Spring had left George Ramsum. He was old. He was sixty. But that wasn’t anything extraordinary. People don’t whisper about old age, no. They do whisper about what was left undone before old age made it undoable or unattainable. And so when the men and women around George knew that he was no longer fifty-nine, they whispered amongst themselves. Some shook their heads, some clicked their tongues, some sighed, some looked away. For George Ramsum was ripe old sixty, and he had never fallen in love.

  Yes, George in all the years that he had allotted upon the earth had never courted a girl or married a woman, stolen a kiss or produced a blush. Even the male friends he kept whistled or gossiped about women, but George was always silent as the dead concerning the fairer sex. He didn’t hate women. Sure he made a jest here and there about them, who didn’t, and he did hold acquaintances with some exemplary ladies with whom he would talk, joke, and disagree, but he never encroached more than that or gave any hint he was open to be encroached upon. He had gone through all the springs of his life without indulging in any of the springs of his youth, and now the train had left the station without George ever getting on.

  “Maybe he likes it like this.”

  “Well, certainly not his mother. She always mourned his abstinence, God rest her soul.”

  George acted like he didn’t hear them and smiled politely to the folks around him. It wasn’t as if he didn’t think his situation peculiar. He knew just how peculiar it was. It wasn’t as if he shunned romance or companionship. He wanted to, like any other man who didn’t pursue being either a priest or a mendicant. He was also neither one of those rare ‘eternal bachelors’ that seldom are born upon the earth, those souls who truly come naked and go naked.

  George wanted to fall in love. It was just that he never did.

  Something always held him back. And he was fishing in a shallow pool. There were plenty of women he could have reeled in. His lure was good. He came from a good family, taught in a good university, and he didn’t drink or smoke or philander. He didn’t have impossible standards. A salmon was as good as a sturgeon. He wasn’t looking for the fish to be a secret princess or goddess, nor was he expecting any silver or golden axes along with them. So, there was bound to be a bite. But he never threw in his line. He didn’t know why.

  So George Ramsum knew that something was off with him. And now that he was sixty, he felt even more off, and it wasn’t age that did it. He started to feel that his coat hung lopsided upon his shoulders, that the left pant of his trousers was a wee bit shorter than the right one, that his socks bunched around his shoes and when he tried to straighten them, the bunch would just shift to another spot in the sole. His flesh felt jittery like one feels when they are half-asleep and half-waking and the body becomes confused if the person is alive or dead, and his teeth felt thin as if all the saliva was sucked out of them.

  All these little things scurried and crawled and fidgetted in George, until one day in the cold and grey October afternoon, George put on his lopsided coat, his uneven trousers, pushed his bunched up socked feet into his shoes, picked up his somnambulist cadaver, wetted the teeth with his tongue, and wandered down into the city.

  It was cold, cold, cold. The mist from his mouth blinded him every time he breathed. The city felt like a ghost town. Hardly he saw a single soul on the street, and the fog on the windshields made it impossible to peer into the cars to see if there was even a driver driving those metal boxes as they drove past him and ahead of him. The weather was dark, the whole sky but a soggy woolen cloud that threatened rain but squeezed not a drop out of their fleece.

  George wandered. He knew all the streets. He had never travelled outside of the country and rarely ever outside of the city. He went to visit his relatives when he was expected or invited. Birthdays, marriages, funerals, and the occasional friendly visits. He felt no inclination to go to a foreign land though many of his friends coaxed him to do so and then took their own advice and went themselves. While his friends flew away into the sky, George tramped down sidewalks and alleyways and became familiar with every crevice and corner and nook and cranny of the metropolis, knowing it like the back of his hand, knowing all the pretty spots and all the ugly sites, where they sold the best doughnut and the best burger, where they printed copies in cheap and where they cheapened out on printed books, vantages from where the entire city appeared like an ant colony and valleys were every building towered like a new Babel.

  George wandered through these familiar places without a place to go or to be. He didn’t even see cars anymore now. The afternoon was dying, the cloud-concealed sun slinking away over the horizon. Twilight peeked over the hills and then closed her eyes again. Evening yawned. The city lights turned on, torches bright with blinding white against the growing dark, drawing in flies and moths to orbit around the pygmy moons that blinded out the stars and shed light on the shiny plaques that inaugurated the names of the streets that George walked under.

  Hillroad…

  Forest Avenue…

  Kingsroad…

  Three Corner Lane…

  Butterfly Street…

  Museum Path…

  George stopped. Had he read that right? He walked back and looked up, squinting wrinkles over his eyes. He read the words on the plague again.

  “Glasgow 22nd Street,” he said in wonder.

  He had never heard of a ‘Glasgow 22nd Street’ in his life or remembered ever walking there. Furthermore, the naming convention was all wrong. There was not a single street in his city that had a designated number. And this one had twenty two. Twenty two! Where were all the others from one to twenty one? And Glasgow… There was no Glasgow street. This was not Scotland.

  He read it again. Glasgow 22nd Street.

  “Am I going senile?”

  Up ahead he heard the sound of footsteps and low voices, but strangely enough, there were no street lights further down the road. He looked harder, and far away spied a kind of reddish-yellowish glow like that of a candle, but between over there and where he was, there was a dark abyss to cross. He decided to go and ask those footsteps and voices of the oddity of the street and see if he still possessed his bearings or or had lost them. He ventured into the darkness and heard the soft sound of running water. Again he recalled no river in the city that rolled this close to the ground, and while he was wondering if he would have to ford it, his foot hit an incline.

  “A bridge?” he said, and groped, and found the parapet. The stone was smooth and cold under his palm. “A stone bridge? Where am I?”

  He crossed the unseen river and came into a town square. The glow he saw had really come from a candlewick, one out of many atop the lamps littered throughout the courtyard. Another strangeness.

  The square was spacious. Old and ancient buildings shot up on all sides with a white fountain completing the charming vista. Many men and women were congregating around the fountain, and they didn’t seem to have noticed his sole arrival. He had started to approach them to finally figure out the mystery of Glasgow 22nd Street, but any question he had died on his lips when he finally observed that each man and woman there didn’t look a day older than twenty five. Every face around him was young and ruddy, their eyes glistened like polished pearls under the glare of the lamps, their teeth ivory white and lips scarlet red, and not a single speck of grey in their raven hair. Old George Ramsum felt like a decrepit outcast who had encroached upon a confraternity of youngsters to which he was not neither invited or welcomed to, that everybody was just too polite to ask him to leave. Blast the mystery and all the strange stuff! He was just about to turn and leave when there came the distant ringing of a church bell. Loud, ponderous yet melodious it rang, and nine times it rang and then slowly faded away. George looked up and searched the clock tower, but he couldn’t find it. Instead, he saw little white objects floating down all around him. For a moment he thought it was snow. No, it came down too erratically, and if his eyes could see them better… yes, they were fluttering down, not floating down. He thought they were white confetti, but no, they were too large and too rectangular. It was only when one of those white objects pirouetted down in front of him that he finally saw what it was. The closed flap on it was unmistakable. It was a letter.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  George put forth his hand to pick it up. He froze. He looked at his hand. It was not his hand. Gone were the blue, swollen serpentine vessels that coiled under the white-fuzzed steppe that was the back of his hand, and the hard stones on his knuckles were nowhere to be seen. The new hand was young, the scarce, white steppe transformed to a lush, black savanna, the vessels now buried beneath and asleep, the joints straight, the nails clean. He looked at his other hand. He didn’t recognize it either. He touched his cheeks. They weren’t his cheeks. Where were the wrinkles, the sunken flesh? He touched his neck. Where was the flabby flesh; the hanging skin behind the chin? He touched his temples. Where were the creases? He grabbed now a handful of his hair. He opened his palm. Five strands, all black. He went to the fountain and looked into the waters. Gone. He was gone back. He was not a day over twenty five. He looked at his hand again, and the letter was in it. Everybody had a letter in their hand. He opened it, and there was a card. It read:

  Dear George Ramsum,

  You are cordially invited to the Glasgow 22nd Street Bicentennial Ball. Just go through the gateway opposite from where you arrived at the square.

  We hope to see you there. We have been waiting for you for a long time.

  Sincerely,

  Cosmo

  George had no idea what was happening. He felt like he was at the end of his wits. He pinched himself. He was still awake, and there was the square, the people, the fountain, and in the fountain him and not him, him looking at not him and not him looking back at him. He looked around. The mass started to leave through the gateway, the men and women with their ruddy faces and glistening eyes. George glanced one last time in the fountain. He saw the sky and the stars spilled all over it. He put the invitation inside his breastpocket and left the square behind him.

  A calm dawned on George, and he started to appraise the things around him. The part of the city looked ancient yet preserved. He was surprised to find himself walking on cobblestones instead of concrete and asphalt. The tangled web of power lines weren’t there to catch him if he were to fall into the sky. And it did really feel like he could fall up at any moment. He didn’t speak with anybody around him and everybody else didn’t either with each other or him. They all walked in a sort of religious procession, something between a Corpus Christi and a military parade. There was an unsaid solemnity in the air, but it was not mournful in the least. Instead, George felt a sort of anticipation, like a child did who waited for the mother to take away her hands and say “Peekaboo!” and then both mother and child succumb to giggles. George shrugged. His coat snugged nicely on his shoulders.

  Soon they arrived at what looked like the back entrance to a large estate. Up, windows flashed softly in shadow and flame, and up still, pennants flew long like dragons in an unseen wind. A valet greeted and halted them by raising a white-gloved hand. He wore a blue suit that appeared almost purple under the lamps. He was young as well and yet not young like them, George thought. He pointed to a portal in the wall; square at the bottom and tapering at the apex filled with unlight and strange markings around the edges. The valet bid them enter, and they had to enter one by one for the door was narrow, and George found himself bowing so as not to scrape his head on the ceiling.

  He didn’t know how long he shuffled inside the tunnel. A few minutes? A score of years? Who knew. But then he heard the violin, and the tunnel started to lighten. He saw his shoes and his hands but not a soul was ahead or behind him. He wondered if he might have taken a wrong turn somehow somewhere in this straight passage. He feared not though, and soon he came out and forgot everything else.

  He felt like he had entered a painting. It was a golden hall that he had entered, bright from the light of the chandeliers that hung down from the great vaulted dome, chandeliers that kept molten fire frozen in their glass buds and so far up that they looked like blazing flowers, so far away that maybe only angels could kindle them each night. Curtains flowed down from the walls, each a different color of the rainbow, one after another gliding down and stopping a little above the floor. At this point in time, George noticed he was on the upper floor of the estate, and a large winding staircase led down to the ballroom.

  The dance floor was its own enigma for the polished marble floor was graven with what Geroge speculated was the entire solar system, but as he further examined each of the celestial bodies, he became unsure. For one, in the center of it all was not the sun but the earth or TELLUS as it was engraved on the inside of its rim. Then, there was LUNA or the moon circling it around in its stippled band. But then there was MERCURIUS, and it too was whirling around the earth in its own cerulean thread. Then, VENUS with its ruby ring, and the Sun SOL girdled by a blazing halo, MARS with its bronze wreath, giant IUPITTER with its violet crown, and brooding SATURNUS in its silver loop. And to complete the phantasmagoric planetarium, the outermost celestial strip arrayed with legions of shining white stars against a lapis lazuli firmament, and if there was anymore to be seen, the walls of the halls hid them away.

  Soon the embellished floor was filled with the young men and women, and now the men started to approach the women and took their hands and stepped aside. The men didn’t even survey and the women didn’t even second guess. They partnered up with ease as if they had done it before. George looked unsure about what to do next when he spied a girl tracing the path of the moon. Her back was turned to him, but as if feeling his stare, she turned and looked straight at him across the dance floor and up the staircase and right into his eyes. A wave washed over him, and he felt it did for her as well. It was as if he had always known her, as if her face had always been hidden inside his skull where his eyes couldn’t find, as if she had always standing behind him all his life and whenever he would turn to catch her, she would turn with him and he would forever be spinning on his heels, but now, finally, she was standing before him. He stepped down the stairs, never breaking sight, and stood on top of earth and smiled at the moon maiden.

  “I am George,” he said.

  “I know,” she said, blushing. “I am April.”

  “I know,” he said and held out his hand. She fell and took it.

  The violin stopped. Footsteps echoed from the top of the stairs. A man stood there in a deep green suit with golden butterflies upon his lapels. He sported a pearly smile and gentle, hazel eyes.

  “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” he began. “I am your host for the night, and I go by the name of Cosmo. Welcome to all of you to the Glasgow 22nd Street Bicentennial Ball. I have been waiting for you for a long, long time. Tonight is your night. This night that you had dreamt since the beginning but forgotten all the way through.” He put his hand on his breast. “This night, this holy night, this sacred night, I bring it to you with all my heart. Now, let us waltz.”

  He clapped his hand once, and the sound split the air. The violin came back and brought its family along: the sophisticated cello, the hulking bass, and the little violas. Fluttered in the flute and the oboe, and here the piano pulled it all together in the loveliest medley imaginable. The men and women left the encircling stars hand in hand and twirled around the wandering spheres.

  George and April made their way to Venus, took a detour to Mercury, and gallivanted on the surface of the sun. They zigzagged between Jupiter and Mars and went off to greet grumpy Saturn. They teased the stars at the rim and hightailed back to mortal earth. George stood and April circled him. Then, April stood and George circled her. He caught her hand again and they swirled and swirled all over the universe, their orbits tracing their encircling paths all over the universe.

  “George, where were you all my life?”

  “I was getting to you,” George said, holding her close. “Took me sixty years to arrive.”

  Two men strolled in the city, hands in their pockets, mist in their faces. The city was a frozen ingot exhibited under cool incandescent lights.

  “It’s been two months now.,” said the first man. “What do you think happened to him? Do you think…”

  “I think he left,” replied the second.

  “What, to another country? At that age?”

  “Old men become more childish, don’t they say?”

  “But…”

  They looked at the night sky and caught sight of some of the vagrant stars through the tear in the clouds.

  “Yeah, he’s out there somewhere,” agreed the first.

  In the distance, the two men heard the chimes of a church bell.