Mortimer's Follies

Self-acceptance, transformation, and the magic that lives in grief, love, and growing up.

Mortimer’s Follies

Charley Shipp’s left foot caught on the edge of the rug in the middle of the Birmingham Public Library.

He stumbled, but didn’t fall. However, the stack of books he was carrying did.

The librarian looked over the top of her reading glasses from behind the counter, made a deep sigh, and shook her head. Charley’s face turned red with embarrassment, feeling the eyes of everyone in the library focus on him.

Everyone that is except Mortimer. Mortimer didn’t notice. He was focused on today’s edition of the Financial Times trying to discern from the numbers and reports what was going to happen to humankind. “Can’t save them all,” he thought to himself, “Lord knows I’ve tried.”

He looked up and took brief notice of Charley and then returned his gaze to a particularly uninteresting story about pork belly futures.

Charley’s interactions with Miss Morrison were the closest thing he had to a social life. And those mainly involved overdue fines and accusations that Charley had defaced books with underlining and dog eared pages. She would often threaten to take away Charley’s borrowing privileges, which would have been akin to depriving him of air or water.

In this case, however, Charley was guilty of nothing more than clumsiness. Miss Morrison watched him scramble to pick the books up and place them on the counter, showing her impatience even though there was no one in line behind him. She ran a white, plastic barcode scanner over the black and white stickers plastered on the back of each volume, waiting for a beep from the computer before moving onto the next.

For no apparent reason at all, Mortimer lowered the paper, folded it, placed it on the table, and stood up. He looked at Charley and wondered if all this time he had been going about things all wrong. Whatever Charley was, Mortimer reasoned, he was certainly more interesting than pork belly futures.

The eyes that had been following Charley now were set on Mortimer, dressed in a full set of dark blue robes and a hat that matched their color, adorned with gold trim.

People may not have cared in Los Angeles or New York, but in Birmingham, Alabama, his robes and hat drew stares.

Mortimer smiled, waved his hand slightly, and the entire room of people, who had found him so interesting a moment before, seamlessly went back to whatever they had been doing.

Mortimer followed Charley into the stacks, watching him, but keeping a respectful distance.

As Charley pulled books from the shelves, Mortimer reacted to each, speaking just above a whisper.

“Excellent!”

“Well that is a remarkable choice!”

“Hmmmm, that one. . . that’s probably a mistake.”

Charley could tell he was being watched and he wasn’t quite sure what to make of the curious man in the elaborate robes and hat. He didn’t seem dangerous. More like he had just come from a Renaissance fair. Or maybe from Hogwarts.

Mortimer just seemed odd. Charley had always felt a bit odd himself, so in a way the company was welcome, just as long as Mortimer didn’t talk to him, everything would be fine.

But once Charley had gathered half a dozen books, Mortimer approached him and did the thing Charley was absolutely dreading.

“Biology and Astronomy is it?” Mortimer queried in a friendly and genuinely curious voice.

Charley swallowed and stammered. He wasn’t used to people talking to him and certainly not asking something so directly.

“Yes, um, yes Sir,” he managed.

“That’s good. Very good, Charley,” Mortimer told him, “A world of wonder and dare I say. . . magic.”.

“How do you know my name?” Charley asked, taken aback.

“Ha!” Mortimer laughed, pondering the situation for a moment. “I know everyone’s name, Charley. No idea how or why, but I do.”

Charley turned his head and lowered his chin, saying nothing, but narrowing his eyes trying to decide if he believed him or not.

“Let’s see. There is Katherine behind the counter. Carol reading one of her mystery novels. She’s already figured it out, I wonder if she’ll finish it? Franklin reading a nature magazine. He has quite the fascination with birds. Kaitlyn is looking at Bride Monthly.”

His voice trailed off as he noticed Charley’s cheeks turn pink at the mention of Kaitlyn’s name.

“That’s a pretty good trick, Mister,” Charley told him, wanting to change the subject and hoping the man didn’t notice his reaction.

“Mortimer,” he said. “Please call me Mortimer. Yes, I think that is right. It’s Mortimer now. I’ve had so many names.”

He took the cap from his head and bowed to Charley. It had a flourish to it that made Charley smile. Mortimer was a character.

“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, young Master,” Mortimer told him

Charley’s smile widened, mostly from amusement. He sounded like a character from a fantasy novel, the kind of books that Charley loved to immerse himself in when he wasn’t studying science.

A wide grin appeared on Mortimer’s face and his eyes twinkled a bit in the UV light that illuminated the library stacks..

“Ah, the Principia Mathematica! Young Master Isaac’s finest work.”

“You know it?” Charley asked.

Mortimer laughed. “Well, if you must know, the entire book is the result of a nasty little trick I played on young Isaac. Let’s see, it was a bad time, a very bad time. People were getting sick and dying. Dreadful days.”

Mortimer took the book from Charley and opened it, scanning the first few pages.

“I once showed Master Isaac how to transform lead into gold,” Mortimer started to explain, “it left him quite obsessed with the whole idea of alchemy. Couldn’t be talked out of it.”

“Alchemy?” Charley asked, his skepticism growing.

“Indeed,” Mortimer said, continuing, “I felt so bad about the whole thing that I showed him a few things to make up for such a terrible prank.”

“Things? Like what?” Charley asked, now growing genuinely curious, “And lead into gold? That’s impossible!”

“Hmmm,” Mortimer paused to reflect, “Oh, just gravity, the laws of motion, a few insights into light, and a brand new way to think about how the planets all move about. Nothing fancy.”

Mortimer continued to scan the pages.

“And lead into gold. It’s a simple matter of chemical rearrangement. There’s no trick to it. He was never able to get the knack of it. Most people can’t.”

Mortimer didn’t look up as he spoke.

“Not even a thank you,” he scoffed, “Terrible man. You should always say thank you, Charley. It’s only polite.”

Charley rolled his eyes. “Very funny,” he said.

Mortimer opened his eyes a bit and looked at Charley puzzled. It never occurred to him that he wouldn’t believe him.

“You came up with all that? Physics and math?” Charley asked him, growing more and more incredulous. “Yeah, right.”

“So that makes you, like, hundreds of years old?” Charley continued, challenging him,

“Oh, much older than that, I think!” Mortimer said with great excitement, “ I don’t really know. I was around long before there were things like calendars, watches, or even the concept of time. Useful concept, time. Useful, but very, very recent.”

Now Charley was convinced Mortimer was pulling his leg.

“If you are so good at math, then tell me, what is the square root of, um, say ninety six thousand, five hundred and seventy four,” Charley asked.

Before Charley even finished saying the word four, Mortimer rattled off some digits. Three hundred and ten,” Mortimer smiled a bit and started to sing the remainder, “point 763575729.”

Charley blinked.

“How did you . . “ he swallowed, “How did you know that?”

“It’s just math Charley. You know it too. You just don’t know that you know it,” Mortimer told him with enough certainty that, for a moment, Charley almost believed it.

“It’s not just a modern problem. People have never believed in themselves, Charley,” Mortimer told him, shaking his head a bit. “It’s all very sad. Terribly sad.”

Mortimer smiled at him. “And that is the lesson for today, Master Charles. I will see you tomorrow,” he said, handing the copy of Newton’s book back to him.

Mortimer was tired, the kind of tired that only comes from eight centuries of trying to fix a broken world. Last time he napped, it was the year 805, and everything had gone to hell. It was around 1320 when he roused himself from his very, very long nap and went about setting things right. First with the Renaissance and later with the Enlightenment.

Being awake for the last 700 years had taken its toll and it was wearing Mortimer down. He was more than just tired. He was weary.

“I won’t be coming to the library tomorrow . . .” Charley’s words trailed off, because suddenly, abruptly, and mysteriously, Mortimer was gone.

For a moment, Charley wondered if he perhaps had hallucinated the whole thing. “People don’t just disappear,” he thought to himself. He arranged the books in his arms, carrying them in a stack, balanced against his stomach and made his way back to the counter.

Charley checked out, watching Miss Morrison scan each book, holding it up, passing the scanner over the back and then turning it around to read the titles, passing judgment on each one the way she might look at someone who had brought food or drink into one of the reading rooms.

Charley didn’t pay much attention. All he could think of was what Mortimer had said, “Katherine.” He looked at her, trying to figure out if she looked like a “Katherine” or not. There was only one way to know for sure.

As she scanned the last book, examined the title, and placed it on the counter, Charley nodded slightly to her and spoke, “Thank you, Katherine.”

The woman behind the counter straightened for a moment and gave him just the slightest look of amusement.

“You are most welcome, Charley,” she said, mirroring his familiar tone, without mocking it.

And with that, Charley gathered his books and went home. As he passed Kaitlyn he paused for a moment, stealing his courage. “Uh, Hi, um, Kaitlyn,” he said softly, voice cracking a bit as he spoke.

“Oh, Hi,” she said, looking up, squinting as if trying to remember his name, before offering a second ‘Hi’ and then returning her gaze to the magazine.

Charley lingered for a moment, hoping that she might say something more. But she didn’t look up from her magazine so Charley walked away, feeling awkward, his stomach in knots.

He wished he knew what to say to her.

The following day, after school, Charley stopped in at Marge’s Diner for a soda and a plate of French Fries. He was dipping one into a pile of ketchup when Mortimer, now in flowing green robes, walked into the front door.

There was the jingling of bells which always announced a new customer, but otherwise Mortimer attracted no attention.

He slowly walked toward Charley and sat down across from him.

“Do you always dress like that?” Charley whispered in a hush, his discomfort obvious both in his tone and the way he was pressing back into the booth.

“Well Charley, people see me as they expect to see me, not as I actually am . . .” Mortimer told him. “Not so different from you, I would imagine.”

Charley leaned in, selected another fry, slipped it into his mouth, and chewed, contemplating Mortimer’s comment.

“And young Miss Kaitlyn, how do you think she sees you?” Mortimer asked, eyebrows raised.

“Pffff,” Charley responded, “I think ‘barely knows I am alive’ just about covers it.”

“Matters of the heart are simple, Charley. People just love to complicate them,” Mortimer offered.

“I once knew a beautiful girl named Guinevere. I was going by a different name at the time,” he paused thinking back to an earlier time and letting himself get lost in a memory. “She was quite beautiful, Charley, not unlike your young Miss Kaitlyn,” he explained. He was watching Charley closely, who was now looking back with rapt attention.

Mortimer thought back to a time when he couldn’t help his friend Arthur, but maybe he could help Charley now.

“Yes, let’s see. Oh yes. Well. There was some infidelity and a lot of death. She ended up as a nun,” he waved his hand, dismissing the details. “Perhaps not the greatest story to tell you. But the point is that I tried to help them, Charley, but magic doesn’t work on the heart. Do you know why?”

Charley shook his head, reached down and took another fry, eating it like it was popcorn at a movie theater.

“Because that’s where the magic comes from, Charley. The heart. It’s the source. All of the wonder in the world. All the joy. You can’t master it with magic, because it doesn’t need any magic,” he said as he reached out and touched Charley’s chest with his finger. “Everything you need is already there, Charley.”

Mortimer slowly pulled his finger away.

“That is the lesson for today, Charley. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

As the words left his lips, Mortimer vanished.

Charley sat for a moment, unsure of what just happened. He was confused. No one around him seemed to notice the man in flowing green robes or the fact that he just disappeared in front of his very eyes.

Maybe he was making it all up. Maybe he was asleep and this was all a dream. Charley pinched the skin on the top of his forearm, hoping that might wake him up. It didn’t.

He dipped another fry and thought about Kaitlyn, about her smile, and how much he liked the way she smelled when he passed by her in the library.

And then he remembered that she didn’t even know his name and he sunk a little into the cushion in the booth. He took a sip of his soda and ate some more fries.

He knew what was in his heart, how he felt. He also realized that whatever he felt in his heart was locked away. If it was magic, he needed to find a way to release it.

Each day Mortimer would appear, offering Charley some sort of insight to help him along his journey. Some days they discussed physics or math. Some days it was biology or chemistry. Mortimer seemed to know everything.

Those discussions of science unlocked Charley’s mind.

Other days their attention turned to matters of the heart. Life and love. Friendship and family.

As they spoke about those matters, Mortimer taught Charley how to unlock his heart.

When it came to matters of love, though, the topic was always the same. Kaitlyn.

“Show her, Charley,” Mortimer counseled. “Let your heart guide you. If you let your heart speak, you won’t need to even think about the words.”

Mortimer would look at him and say “So many locks, Charley. Let’s work on opening them all and setting you free. You need to find your keys Charley and I can tell you that they may come from the most unlikely places.”

Some days there were lessons on love and emotions. Other days Mortimer taught Charley how to let himself feel things. How to sit with his feelings. Not just the good ones, but the bad ones too.

“Sorrow, loss, fear, and sadness, Charley,” Mortimer would remind him, “They are all part of you too and they have just as much magic as joy and wonder do. The heart’s magic is as beautiful as it is terrifying.”

The day that Mortimer felt Charley’s heart unlock, he told Charley he had finally arrived. “Now, she can see you as you really are Charley, not how she, or anyone else, expects to see you.”

And the next time Charley saw Kaitlyn at the library, she remembered his name. In fact she was the one who said hello to him.

She was different this time, because he was different. He thought about their last interaction and rather than feeling awkward or embarrassed, he let it become a part of him. He didn’t push it away.

The time after that, they chatted long enough and loud enough that Miss Morrison scolded them and asked them to leave.

Charley couldn’t help but notice that underneath Miss Morrison’s strict and gruff exterior was a smile and then a recommendation. “You’ll find the bench outside may be a more appropriate place for your conversations.”

It was a recommendation they took, talking that day for hours, only leaving when the sun started to disappear and they each realized they were expected home for dinner.

The time after that, they ended up sharing a plate of fries and some sodas at Marge’s.

They saw each other most days. Sometimes at the library, but increasingly they spent time together at the local parks, theaters, in gardens all over town, and, of course, at Marge’s.

Charley would help Kaitlyn with her homework and studying. Even though she was already a straight A student, she let him. She loved how he would light up when he talked about science and math.

Kaitlyn loved literature and she would often read poetry and short stories to Charley that moved her. He loved listening to her, even if the things she read to him didn’t always land with him.

What he liked was that she shared them. And while he didn’t realize it, she was unlocking his heart, much as he was unlocking hers.

A year later, Kaitlyn told Charley, with tears in her eyes, ”My father’s been transferred to an office in Minnesota.”

It hit Charley like a punch in the gut, the kind that knocks the wind out of you. Only this wasn’t someone punching him. It was Kaitlyn. And she was leaving.

He opened his mouth to ask her when, but she answered first, “A week.”

They both cried and he held her close. He loved her and she loved him and it was in that moment that they both chose to tell each other.

As they did, each of their hearts unlocked a little more.

When Charley shared the news with Mortimer, he told him he had a broken heart and Mortimer told him something that he didn’t want to hear, but knew was true.

“There’s magic in that too, Charley. Don’t put those locks back on. Let yourself feel it. Grow from it. Embrace it and you will find that everything you are feeling now will make you even stronger, more alive, more of who you are and who you are meant to be.”

“Every moment of your time together will live inside you,” Mortimer told him, his finger once again finding the spot on Charley's chest just above his heart.

“Live in your magic, even when it hurts,” Mortimer told him. “Maybe especially when it hurts.” And Charley did.

He learned to live as he saw himself, not as others expected him to be. As the weeks and months passed, Mortimer would visit less often and Charley would notice Mortimer struggling at times.

They still talked about math and physics and all the sciences and Charley excelled in all of his classes.

From time to time, Charley would ask Mortimer to teach him tricks. How to wave his hand and disappear or how to turn lead into gold.

“Perhaps in time,” Mortimer would answer, “In time, Charley. Funny thing, time. Funny, but useful. But you can only stretch it so far, Charley.”

As much as he loved his life, Charley felt he was also outgrowing Birmingham. His hometown had become comfortable, a feeling that only grew over the next few years. Charley was spending more time with friends. He was dating. And the awkward kid who had once locked himself away in his room to read found a group of people that shared the same interests he did.

While he didn’t realize it, when people were around Charley, their hearts unlocked too.


His time in Birmingham had been useful, but as Charley reflected on Mortimer’s words, he began to wonder if he had begun to stretch it too far.

Charley had learned how to feel every type of human experience, accepting disappointment as easily as he embraced success. He didn’t just experience magic, he began to create it.

Rather than waiting for Mortimer to appear, Charley found he could summon him in a way. He just let his heart speak. Whenever he needed Mortimer, he would always appear.

As Charley filled out his college applications, the fact that he was going to be leaving was starting to feel real. He mailed them out and waited, hoping that those who read them would see him just as he was.

On a Wednesday afternoon, after returning from school, Charley found an email waiting for him on his computer, a letter from the Office of Admissions at Harvard University accepting him to this year’s class.

He thought about what it would mean to leave Birmingham. To leave his friends. To leave his family. Even to leave Miss Morrison and the library. She had now begun pulling new books for Charley as they came into the library, finding things he might like and, for a time, she had been saving some for Kaitlyn too.

He knew this would change his life, but he also knew it would never change his heart. Whether he was in Birmingham, Alabama or Cambridge, Massachusetts, he would still be exactly who he was. Harvard might shape his future, but it would never change his heart.

The first person Charley told about his acceptance to Harvard was Mortimer, who appeared almost as if on cue, sitting across from him at Marge’s Diner.

Mortimer was delighted to hear it.

Charley offered Mortimer a fry and Mortimer declined politely, as he always did.

“I made it, Mortimer, " Charley told him with a touch of confidence in his voice, “I did it.”

“Yes, you did, Charley. You did it,” Mortimer responded, his tone measured, kind, and, as always, supportive. He looked older to Charley now.

“Are you OK?” Charley asked him. It was a question he never thought, or needed, to ask before.

Mortimer let out a long breath and reached out and, for the very last time, touched Charley’s chest.

“I have something for you, Charley,” Mortimer said, “my last gift for you. The last of me.”

As his finger touched Charley’s chest, right over his heart, he felt something stir deep inside him. Mortimer gave Charley a final gift, the ability to see himself the way others saw him, with delight, with joy, and with love.

So much love.

Charley closed his eyes.

When he opened them, he was alone.

Charley knew his friend was gone and he realized that with each lesson Mortimer had taught him, Mortimer’s magic had grown weaker. With every lesson, Charley didn’t just feel Mortimer’s magic; he absorbed it.

Because of that, Mortimer would always be with him. Even though he would miss Mortimer terribly, there was magic in that feeling of loss as well. Maybe that was as important a lesson as Mortimer had ever taught him, not to fear leaving, but to know that it is an inevitable part of life.

It was time to go. Mortimer had moved on. And now, Charley had to, too. No matter how much it hurt.

Charley knew there would be new experiences and new friends. New things to learn and new people to love.

His life, which once felt like lead, was now turned to gold. “Newton had it wrong,” Charley thought to himself, “it is up to us to make our own gold.”

He thought about how Mortimer’s voice would have sounded saying those words and he thought about the way Mortimer’s gentle touch felt.

With that final touch, the very last little bit of Mortimer’s magic left the world.

And as it did, so did Mortimer.