The boy sat down beside the road and cried.
An old man appeared who looked very much like the storyteller. He leaned on his cane in the middle of the road listening to the boy’s account of his wondrous journey. Then he explained the sad truth. One day in the emerald kingdom was the same as one hundred years on earth.
But I didn’t know, cried the boy.
No, said the old man. No, you didn’t.
The children in the square huddled beneath the stage. The tale seemed over. Now the boy stopped crying, the storyteller removed the last cardboard picture and stepped in front of the empty stage, into the frame of stars and darkness.
He was smiling. Leaning on his cane.
A true tale, he whispered. I know because once I was that boy and now I am that old man.
He nodded, the children smiled. They laughed. They shouted. They pushed back and forth and chased each other around the square as Quin walked into the station and left behind the old man with his extravagant cardboard pictures, his empty stage that had framed a shadowy figure in Mukden and Shanghai and Tokyo, in the Bronx, a clown once called Geraty.
FB2 document info
Document ID: ooofbtools-2009-12-15-16-5-20-1369
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 15.12.2009
Created using: ExportToFB21 software
Document authors :
GraveCat
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Quin’s Shanghai Circus Page 28