Byron George

Children had trouble understanding Byron George. He was built like Humpty Dumpty with his great big belly and his tiny little ankles, and this was relatable enough, but he moved with ease and vigor. They saw the most delicate part of him, so close to the floor, while he seemed to ice skate around them. He was a real life giant, but he wasn't a mean giant, or even a gentle giant. Byron handled children as firmly and roughly as they handled each other. His voice was a booming echo, vastly hollow like a prehistoric tree, and he spoke to them like little lords, colluding on an antiquated past only they shared. He was an adult but he was never cross, he treated their transgressions as either a wonderful joke, or a regrettable inevitability they might console each other over. If he scooped a child up in his mighty arms, and they yanked his great black beard he would first bark with pain, and then burst into laughter as loud as a cracking glacier.

The children tried to understand Byron George. They collected intelligence on him. He had no wife and he had no children. His house was eccentric and worn, but well taken care of. It had spires and gingerbread shingles, leaded sugar windows He gave the children free reign of his yard, he argued that the wilderness would always belong more to them than to adults. Byron didn't ever go to work in the morning, their parents told them he worked behind a typewriter all day. The children didn't believe this because they saw him digging in his garden, or impossibly balanced on top of his bike. Sometimes he spent all day walking in the woods, and they observed him stopping to turn up his face in pools of light, or standing statue still to not startle deer. He always checked his gold pocket watch but never had to leave, and even stranger he would let any child who asked look at his watch too. He explained that it was real crystal, real gold like pirate treasure, it came across the sea in a boat, and it was old old old even when he was a little boy.

One day Byron George was gone. His house was up for sale and a procession of strange and beautiful things marched out his front door. Each neighbor received a little something from Byron's estate, and the children found a book, or trowel or the green bike now living in their house. Byron George wont ever be back their parents explained, with sad looks on their faces. The children didn't believe them at all, and when they gathered they sometimes discussed where Byron George really was.