Come closer, my friend. I will show you things you never imagined exist before. I will tell you stories no one has ever heard before. I want to know that at least someone knows these things before I draw my last breath, which is soon enough, young man.
I do not fear death, I have lived a life of a hundred men and I have no regrets. I fought things much worse than Death, and I still breathe. But I do fear the oblivion. I fear that this world today has gone astray and it needs at least one living, breathing storyteller to maintain at least the illusion of hope. I have lived through these stories I’m about to tell you. I have been a crucial part of many of them, and just a bystander in others. But everything I am about to tell you happened in front of my eyes.
It is a world much different than yours, I understand that. It will not be easy to accept everything I tell you and you will not find it real enough to pass it on until you open your soul to me and my stories. And I need you to feel them; I need you to tell them to others, even though they will mostly doubt you and your words. The world needs you to tell these stories anyway.
But first, you must believe.
Look at my face. These scars prove my life was real. They are a gentle reminder of how fragile life really is and how lucky I was to have lived it fully, for most people don’t even come close.
I wasn’t always a storyteller, for I had no stories to tell. I held my head up, though. I searched and I wondered. The world is so full of wonders; my friend – wonders that no one ever notices. That is the biggest, saddest discovery I have ever made.
I know you notice the beauty around you; I can see the glow in your eyes. You don’t know how much of it there is yet, but the seed is there and I am here to water it and help it grow. All I want now is to enjoy its shade, as it grows into a tree of a storyteller. Then I will go with a smile on my face, and you will bid me farewell with one on yours as well.
But come now, the warmth of the fire awaits you, the night is cold and the stars are glowing in their silver beauty. There is some food here for you and a helping hand of a stranger. You better take it, because tomorrow we will be strangers no more.
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