The man was married for nearly fifty-three years to the same woman. She was his entire life and all the experiences he had included her. One day she got sick and died. His world changed. Everything was not the same. Food tasted different, the sun was not as bright, the birds did not sing. The world had changed and he could no longer cry.
One day, while leaving his house and heading into town the man stood along the roadside. He stood there thinking of all the many experiences he and his only wife of fifty-three years, seven months, four days, and five hours had meant to one another. A slow peaceful expression came over him. Sure there were a multitude of things left unspoken, left undone, but for the most part, all was said just right, all was done just right, all was as it was. Contentment came over him.
Seemed the man was frozen in his inner thoughts and he disregarded the passerby along the roadside and the night drew on and it seemed the day passed him by without care. He was not in a pit of despair as some had feared, nor was he outwardly prancing with glee. His thoughts were all his own. His memories were of contentment.
The people who passed him by, tried as they may, were never able to get the man’s attention as they themselves went back and forth from the city to their country homes. After some time the ‘quiet-man’ as he became known, was not bothered and became a fixture upon the way. Birds would lit on his shoulder or head undisturbed. After a while, he raised his arms to stretch but found he could not lower them and he was alright with them staying raised. After sometime, lost in his thoughts of contentment and left alone by other, the others began to notice a change slowly come over him. Days later his feet had begun to grow roots out of his sandals. After a while there were branches from his arms, twigs from his fingers, bark on his body and a tree he became lost in this thoughts.
That was seven years after construction had begun on the tower of Mithar. Yet, for some unknown reason, I – yes, I woke up three days before the Great Departure. I woke from my self-induce slumber, and began shedding that woodland form that grew upon me. Having changed back into myself, I inquired as to all the changes in the world about me. After gathering news from those who were astonished that a tree had come to life; I learned a great many things.
The Great War of the Ring had come, and gone without me. The Brown Wizard had faded from men’s knowledge. The White Leader of our wizard’s order was slain, and his successor; fled with the elves to the greater west aboard their Swan ships.
Vendumar led a rebellion to stay behind. He, and others knew me only as The Blue Wizard, but the dwarves of Jebul knew called me Isptha; meaning ‘Tenacity’. They even named the northern mountain after me for it had been my home prior my transformation.
But in fact there were two of us. We were twin forms of the same incarnation; each finishing the sentences of the other. We had been tasked, like the others to fight against the growing darkness that was coming against the world. We headed for distant lands in the Fareast, no longer on maps; to find that shadow. In our search, Romestano was overcome and slain. We were at our best together, yet I had been misled and called away. In our separation, deceitful companions fell upon him.
In my despair I could not recover but sought deeper sorrow in my grief living in the tunnels of the dwarves in their northern hill. I took one as a wife and we lived as happily as despair allowed me. Till one day, Gishmah fell from a broken bridge on her way to see me. I fled the mountain for the cottage where we lived. I never fully recovered from her loss.
But here I am today and today is where I make my business in a world that changed, and passed me by for far too long!
REMEMBER THIS HINT is to guide you to the FINAL GAME-TAG and WIN!!!
"From the Hospital doors, to the grave-side stones, you shall go."
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