4
The Stranger
He wandered his vast fortress, admiring his endless treasures on display. A Vermeer painting. A priceless vase from the Ming Dynasty. An original copy of the Keats poem “Ode to a Grecian Urn”, nestled among a score of Grecian urns.
The castle was much grander than his former home, but he found himself missing his dwelling of old, where he’d stowed his treasure in haphazard piles and slept among the mountains of burnished gold. Like Ali Baba in the Cave of Wonders, only he was no thief among thieves. He was a king and honored as one.
He's always been solitary. Content in his ways, as long as he had treasures and an army at his beck and call. But now he found himself longing for something more. Not more gold or jewels. Something more priceless. Something more rare.
One th
