Curious

Once upon a time, there lived an eccentric old man. He was always so excited about something or other.

He’d go on for months and months upon a single subject. Then suddenly he would just stop caring about it at all, and moved on to some other thing to be all excited about.

This is nothing unusual in and of itself, I suppose, but… Everything he was interested in would be collected in his home. Not by any action on his part, but apparently simply by interest.

His collection of books and papers was massive. His collection of earrings filled seven walk-in closets, and spilled out.

His top hats and colorful cowboy boots, coupled with clown noses, could have made fifteen armies look ridiculous all at once.

He was interested in leftwing politics for a while. Twenty two leftwing politicians took permanent residence in his house.

He was interested in rightwing politics for a bit. Twenty four rightwing politicians moved in, and never left.

The leftwing and the rightwing politicians engaged in daily arguments and fistycuffs inside the auditorium. The auditorium itself appeared inside the house in between the hours of midday and six pm, and was otherwise not to be found.

Nowhere else in the building were the leftwing and rightwing politicians able to meet.

The leftwing politicians entered the auditorium through a door on the right hand side of the auditorium. The rightwing politicians entered through a door on the left. This seemed inherently wrong to everyone, but any attempts to find the other’s door on the outside were doomed to fail. Any attempts to exit by the other’s door only led you to the outside of your own door, feeling intolerably nauseous.

For a while, the politicians all used the other’s door to exit in defiance of the nausea. As it became progressively worse with each exit, eventually they were forced to give up this practice, swallow their pride (since they could not possibly swallow that much vomit), and leave by the door they came in. A rather remarkable accomplishment, this acknowledgement of their own limitations.

Nothing else ever was resolved in any of the arguments or fights inside the auditorium. Their net total was only ever a share of black eyes and bruised ribs to go around.

One might think the politicians would eventually lose interest in these arguments, but no. To think so would be to not know the species of human called politicians. Every morning after breakfast, without fail, they queued in the hallway where their door to the auditorium would appear at exactly 11.59.59 (never a second later at exactly noon).

The old man’s home had room for everything, it seems. With every addition of a new subject of interest, the manor house grew, and grew, and grew. On the inside, I mean. The outside remained a perfectly rational-sized manor. Large, but not overly large. Imposing, but not threatening.

A perfectly pleasant place, with the loveliest of gardens and grounds.

Naturally, the gardens, the woods and the greenhouse also grew in accordance with their owner’s interests, but only on the inside. They all stayed within the bounds of the high walls surrounding the manor on three sides, and if the sea itself grew larger with the old man’s interest in sea creatures and sailing, well… No one was able to tell. Not from the outside.

The old man himself was quite certain that the shoreline, at least, had grown considerably much since the days he played on a small, sandy beach as a little boy. This would seem to imply that the sea itself had grown as well, since there was no shortage of waves lapping on the beach, the marina, the cliffs and the caves.

“Oh well,” thought the old man. “No matter. It is only home, after all, regardless of its size.” He then turned his interest to something else.

There never came a day when the old man lost interest in new subjects. There never came a moment he was bored. One day there simply came a heart attack that ended his tale.

The house was left as a legacy to an orphan little boy, who was insatiably curious about everything in this world, and beyond.