Once upon a time there was an old man. He had kind, smiling eyes, and a very long coat with far too many pockets. The old man had a secret. A very great secret. On nights when the moon was full, and its blue light spilled across the street stones, you could hear his footsteps. He went from house to house, from door to door. He never knocked. The doors opened before him, soft and quiet, as if they had been waiting for him a long time. He would sit quietly on the edge of the bed, take a story from one of his many pockets, and begin to tell it in a low, warm voice: about a wizard who lived in a tall tower, about a queen who was jealous of an ant, about a land no one had ever found, because every night it hid inside a shoebox. And the children waited for him the way one waits for a friend. They knew him by his footsteps long before they saw him. When the stories were finished, he would cover them with the blanket and stroke their foreheads, and they would close their eyes and fall asleep with a small, mischievous smile. But one night the old man came to a house he did not know. The house was dark and quiet. In the corner, on a thin mattress, lay a small boy, curled up under the blanket. His large eyes stared into the darkness. The boy was not waiting for a story. He did not even look at the old man. He felt very alone, and he cried quietly. The old man reached into a pocket, then into a second, then into a third. And for the first time in his life, he found no story to tell. But he did not leave. He sat down on the floor beside the mattress and waited. He did not hurry. He waited a long time, until the moonlight shone through the window. Then he said, softly: “Tonight I will tell you a story I have never told anyone.” The boy lifted his head a little and stopped crying. And the old man began: “Once, a very long time ago, there was a boy who did not know how to smile. The world seemed too big and too loud to him. One night, when the moon was full, the boy looked out the window and saw something he had never seen before. Out of the moonlight, stairs appeared. One. And another. And another. Stairs made of light, climbing higher and higher, almost all the way to the moon. The boy opened the window. He placed a bare foot on the first step. It was warm, like bread, like a kiss from his mother. And on every step he heard a story he had never heard before. On the first step he heard about a mouse named Aki, who lived in the tallest building on Curiosity Street. On the second — about a sheep that could not find its way home. On the third — about two dragons who had forgotten how to breathe fire after sleeping for a very long time. There were steps that rang with laughter, and steps that creaked with tears. There were steps of fear, and one high step of courage. And the higher he climbed, the more he understood something. When he reached the last step, an old man was waiting for him there. He had kind, smiling eyes. The man looked at the boy with a warm gaze and said: ‘There is one thing you can do, if you wish.’ ‘What?’ asked the boy. ‘Tell stories. So that one day, when another child is sad and thinks there is no light left in the world… someone will come to him with a story.’ ‘But I don’t know any stories,’ said the boy. The old man smiled a wide smile. ‘You already have many, my child. You heard them along the way.’ The boy looked around him. The moon lit his face. And for the first time in a long while, he smiled.” The old man fell silent. In the dark room there was quiet. Then the moonlight came in through the window. On the floor a small step appeared. And another. And another. The boy looked at the old man. The old man held out his hand. “Come,” he said gently. “Where?” “To the place where stories begin.”
