Bambador Kal was the last person on earth to still use letters as a means of communication. He never used a phone or an Email. He was the only reason that for twenty three years, every Wednesday afternoon, I've gone to the post office and bought stamps. Every time I entered the office the cashier would look at me as if I'm an alien, even though it had only been a week since my last visit. I always smiled and said hello, than bought a couple of stamps and posted my letter addressed to Bambador Kal, my friend from far away. The answer always came on Monday, never late, never early.
"Letters are much more profound", he told me once, when I asked him about this weird habit, "everything you write has meaning. That's why books will never go extinct".
He wrote with a green pen, his handwriting was curly and very tidy. He never erased anything he wrote, he was always fluent. If his letters had a voice it would surely be deep and meaningful.
Bambador Kal loved nothing more than stories. Ever since I met him twenty three years ago, he'd always seek them. He'd go to places no one had ever heard of, talked to people which no one knew existed and read books which everyone forgot about. He was a modern day bard, telling his stories to anyone with ears and eyes, particularly me. I was his most trusted friend. Whenever he found a new story he'd tell me about it first and then ask for my opinion. One time I asked him what does he do with all these stories and in the next Monday he replied, "Writing them, of course".
"In a book?" I asked that Wednesday.
"Obviously" was the response.
I met Bambador Kal a long time ago in Flight Academy. We were young then, but not very different. He was the same Bambador Kal, with his dark skin, dark hair, dark eyes, and bright teeth, and I was the same me. Everyone loved Bambador Kal, even though he was usually of the quiet sort. Only at nights, when lights were off and no one could see his face, he'd open his mouth and tell us tales of wonder with his unusual voice and his unmistakable accent.
He told us about a land where there's a constant buzz, like the sound of a running diesel engine, but nobody knew where it came from, and it never stopped. Not all the people could hear it, but it was real. A few people could even feel the vibration. And some place else there was a red rain once. And when they put it under a microscope to check what made the rain red, they found it was full of extraterrestrial life forms, swimming about in the earthly water. And some place else a woman was found dead in her living room, her whole body burnt to ashes, except for her legs, but nothing in the room was burnt or even charred. And somewhere else farmers found a long trail of hoof prints in the snow, stretching in a straight line for miles. A few houses and creeks and other obstacles were in the way, but the foot prints didn't mind, they continued anyway, in a straight line, on the houses' roofs and through pipes as small as a tennis ball, for miles and miles.
We always listened with awe, but when his voice would die away, people would usually laugh. We were young soldiers. We were pilots. Proud, arrogant, naïve. None of us had seen anything weird in his life, none of us had experienced anything unique, none of us had killed a man. Yet. So we laughed. Though, I laughed the least, and I think that's why he liked me.
"What lies did you have to tell to get into the army?", they'd ask, jokingly. Bambador Kal was very obviously not a local citizen; His name was foreign, his accent was foreign, his looks were foreign. "No lies", he'd say, and they would laugh even louder and say "you're a very bad liar". To that he always responded "I'm not a liar, just a very good storyteller", and no one could argue with that.
One day he entered our tent and told us he was leaving.
"To where?", I asked.
"Somewhere else"
"You're going to stay in the Air Force?"
"No"
"The Navy?"
"No"
"Where then?"
"somewhere else".
Everyone went to shake his hand, pat on his back and say goodbye, but when I approached him he smiled and said he wanted to talk with me outside.
We went outside and he immediately lit a cigarette.
"Listen, kid", he always called me kid. I was pretty sure we were at the same age, but still, I never argued, "I'm going abroad for a few years, maybe forever. I'd like to stay in touch with you, if you don't mind".
I agreed and he smiled and nodded, sucking on his cigarette.
"Well, how can I reach you?", I asked after a few moments, he didn't volunteer any information. He threw away the cigarette and pulled a small blank page from his front pocket and an expansive looking green fountain pen. He scribbled a few words on the note and shoved it to my hand.
"Here", he said, "I hope your handwriting is readable".
"It is" I promised.
He went away and I stayed and became a pilot and killed people.
When I got released, the first thing I did was send a letter to Bambador Kal. I bought a few envelopes and some letter paper and wrote whatever came to my mind. I wrote and wrote, and the words didn't seem to end. I told him about the war. I told him about the missiles I fired, and the fires I caused and the people I killed. I told him how it all seemed awfully small and insignificant from above, like torching ants with magnifying glass. I told him how lucky he was for leaving. When I finished, the letter was twenty pages long. I wondered if he would read such a long letter. The next morning I sent it, thinking that I would probably get no answer.
The next Monday I got a letter. It was the first time anyone had ever sent me a letter, since Bambador Kal was the last person on earth to still use letters as a means of communication. His letter was very short, and at first I thought he was going to ask me to stop writing and leave him alone. But he didn't. He told me that that was my first story. He said that everyone has stories. Some are comic, some are tragic. You're a collector now, he wrote, like me. He urged me to write more, he wanted more of my stories. So I did. Every Wednesday.
Once I asked him why he left the Flight Academy. He said he had to leave. He said he always has to leave. He can never stay at the same place. There are always places to go and stories to hear. He told me he had been all around the world and he meant to go around it once more. Life is a journey, he said, you can never stop at one point.
Often he would tell me some of his stories. He told me about a village where the villagers found a woman in the forest that had ape-like features, thick arms, legs, and fingers, and was covered with hair. They tried to take her to the village, but she was so violent, they had to put her in a cage. And some place else there was a beautiful valley, with magnificent cliffs and a mighty river gushing through it. It would have been the perfect place for travelers; however anyone who got into the valley was found dead a few days later, his head cut off. And someplace else a few scuba divers found a huge city underwater, complete with vast walls and archways untouched by time and waves.
His stories were always better than mine; they seemed almost too incredible to be believed. But Bambador Kal wasn't a liar, I knew, Just a very good storyteller.
One day he told me he has a new address and that I should start addressing my letters there. I asked him why he moved, and he said his wife and daughter pressured him to move somewhere warm. Just a few months later, maybe half a year, maybe more, I got a phone call.
"Hello, this is Richard Burnes from Esper and Burnes, I'm Mr. Kal's lawyer", said a voice from beyond the ether.
"Hello Mr. Burnes, how can I help you?"
"I'm very sorry to inform you that Mr. Kal has passed away this Thursday".
I thought about my latest letter. By now it was probably on a plane or in a train or in a truck somewhere. It will never be read nor opened. Those words were lost forever.
"I see", I said.
"I'm very sorry for your loss"
"Thank you. How did he die?"
"Lung Cancer. He's been hospitalized for a few months, maybe half a year or so, didn't you hear about it?"
"Not a word", I meant it literally.
"Well, there are some issues which need to be settled. When you feel like it, can you please come over and meet me at my office?"
"What's it about? Was Bambador in trouble?"
"No, nothing like that. It's just his inheritance. Mr. Kal left you a few objects".
He gave me his office address and said he was sorry for my loss again and then he hung up, leaving me with no choice but to go see him in his office.
Richard Burnes was the exact opposite of Bambador Kal. He had white hair, white skin and yellow teeth. He preferred dark suits, and he smoke cigars. His handshake was firm, and his affirming smile was almost sincere.
"Please sit", he said and pointed to the leather chair in front of his desk.
"Allow me to ask you, how did you know my client?" he asked casually once I sat down.
"We met in the army. We were in the same tent".
"How close were you?"
"Quite close. Sometimes I thought I was his closest friend"
"That's likely true"
"Excuse me?"
"My client decided to leave everything he had to you".
I was stunned for a second, and Burnes saw it with his lawyer eyes.
"It's not much though", he said, "Just this one package".
"What? What happened to his house?", I asked, surprised by the very small and badly wrapped package.
"He had no house"
"And what about his wife and daughter? Didn't they get anything?"
"He didn't have a wife nor a daughter", he scanned me with his lawyer laser, "Are you sure you two were close?"
"Very close", I said, though I wasn't sure anymore.
"anyway", he continued suspiciously, "don't open it here. He specifically asked that you and only you see what's inside it"
"No problem"
"One last thing, Is there anything you wish to have engraved on Mr. Kal's tombstone?"
"not particularly"
"Well, if you change your mind by next week please contact me at this number", and a business card just popped right into his hand out of nowhere. Apparently he was a lawyer AND a magician.
I opened the ragged box that evening. I laid it on my kitchen table, stared at it for a minute, and then ripped the brown cover to shreds. Beneath it was a very thick book, covered with dark purple velvet, it's pages a mix of brown, yellow and white. I opened it and the first page fell to the floor. It was a moment of terror until I realized it wasn't in fact a page of the book but rather a letter, addressed to me, written in green, curly, tidy letters.
Kid, it said, let me tell you my last story. My father gave me this book. He got it from his father, and he got it from his father before him. This is a book of stories. You see, legends are easily forgotten. And those which aren't suffer a much worse fate, they change and morph and remain nothing like the originals. My family had always worked to preserve these stories, from the beginning of time. We wrote thousands of books. My father told me that my great-great grandfather had a vast library, with shelves upon shelves of velvet covered books, very much like this one. However all that remains is this book. All the others burned down, or got lost or stolen or sold or simply crumbled. Think about all the stories lost to oblivion. All those legends which died away. Remember how you told me about all those people you killed in the war? It is very much like that. These stories are more than words. These are people. Knights, kings, emperors, hunters, archers, thieves, murderers, soldiers, farmers. People can be immortal as long as they live in books, but these people are all lost, as if they never existed at all.
This book you're holding is me. This is my story, my legends. By now you probably know that most of what I told you about my life, which was little enough, was not completely true. In these pages you'll find anything you ever wanted to know and more, all of the stories I had ever told you, and some that I didn't.
I left a few blank pages at the end so you could write some of your own.
He signed his letter with a wish that we meet again in the eternal Myth Universe, where no people die, and everyone remain as gallant, cowardly, deep, shallow, sad, happy, scared, brave, euphoric, depressed, proud and ashamed as they were.
When I finished reading the letter I immediately called Richard Burnes.
"Hello?", he asked with a sleepy voice, it was quite late at night by then.
"Hi, I'm sorry to wake you up at such hour, this is Bambador Kal's friend. I've been in your office earlier, remember?"
"Yes, yes. Can't it wait to morning?"
"I'm afraid not, I might forget. You asked me if I want anything engraved on Bambador Kal's tombstone"
"Well, do you?"
"Yes, I know exactly what it should be".
A week later his tombstone was ready. A man from the cemetery called and told me I could come and see the grave, if I'd like. I said I would, and I did.
The next afternoon, I drove all the way to the cemetery. The sun was beginning to set, and the air smelled like the butt of a cigarette. I parked my car and the man who called me showed me to the grave. He had a wild beard and a very high pitched voice for a man his size, but he didn't talk much, just pointed at the grave, mumbled something about loss and condolences and walked away.
It was a very elegant tombstone. Not too flashy, not too shabby. It suited Bambador Kal perfectly. It was white marble and the words which were engraved on it were filled with green paint. He was buried under a huge oak tree, and there were no flowers on his grave. I was probably the only visitor. I smiled when I read the words I chose.
"You were wrong Bambador", I said quietly to the purple book I had in my backpack, "It's not written words which last forever, it's engraved words". Then I left the cemetery knowing that even if anything were to happen to the purple velvet book, nothing could erase the fact that here lies Bambador Kal, a very good storyteller.
