basilisk, or Kraken or dragon or something equally terrifying to leap out of it and swallow him whole. 

He felt a sense of relief because the book was without a doubt not one of the libraries, which meant that it was indeed the mystery item that the stranger had left. 

In the darkness, an unearthly glow emanated from the book, bathing the old man's face in rich gold. 

“What is this?” He mumbled to himself, eyes glued to it, unable to look anywhere else, simultaneously mesmerized and frightened. 

He couldn’t help it. His fingers brushed the cover and felt a warm and leathery material. 

It was as if he were under a spell. ‘What use is it stopping now?’ He thought to himself, or perhaps he said the words out loud. ‘I might as well see what is inside.’

With exceedingly great caution, he picked up the book and opened it so that he was on the very first page. His eyes scanned over the singular sentence- no, title. 

The Old Man’s Tale

He furrowed his brows, dumbfounded. Aiming to put together the puzzle of this abnormally uncanny night, he flipped the page, but there was nothing. Not a single word or drawing or number. He flipped to the other page. Nothing. 

Mr Belleville skimmed through the whole book, hoping to find anything at all, but his effort was fruitless.

Suddenly, he felt as if all the air had been vacuumed from his lungs. In fact, he felt as if he were being vacuumed. It was as if someone or something was squeezing him on all sides, and he wondered if this was a heart attack or something of the sort. 

A high-pitch-ringing sound filled the old man’s ears, rendering his hearing useless. Next was his sight; it started with white spots flashing in and out of his vision, but then all he could see was blinding light until he could not discern or hear or feel anything at all. 

Mr Belleville had already made his peace with whatever tragic thing had happened to him, ready to climb up the white stairs to heaven, though he hoped he’d get a lift because any more walking and his knees would collapse! 

But the old man had always been a little too dramatic, for his end did not come. 

He opened one eye first, and then the other, not knowing what to expect. 

In his hands, he was still clutching the book that the stranger had left behind. 

It was green. 

That was all that his still slightly overwhelmed mind could comprehend. 

After a while of staring at the sky, wondering what had happened and what his wife was going to say, he gasped: “I’m in a forest!”

Mr Belleville scrambled to his feet, looking around so that perhaps he may find a road sign or anything that could hint at where he was. 

He could already imagine his wife at home, walking back and forth in front of the hearth, thinking of detailed ways to punish Mr Belleville for being away for so long. Perhaps she would make him his least favourite meal for a month straight. Or-

“Excuse me,” 

The old man spun around so quickly that he needed to blink a couple of times so that his surroundings would stop swirling around. 

Before him was a small girl, with two plaits of chestnut hair covered by a red hood, swinging a basket back and forth. 

She looked at him as if he were the crazy one, and then shook her head, as if she had gotten lost in thought. “Do you happen to know where the village on the other side of the forest is? I’m terribly lost and my-”

Mr Belleville cackled, not noticing that the girl had jumped from his sudden change of mood. “What and your grandmother is waiting for you?” This had to be an elaborate joke! 

“Well, yes, actually. How-”

He laughs again, ready to go along with the joke. “You be on your way, Little Red Riding Hood. And steer clear of any big bad wolves!” 

The little girl walks away, giving the old man an odd look. 

Perhaps he could’ve asked her for directions too, for he had no idea where on earth he was. 

But what was the point in standing around and waiting, he was not growing any younger, though he wished that were the case-

Mr Belleville stopped in his tracks, his heart pounding. 

He was shrinking. 

The old man looked at his hands, and was horrified! They were smooth! Without wrinkles! 

“Stop!” He called out to no one in particular, his voice boyish and young, just as it had been years and years ago. 

To his surprise, whatever or whoever did this to him must have listened. And now, he just had to figure out how to grow fifty years in the span of five minutes, so that when his wife would see him, she wouldn’t get a heart attack. 

Now, he had always been fairly open-minded, but the things that were going on here were too much, even for him. 

He walked on and on, not seeming to get anywhere because the forest was so dense with trees that it felt like it was neverending. 

Beads of sweat collected at his temple and tickled his chin as they crawled down his face. This was the adventure he had always longed for, so why was the only thing that he cared about going back to his wife?

The old man’s hands and legs were shaking, likely from exhaustion and distress. He wondered if this whole thing was a trap. If the cloaked figure that left the book behind had meant for him to find it. Oh, how he wished he could give them a piece of his mind! 

A sudden darkness flashed before his eyes, and the stranger materialised, right in front of him, at his command.

“You did this to me!” He yelled even though it did not sound threatening coming from a man that looked and sounded like an eight-year-old boy. 

“This is your story, and you are its master. Do not fault me for your own doings.” The stranger said, their voice, unlike anything Mr Belleville had heard. 

But before he could question the cloaked figure or ask them what on earth they meant, they disappeared. 

Suddenly, the old man had an epiphany and if he were a character in a cartoon then a lightbulb would’ve surely appeared above his head.

He was the story's master. He was in a story. His story. 

The old man could make it anything he wanted it to be.

He had spent so long living lives that weren’t his, living vicariously through characters, that he had forgotten to live his own life. To live by his own set of rules, and by what he truly wanted to do. 

So he wished with all his being, that he could go back home to his wife and rid himself of this troublesome book, though it did reveal to him that he had been going about life the wrong way. 

But above all, he promised himself, that he would live his own story.

And surely, after the unpleasantries (the whole case of the high-pitched ringing in his ear and sight loss, his eyes were met with his front door, but this time, he was empty-handed, the book gone. 

The old man laughed with delight, glad to be back home, and ran to his wife, who was half asleep on the couch. 

“Oh, Elsie! You will never guess what happened!” He cried. 

His wife stirred, mumbling something in her sleep. 

“Well, there was a weird hooded stranger, and then this glowing book and I got transported to a forest, Elsie, a forest!” He paces back and forth, unable to contain his excitement. “Okay look, I know how it all sounds-”

Elsie sighs, placing a pillow over her head. “My husband has finally lost it.”