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The Stage Manager, a person that controlled so much of other people’s lives. He guided them through many of life’s events, no matter how big or small. Sometimes he gave them a nudge in the right direction, and other times it was more like an unceremonious shove down a steep slope towards certainty. He witnessed so much of what others lived and experienced. He’d even played his part in much of it.
Births, marriages, deaths. Love and loss. It was part and parcel of what he did, who he was as a person? A being? An entity? What was he really when it came down to it? A driving force. A pillar of strength and solidarity. Someone the people of Earth relied on without knowing it.
Was he God? No. No, he wouldn’t go that far. He couldn’t put himself on such a pedestal. How could he when the humans had their own deities and gods and figures to believe in? He wasn’t at their level. He was merely a player in a much greater arc.
He was a storyteller.
Thinking about it, the Stage Manager couldn’t fully comprehend his own existence. Where did he really fit? Did he fit anywhere at all? His entire being was constructed around the lives of others. The small-time worlds of these unassuming and nondescript people. These humans who didn’t understand what their purpose truly was. They just lived their lives and went about their daily duties without so much as a thought as to why they were doing it. They simply did.
He supposed that was what he was doing, if he really thought about it. Going through the motions. One day after another. But he had his purpose. His purpose was to tell their stories, the stories of these seemingly insignificant people to anyone that would listen.
He’d had audiences great and miniscule. He’d told stories to thousands of people, just as he had to one singular person. The quantity didn’t matter to him as the quality. A listening ear was enough. A good storyteller only ever truly wanted that—someone to listen whilst he spun a yarn.
And, oh, how he’d spun some tales in his time. He’d seen light and joy in the audience’s eyes as he regaled them with days past. He’d watched some weep with sympathy for lives lost and times soon to be forgotten. Mothers and daughters, fathers and sons. Cousins, brothers, sisters, grandparents, and lone wanderers. He’d watched grown men reduced to tears and young women given determination. Reinvigoration and strength. Every single thing had existed together and independently within his auditoriums.
He enjoyed telling the stories of those lives, of course. Grandeur and extravagance were rarely the subject of his stories.
No. He was interested in the lives of simple people. The humans who were nobodies to most, but to him they had a spark. Something that was worth mentioning among everything else in the world.
And one such town had intrigued him more than any other.
Grover’s Corners.
The little town in New Hampshire had affectionately been dubbed Our Town by him. It was one of his most fascinating stories to date.
There was nothing very remarkable about the town. It was full of ordinary folk. Farmers, shopkeepers, a milkman, a minister, a choirmaster. The nosy neighbours and the noisy schoolchildren. By all accounts it was a dull little place, and that was exactly how the Stage Manager liked it.
For you see, he’d witnessed so much in Grover’s Corners in the last few hundred years.
Across his vast life, the Stage Manager had married countless people and he knew he would probably go on to marry thousands more. He’d experienced loss on an absolutely colossal scale. He’d been the witness to many births and just as many deaths. He’d seen more than any one person could ever hope, want or need to see in their lifetime. He was eternal. Immortal. Omniscient. Ever present. A being of great wisdom and knowledge.
So it was surprising for him, a stoic and detached being, to find himself entranced with Grover’s Corners and its inhabitants. These simple folk with simple lives. They’d planted themselves in his heart and wouldn’t let go.
Now, he didn’t feel love in the traditional sense of the word. How could he? He was almost a god. Not quite, but almost. He didn’t experience what the people in his stories got to. It was a strange sort of existence really. He lived vicariously through them. As they pottered about, enjoying life and feeling emotions, the Stage Manager saw it all. He beheld the intricacies of their lives and he revelled in what he could glean from it. Anything he could pick up and harness for his stories was precious and valuable.
Within Grover’s Corners the Stage Manager found himself becoming an integral part of their lives, though he never tinkered too much, never interfered to the point that they would notice. This was their life and their path to choose. However, he couldn’t resist inserting himself into their daily activities. It was an almost perverse desire to be part of it all. To be one of them.
He’d played numerous unassuming characters in this close-knit community—nobody too spectacular. Mr. Morgan, the owner of the local soda shop; Mrs. Forrest, a simple neighbour; and the church minister, the one that brought people together, to name but a few.
But in these unremarkable roles, he’d witnessed extraordinary things. Things most wouldn’t bat an eyelid at, but to him it was interesting, entertaining, and oh-so-wonderful.
He took quiet pleasure in the little things. Playing these unimportant characters had become something of a bittersweet pastime. He was there, involved for all of them to see without anyone ever really knowing he existed. Playing roles that were inconsequential, yet held so much power and importance to the way of life in Grover’s Corners.
And through it all he’d grown fond of two families - the Gibbs and the Webbs. They were simple farm folk. A doctor and his wife. An editor and his wife. They reared chickens, grew heliotrope and lilacs and sunflowers. They spent time being and doing.
Then there were their children, Emily Webb and George Gibbs.
Childhood sweethearts destined to be together.
Without really intending to, the Stage Manager found himself slowly becoming part of their meeting and subsequent marriage. He was there when they realised they were in love. He was there when they took their vows. He was there at the end too, when Emily passed during the birth of their second child.
They were almost like the children he didn’t have—couldn’t have.
Ah, yes.
That simply wasn’t possible, was it? Not for him. That was the sad reality of being a storyteller like him. He told others’ stories, but never his own.
His life, his story isn’t significant, yet he sees so much that nobody else does. Things they can’t see because they’re too busy living. He never asks for credit. He simply does it because he can, because he wants to, because he should.
Because it’s his job, his duty.
If he didn’t do it, who would?
That was the crux of it. Who would do his job if he no longer did? Was there anyone who could take over? Could anyone ever fill his shoes?
The Stage Manager didn’t think so.
This was not an assumption out of ego, you understand. He had no delusions of grandeur, nor righteous self-importance fuelling this thought. He just simply didn’t believe there was anyone else like him in existence. He was unique. Sure, there were plenty of storytellers in the world, people who had a tale to tell with reverence and care, but none were like him. None were this detached, yet so emotionally involved at the same time. None had been part of the story whilst also telling it.
In his own way he was remarkably unremarkable. He was unimportant, yet quite extraordinary. The very thing he set out to spin tales about.
He also had to admit that he didn’t think any one being should ever have so much responsibility or power bestowed upon them. There was so much emotional baggage that he dragged around with him every day and that was only amplified by the events of Grover’s Corners.
Yet it was his burden to carry.
After all, he was brought back to the question of, if not him, who?
So he saddled himself up and took the brunt of it because that was his purpose.
He was meant to do this. He’d been entrusted with the lives of these simple folk, and damn if he wasn’t going to nurture and care for them, like the most delicate flowers about to take bud.
That was who he was. That was who he was meant to be.
And he wouldn’t change it for all the stars in the sky.