Weaving Worlds from Nothing

I don’t know when I grew old, but it happened so slowly, too slowly for me to notice. There was a time when one of the women would follow me away from the great halls at night, or wait for me out in the cold stone corridors, and come to my room for the night.

I always saw it as a form of magic; creating these people, places, and various deeds and doings both heroic and base, populating the long evenings with wonders for the audience. It was a form of magic the women always found fascinating. Where men would be held in wonder by those who could seemingly manipulate the world: do tricks, create illusions do magic, the women always seemed more fascinated by the way I could weave these stories out of nothing, how I could take them by the hand and lead the through a world of imagination and possibility with only the sound of my voice and the limits of my imagination.

They seemed to like the worlds I built for them when we were alone together too, those times I took them to whatever bed I’d been given for my stay. Women had taught me well when I was young, and I had always been a keen pupil in their schools. Later, I put all I’d learnt back into the stories I told those ladies under the sheets and blankets until they could take no more.

Now, though, I grow old and the corridors I walk to my bed seem longer, colder and far damper than they used to be. These days, the women no longer follow me or wait for me. All I have when I get to my lonely room is some wine, if I’m lucky, and a fire to ease the chill from these old bones. Still, though, as I stare into those flames, as I sit wrapped in blankets, sipping my wine I can tell myself the stories of all those women I used to know.