Short Stories

the bearded man

the bearded man

I grew up without a nice, warm family like almost every other kid in my grade did. I was taken into the orphanage when I was five, with barely any memories of my family. They disappeared from my life as quickly as they came. In fact, I had little to no memories of my childhood. All I could remember was a strange, bearded man with a jagged scar across his forehead visiting me on my first day at the orphanage. He told me that my parents were dead, but never told me how. He walked funny with one leg and a stump for the other.

Fast forward twenty years. I was now 25, and already a famous, renowned author, writing about philosophy, literature and history. It was my dream job since I'd cultivated a habit of reading endlessly during my lonely days at the orphanage. No one would play with me because I didn't know how my parents died, or anything about them at all. Everyone had a story about their parents except me. But did it matter at an orphanage, when we were all parentless children? I spent my days running back and forth the headmaster's office, stealing stacks and stacks of books to bury my nose in.

But why, even when doing something I enjoyed, did I feel empty? Somewhere behind the facade of a smiling and cheerful young man, my heart was hollow, fragile and aching for answers to questions I could never get. I wrote books on the answers to the most complex issues in life, but I could never utter a single word to the question on how my childhood was like, when my parents were still around.

What happened to them?

**

I had an awful nightmare. The night was chilly but I woke up in a pool of sweat, feeling sick to the stomach. His ghostlike eyes, baleful smile, and most importantly his jagged scar flashed before my eyes again and again. And my parents. They were both tall, brown-haired, just like me. I couldn't make out their faces, but they were arguing heatedly with that strange man.

I knew him.

I was up before daylight. The sky was still dark and the wind was howling, slapping painfully against my cheeks. I wrapped my thick wool coat tighter around myself and slipped my frozen fingers into the coat pockets.

The familiar alley in my dream loomed ahead of me, drowned in complete darkness and with no soul in sight. It was eerily quiet, and a street light mysteriously started to flicker when I passed it.

I headed straight to the end, where a small stairwell led to a rusty, black metal door. I had no idea why I was doing this, but something in my gut told me I was going the right direction. I needed answers.

The door swung open before I could knock. A short, bearded man stood there, his teeth so white that it seemed to gleam brightly under the moonlight. It was as though he was already expecting me.

"Welcome," he had a thick European accent, and a nasally voice. "Come on in. I've been expecting you." He said the very words.

It was him. But something was off.

His face was the same, but twenty years older the last time I'd seen him. His forehead was wrinkled, and there were crinkles at his eyes. Yet, he still held that baleful smile. It was all him. From twenty years ago. From my dream.

But where was his jagged scar? His missing leg? He looked like a perfectly normal and healthy human being, as though nothing had ever happened to him. I didn't even know how he'd gotten the scar and lost his leg.

"You must be surprised," he cleared his throat when I'd stared too long at him wordlessly. "You're not wrong. It is me."

I started to take in my surroundings then. The walls were whitewashed, and the room was flooded with bright white light. There was nothing else in the room, except the big machine with tubes connected to it and a door with a red button beside to be pushed.