The Man at the Table

The old man was slumped at the table when I first saw him. A couple of idle glances later and I was reassured that he was still breathing. Just barely. He looked peaceful despite his deep-set eyes and a heavily furrowed brow. He had a geniality about him, like some kind of magnetic aura that kept my attention drifting back to him.

“You want to join me?”

“Me?” I asked. Until that point, I had been oblivious to the fact it was just him and me. Not a soul about. Not even the barman.

“Well?”

I figured that exchanging a writing desk for a ricketty pub table across from some old guy is as good a deal as any, so I shuffled over to the table, took a stool opposite him, and settled in. He had on a haggard robe, one of those made from thick, stiff fabric you’d find on someone sleeping rough. In the height of a city summer heatwave, it struck me as odd, but he seemed a nice enough bloke. And he was halfway through pouring a large glass of wine for me so I thought it best not to draw any attention to it.

“What’re we drinking to?” I asked.

At this, he raised his head and locked eyes with me. His deep-set eyes seemed shadowy as if smoke circled about them. “To a god,” he said in a deep, reverential tone. “To the God.”

I took a mouthful of the wine, let it settle on my tongue and roll around my cheeks before it seeped its way into my throat.

“You like?” The old man grinned, his lips spread wide across his sagging face.

I thought I answered him, but no words fell from my lips. I felt mesmerised, surrounded by an invisible embrace, but I wasn’t scared. I smiled, thought I laughed, and felt a tear form in the corners of my eyes and drip down my cheeks. It was warm. I was warmed.

I reached for the cup again. I craved that sensation once more. The old man placed his hand on the rim of my cup. We locked eyes. “You certain?” he asked. I bowed my head, he withdrew his hand and watched me — if he even could watch — press the rim to my lips and begin to drain it. The wine washed over my senses like waves breaking on white sand, pulled me into its current, and swept me off to where the stars in the sky meet the ripples on the ocean.

As the sea swept me back to the shore, I became aware the old man was now standing beside me. The dull, dying light bulbs were now thick, red candles burning low. The old man’s smoke-shadow eyes had flickers of flames behind them now. His furrowed brow had relaxed and the robes, still haggard, seemed to sway more freely.

“See me?” the old man asked. My head lolled to the side to catch his eye flames locked upon the doorway. Shafts of gold and silver light shone through, setting the glasses ablaze, kaleidoscopic colours resonating off East London's exposed brick and beer-stained wood. Intermittent gusts of wind stitched together, began to blister the still air, animating it.

The old man shuffled towards the doorway, wine cup in hand. “Come,” he said. “A story shall be shown. Come.”

On the other side of the gold-silver light, crisp leaves crunched underfoot, birds chirped softly overhead on beech branches knotted together. An age-old path snaked its way over the endless, verdant expanse. One foot before the other, the pathway eased me onwards.

“It begins,” said the old man, placing a golden cup in my hand, the finest I had ever seen. Etched meticulously into the metal were figures of women, monsters, lyre-players, words from all corners of time and space, stretching around the cup and into infinite.

As I walked, on and on, through crystalline shade and glorious sunshine, and as the wine danced on my lips and the cup refilled, tiny knots at the back of my mind started to loosen. The old man, settling into a steady stride behind me, remained silent, a comforting silence, never looking up from his bare feet. The hem of his robe turned ash-grey, kicking up tiny plumes of dust.

The ebb and flow of the sun blazing and the shadow shrouding started to become more sporadic, with the darkness of the shade taking hold much longer, much stronger. The trees and bushes became more emaciated, less vibrant. Where they once were comfortably distanced, pleasingly uniform, they now crossed over each other, branches like long tendrils contorting themselves into grotesque shapes.

“Drink,” the old man commanded. “In doubt, the forest thickens.”

The warmth of the wine staved off the bitterness of the wind that was picking up with each step I took. The lush bushes turned to brambles. A sickly rot started to take over them. Off to my right, the brambles started to thin and make way for a small clearing.

“Nothing good comes from looking,” said the old man. I ignored his warning and moved, unhindered, into the clearing, a few loose brambles cutting my ankles.

Here the shadow was viscous, oppressive.

“This is not your story,” hissed the old man, his deathly-cold hand gripping my shoulder tight.

Through the darkness, tiny candles flickered pallid flames and cast their shadows over piles of books, rolls of paper, laptops, typewriters, all wrapped in thick chains and sealed with rusted padlocks.

The old man tightened his grip on my shoulder. “Drink your fill,” he said. “These are not your stories.”

I raised the glass to my lips. In the distance, the sound of drums started to rise up as I drank deep. The padlocks and the chains began to rattle. The sharp, metallic sound severed the night air, sucked in all warmth. Even the wine in my throat had turned ice cold.

I ran from the clearing, rejoining the beaten path. The drumming grew louder, the metronomic beat mirroring my heart. The drums were joined by a low trumpet. No matter which way I turned, it felt as if it was always behind me. Through the trees, on the path, I had been walking for fuck-knows how long, came a procession of torches held aloft by shadows.

The old man stood by my side, a little ways off of the path, and looked at the oncoming march of shadows. No fear, no trepidation, just a smile of contentment. As the shadows passed around me, a strange mixture of happiness and sorrow washed over me. The figures seemed to be shedding their clothes, and their lithe frames seemed to half glide, half dance, over the gravelly path. At the fore were the more fervent silhouettes, flanked by the torchbearers — more muscular, more static — who marched in perfect unison to the drums and the trumpets. Scores of silhouettes danced past the old man and I, oblivious to our presence, in a never-ending cavalcade of apparitions backed by music that transfixed me, fixed my feet to the ground as if roots had dug themselves deep into the fertile soil. From the feet of the shadows, buds started to form turning the ash-grey path a lively shade of green, white and red petals flourish on the fragile, thin stems and barely bend under the heft of the shades that tread the path, followed by forms more equine or goat-like with horns that jut from the top of their heads or from their temples, trumpets and drums in hand, and then more shapes fully animalistic prowling through the vegetation, weaving in and out of the revellers, their heavy paws scraping along the gravel path.
The procession slows to a crawl and a space forms in the column, into which steps the old man, a smile etched onto his less-aged face. He pushed me off the path, brambles digging into my flesh, holding me there.

“This is not your story,” he said. “Ours.”

At this, the music and song rose and the procession started moving once more, the shadows seeming to pay some reverence to the old man who raised a cup and drained it to a chorus of cheers.

The festival line drew into the distance, disappearing into the darkness as a bitter wind froze the beads of sweat that covered my body.
All became dark, save for a small, dull flame far off. I groped and gasped my way through the brambles and bushes and inch by inch the flame grew, softly illuminating an old wooden desk. Atop the desk was a plain glass, filled with red liquid, and a padlocked book. A key glistened under the candle flame. I slotted it into the opening on the padlock and twisted. The lock fell from the book, disappearing into the desk. Cautiously, I turned the cover of the book. Inside was a pen and endless miles of blank pages.

The first time the young man saw me, I was slumped at my desk.