The Storyteller

“How did the world end?”

The question was little more than a whisper, spoken timidly, as if uncertain of the response it would receive.

An old man opened his eyes, wondering if he had imagined the voice. He blinked several times, adjusting his vision to the darkness around him. For several moments he lay still, waiting to hear the voice again, but the gentle stirring of the night air was all he heard. He closed his eyes and rolled back over, attributing the voice to his imagination.

“How did the world end?”

This time he knew the voice had been real. The old man sat up and reached for a small flashlight beside the pallet he called a bed. With a click, excruciatingly loud in the utter blackness, the flashlight sent out its soft beam.

A small figure appeared in the light, eyes squinting from the sudden brightness.
The old man’s heart raced, his hands trembled. Was it real? Could it possibly be…? He did his best to keep the figure in the glow of the flashlight, afraid of losing it.

Staring back at him was the face of a young boy, no more than twelve or thirteen. His hair was disheveled, his clothes dirty and worn, yet he appeared to be in good health. There were no signs of sickness, no signs of malnourishment. Whoever this boy was, wherever he came from, he was healthy.

“You must know how it ended,” the boy began, softly. “Please, tell us.”

Twenty years had passed since the old man had last seen another human being. Hearing him speak, actually seeing him speak, nearly stopped the old man’s heart. He allowed himself a moment of hope, something he had not felt in decades. Somewhere somebody had survived! Hundreds of questions began pouring into his mind.

The boy turned around and made a quick gesture. Suddenly three more faces popped into the light, children as well; a girl, roughly the same age as the boy, holding the hands of two younger girls. They shyly came forward, standing beside the boy.

“Please, tell us what happened.” The girl spoke with an accent long forgotten by the old man. She looked much the same as the boy; dirty, wearing pieced together clothing, but healthy. The two young children peered out from behind the girl’s legs.

The old man’s mind pleaded with him to ask the children where they were from, where their parents were, how many there were. But he asked no questions. Instead, he saw the innocence in their eyes, the eager way they asked about their past, and he felt sorrow. They knew nothing of the old world, only the harshness of the present.

Taking a deep breath, the old man stood before the children and cleared his throat.

“Our world was full of light,” the old man. His voice, unheard for years, was weak at first but quickly gained strength. He wanted the children to understand, wanted them to know how things had been. “There was no darkness.”

The old man told the children of the world before the shadows, before the destruction that was all they had known. He spoke of the color of the world, the green of the trees, the deep blue of the sky; of great cities filled with hundreds of thousands of people, and the noise that filled the air; of the technologies they had, abilities to send information across the world instantly; of the scientific discoveries that had given them the power to control life, to bend it and shape it to their desire. He told the children of the turmoil that had split countries apart; of the war that laid waste to the cities; of the plague that spread like wildfire across the globe; of the darkness spreading its shadow over the world; of the last few survivors, trying to band together and rebuild. And of the hopelessness that set in when death took another victim.

As he talked the children listened intently, their eyes wide in the glow of the flashlight. They seemed to hang on every word, drink in every detail, and thirst for more.

Sometime in the early morning hours, with a throat as dry as the landscape around him, the old man finished his story. He sat back on his pallet exhausted, not just from speaking but from reliving the memories. The children sat close together in front of him, digesting all they had heard.

After several quiet moments passed, the boy spoke.

“May we come back tomorrow? To hear you tell it again?”

The questions caught the old man off guard.

“You…you want to hear the same thing again?” He asked, confused.

The children all looked at each other, then nodded rapidly, excitedly.

“The others will want to hear,” the girl said softly. “They need to know.”

For the first time in years, a smile spread across the old man’s face. Suddenly the ruined buildings seemed less ominous, the night a little less dark, the world a little less bleak.

“Yes, you may come back anytime you wish.”