Don't Look Back

Willy Allsworth walked away from his warm cottage with a belly full of mutton, his wife tucked in bed, and as the glow from the curtained window faded behind him, his thoughts returned to a subject he dreaded. Not because of the subject itself, but because he couldn’t shake the thought. He shuffled along, lamplights throwing pools of light for him to follow, like some child's game; the night sounds muffled by a thick fog. Something was missing from his life.

Not that there was anything remotely different along the path he took every night to the tavern, his second job; the one that paid the bills. His life was comfortable, in a predictable way, with no concerns about the family’s next meal or the roof over their heads. He reached the corner and took the side street. At the end, the glow of the tavern lights stood out against a line of shops, small businesses run by acquaintances, each window dark, each shop owner comfortably resting at home.

He walked down the darkened street, stopped for a moment, and looked into the window of a shoe repair store, only to see a man with a rough beard and unkempt hair peering back at him. Not the face Willy Allsworth would have imagined in his youth, but such were life decisions.

He passed the tavern and heard the buzz of competing voices. He turned in a slow circle and saw only darkness. When he resumed his meandering, he saw a building. Stone columns out front supporting a portico with paved steps rising to a great double-door made of aged wood and tarnished brass handles.

He did not recognize the building and turned to see how far he had wandered off his daily path.

The double doors creaked from disuse and inched open.

“Pleased to see you,” a man said, his eyes hooded and lines on his forehead rising to a bald pate. His voice trailed as if something was left unsaid, like “again.”

“Uhm, I was taking refuge on your porch from a man,” Willy stammered. “He was following me.”

The man smiled thinly, but his eyes remained focused. “You simply were in line before him.” He looked past Willy and muttered, “Probably for the best.”

“I wasn’t in line,” he protested, but the man had turned and walked to a single desk in the middle of a cavernous room, and for the first time, Willy recognized it as a library. Beyond the desk, extending in four directions were rows of stacks, filled with books, more books than were possible in his small parish.

“The rules remain the same: you must write your story honestly, focusing on the decision you made that you regret. But you must be honest, and your intentions must be to right a wrong, find true love, or save a life.” He sighed, and Willy felt his impatience, or was it disdain?

“Remain the same?”

“Do you agree to the rules?” His face tightened, and he turned to go. What did he expect him to do?

“Right a wrong?” Willy Allsworth had always been a good person, albeit a good person who made some bad decisions.

The only decision that he had ever regretted was staying at home with his aging parents and giving up his scholarship to University, his way out. He stayed home, worked locally, married a school friend, and hadn’t wandered much farther than the marketplace his whole life.

The man half turned, staring at Willy expectantly, both still as statues frozen in time.

“It’s your choice, William,” he stammered.

“Willy…it’s Willy Allsworth.”

“Of course, Willy Allsworth, nonetheless, make a decision, if your desire is to go to a time in your life, a turning point, and change one decision…”

“I do,” Willy gasped, his hands rose reflexively, grasping for…for what?

“You will want to proceed down the west hall,” he turned with an elaborate wave of his hand, an eyebrow arched, a hint of something like mischief. Not something Willy thought the deeply etched face of the man was capable of.

“I write my story?” Willy said, following the man’s direction, searching the darkness that stretched into a veil of blackness. When he turned back, the stoned-faced man was a fading shadow.

A faint glow emerged down the hall, and he walked towards it, slowly at first, then a wave of energy flowed through him from his gut to his limbs. Fight or flight. He didn’t know what lay ahead, but he knew what was behind him. He looked in those directions and saw only darkness…to the light, it was.

He hadn’t noticed the volumes on the shelves, a light dusting from ages untouched. As he picked up his pace, dust was swept off the shelves seeking his gravity, before slowly settling to the floor.

The far-away light grew, and he could make out a small reading desk with a single lamp and a chair pulled out, inviting him to start his journey.

He came to a measured stop, looked past the desk, and glanced over his shoulder. There were writing materials on the table. He sat and took a deep breath.

He sketched out his early life, generalizing his childhood, emphasizing his relationship with his parents, and noting his academic achievements and ambitions. Willy wrote stories during the day and told stories at the tavern at night, but he struggled with writing about himself.

Writing in silence, with a dim light numbed his senses, and the stale air was heavy and hard to breathe. A musky odor of aged leather filled the hall, and Willy was beginning to believe it was the odor of stale lives.

A book on an upper shelf caught the light from the lamp. He squinted and thought he saw his name. Standing, he still couldn’t make it out, so he moved the chair over and removed the volume. Dust shook from the adjacent volumes, but the book in his hand was crisp and clean.

William Allsworth. Not Willy. He had been born Willy, not William. The date on the spine was his birth date. Probably hundreds of Allworths, whether Willy or William, but it was his birthday. The chair wobbled as he twisted to step down.

He opened it to the first page and read the words he had just written. Written in his own hand.

He flipped page after page, faster and faster, skimming paragraphs that told the story he had lived.

“Okay,” he said, trying to catch his breath. “Are you out there?” He bellowed. Who was that man, and what is this place?

Silence. Only dust motes dancing in the light.

He returned to the book, but the storyline veered from his life of comfort and compromise to an adventure of a man named William Allsworth.

“Gentlemen—tonight we don’t drink to fortune… we drink to having taken it. May this be the first of many victories—and may all of them come as easily as old Varney gave them up.” His business partner, Edmund Wexley, rarely toasted to his own success without naming his vanquished opponent.

“This must be your proudest moment,” a man next to him said, raising a glass of champagne, Louis Roederer Cristal, a bottle his partner had saved for this moment. William raised his glass and brought it to his lips while looking over the flute at the men clouded in cigar smoke and haughty laughter.

“It’s business, I’ve been in it long enough to know that each victory, such as today’s, comes with sacrifice, an atonement of sorts, perhaps a dulling of your soul. I should think that I’ve had enough success to not require reminding myself at every victory.”

That put a damper on the conversation, but Allsworth didn’t care. He did care that several men clustered in groups around him were now furtively glancing at him, perhaps noting his dour expression, his hushed words, and that would not do. He would need them in the future if he were, in fact, going to make moments such as this routine.

He smiled and raised his glass high, “As much as this day stands out against those that brought us to this point, I drink to a future paved by days like this, like the cobblestones of Wexley’s drive!”

“Well said!”

“Just so!”

The competing cheers and chatter rose, pockets of laughter spiking, voices mixing and becoming indistinguishable as William exited the room. He was fond of leaving unannounced, at the high point of the evening, and creating a mystery, creating his myth.

The chill of the evening crept through the opening of his cloak, and he clutched it to his neck. The fog carried the scent of the streets and the coldness of the night. He considered another drink, not the symbolic bubbles of self-congratulatory back slapping, but the hardness of whiskey that men used to warm the chill and thicken the fog.

The choices of men often required the fog of drink to dull regrets, guilt, or the decisions made, or not made, and William Allsworth had become the victim of seeking refuge in a bottle. He realized that was his true myth: running from his past.

The street was dark, despite isolated pools of light encircled by the night, providing little help in navigation or exposing men hiding in the shadows, men with ill intent. He knew better than to flaunt his heavy cashmere coat when others shivered in the damp air.

Ahead, he saw the familiar glow that stood out against the sunken eyes of the empty storefronts that lined the road. He resisted looking through the windows in fear of meeting the gaze of a late-night Shoesmith or seamstress.

But it was irresistible, he must look, he must see if he was the subject of some late-night toiler greedily eyeing his clandestine flight, only to see his own chiseled scowl, sprawling eyebrows over sunken orbs as dull as the haze-shrouded moon. He turned away.

He looked over his shoulder again. It was becoming a fixation, looking back, searching shadows, straining to see what lay ahead.

Crowd noise greeted him, not the cacophony of triumph that had covered his retreat, but a joyful noise of friends and family gathered to celebrate the end of the workday, a brief reprieve from the burdens of their labor. He couldn’t look in the window, and, entering the establishment, was a non-starter. He walked on.

How long had he been walking, mindlessly putting one foot in front of the other with no destination in mind? He looked up to see an impressive portico with imposing Corinthian columns, paved steps rising to a great double door of aged wood with tarnished brass handles.

He moved closer to inspect the architecture, which clearly bore the signature of a more sophisticated creator than he had witnessed in his quaint parish.

The doors cracked open, and William jumped back.

“Good evening,” a sharp-featured and humorless man peered through the narrow opening. “Are you coming in?” His voice lingered, leaving something unsaid.

“Uh no, I was simply admiring the architecture.”

“Have you no home and family to return to on this dreadful night?”

He did not. He had a grand estate with empty beds, a cold, cavernous great room echoing no voices, and a service wing capable of preparing a feast if there were anyone to enjoy it. He had built a paradise that had become his purgatory, or so he hoped, because if not purgatory, it was eternal hell. His wife long ago left him, his children were grown and ignored him, and his friends were happy parasites feasting on his leftovers.

“No, I do not.” William turned to leave.

“But you wish you did?”

Did he? Did he want to have this haunting conversation again? It was the very wealth he had pursued that took his firstborn, drove him to the bottle, and led his wife to another man.

“Would you change something that led you here? A decision you could reverse?”

Who was this confounded man?

Fame and fortune came at a price, and for William Allsworth, it was a decision to call the bluff of a desperate man, a bitter and resentful man who had nothing to live for but revenge for the death of his own son in an accident that was all too common in industrial enterprises…hardly Allsworth’s fault, and certainly not worthy of such a reprisal. Allsworth called his bluff, and the man murdered his son, and took his own life.

Yes, he wished he could change that moment.

Willy Allsworth slammed the volume shut and tossed it on the desk, the slap echoing down dark halls, the lamp flickered as it rocked, and a new whirlwind of dust motes rose in protest.

“Is this why I am here? Is my story unfinished?” His screams mocked him as they bounced off volumes and rows of others’ lives. “What am I to do?”

He moved the chair back to the stacks and stepped up to replace his volume when he noticed the writing on the spine of the adjacent volume.

“Oh, hell no!” He looked over his shoulder to see if anyone was listening, then shook his head at his folly.

Embossed in the leather volume: Bill Allsworth.

With great trepidation, he removed the volume and returned to the desk. He skipped to the end, knowing the beginning.

“I’m the one who stayed back when my brothers and sisters left. I gave up my scholarship, condemning my existence to this oasis in a town with smoke-filled skies and ash-dusted buildings. They didn’t care then, they don’t care now, and now it’s my turn not to care about them.”

“A worthy thing that you have done without a doubt,” said the man as he kept himself from continuing the thought by taking a long pull from his stein. “Family is family,” he said, hiding behind his raised ale.

Bill Allsworth refused to be drawn into the same old conversation in which he ended up as the villain. Again. His wife nagged him, his children pestered him, and his siblings avoided him.

“I sacrificed,” Bill repeated his mantra.

“You can’t change the past. For once, can we drink in peace, maybe talk about fishing?”

Bill heard the frustration in his friend’s voice, but he wasn’t done; it was his God-given right to state the truth, even if nobody wanted to hear it.

“I can damn well change the future,” Bill snapped, but knew he couldn’t. He was trapped and, like a fish on the bank, could flop and gasp all he wanted, but he knew the ending.

“What would you change?” his friend laughed. “What would any of us change if we had a chance? That’s a dangerous road to travel down. Enjoy your ale and the last friend you have in the parish!”

Bill Allsworth slammed his beer down and tripped, gained his shaky balance, and marched out the tavern doors.

He had no idea how long he had stumbled along when he looked up and saw a massive building with columns and too many steps for a drunk to assault. He did so despite the imposing columns guarding a medieval-looking door.

Willy Allsworth slammed the volume shut. He could take no more. He knew the ending, and he couldn’t stand to see himself ruin another life.

He looked up to see if there were any additional volumes, but he wouldn’t allow himself further torture, and forced himself to turn away.

“I’m ready to leave,” he shouted.

Silence.

“Whatever this is, I want no part of it. I’m late for work and my wife will be expecting me home, and…”

He ran. He didn’t return the volume. He just ran.

He didn’t know how long he ran in the dark, breathing in the dust and the musty earth smell that somehow reminded him of almonds. He turned down another aisle and ran, came to a cross path, and turned again, but his leg caught on the side of a stack and he tripped forward, hitting his head.

“Help me get out of here,” Willy pleaded. “I don’t want another chance. I want to go home.”

“Want?” the man might have coughed or cackled. “You don’t get another chance. I told you the rules: Three times you may decide / three times your old self may die.”

“Then why am I here?”

“I had hoped you would learn a lesson?”

“I just want to leave!”

The old man whispered words and waved elaborately towards the large doors, and Willy Allsworth ran out, leaving William Allsworth, Bill Allsworth, and maybe himself behind.

As he passed through the door, he looked back, and the old man was gone.

His boot felt for the stones beneath his feet but found no purchase and rolled forward, his head cracking into the cobblestones.

* * *

“Willy,” he heard voices somewhere distant, and he feared he was back in the library. A gentle slap across his cheeks opened his eyes to see familiar faces.

Pauly Chance held him with his withered hand, an industrial accident that he claimed saved his life. His hand was crushed, but a benevolent industrialist had saved him, paid for his rehabilitation, and offered him a job as a merchant. The man was a positive influence on everyone he met.

“I was in a library, and lived lives that were unworthy, but…”

“You’ve had enough ale to float your way home, son,” his father laughed. Save your stories for your publisher. His father helped him up, “You had us worried.” His father was his mentor, and Willy considered him his best friend.

He looked past them for the library, but it was gone.

What were the words the old man whispered to him as he left?

“You used up your three lives and are a fool to want to give up all you have. So many come here and wish for the life you live. So, go live it.”