It is odd. Despite my desire to tell my tale, I am not struggling to find the right words to begin it. I do not know what words or phrases

One thing which is common in fairy tales is the phrase which begins the story. “Once upon a time”. While my story is not a fairy tale, by any stretch of the imagination, it is something that could easily use that phrase to begin my story.

After all it seems as if my story began in a different era even though it truly only began a few decades ago.

My ancestors used to be French Aristocrats. However, after the French Revolution, when their kind was being hunted down and killed by revolutionaries, they fled the country and took residence in a foreign land. Eventually the wealth of their ancestors dwindled away to nothing until my parents were left with nothing but a small library in a small village. For it seemed that no matter how much wealth that my family lost, they could not sacrifice the books which they had been collecting for centuries.

Even though the books could have given them wealth beyond their wildest imagination, my family, even my parents would not sell them, despite the poverty and squalled which they lived in. Perhaps it was a matter of pride, their desire to hold onto something of their past of nobility. Or perhaps it was a way to gain power, for as the saying goes, ‘Knowledge is Power”.

Whatever the reason, I am very glad that my parents did not sell their books. For it would mean that I was not raised within that library.

The place where that library was located, the place that I was born and raised was a small village.

When I say small I mean it in every sense of the word. It was a place that was so insignificant that you would be unable to find it on most maps that were published at the time. Nearly all the land owners and business men who were infecting the other portions of the world around us, did not even come close to us. The only business man who I know of that realized our village existed built a small factory from which the adults of the village, forged and constructed objects made out of metal.

But it seemed that was a far as interest went in regards to how the village that I inhabited should develop. As such there was no chance of our town developing into something bigger and grander.

So when I reached an age where I could deduce this, I have to admit, I felt like was a wild dog of some sort, entangled in a vicious trap set by a hunter.

My situation did not seem fair.

For in my village, I was the most one who gained the best results consistently. I was the one who lead the other children, who organised them and helped them to achieve feats that would have been impossible otherwise. I was the one who wrote stories which would make adults and children weep with emotion.

But other than my parents and teachers, no one would be able to see or recognise the brilliance which I possessed. For no one was interested in our village and they would therefore not see my talent.

It would be like depriving the world of Beethoven or Mozart. or perhaps even of the works of Homer and Virgil. Such an idea was a travesty which could not be allowed to occur.

So I set my sights on something else as way to elevate my brilliance to a greater platform. I decide that I needed to head to that place.

A place where the adults whom I lived with seemed to fear as if it was a demon of some sort.

I vowed to go and see the outside world and let my brilliance be known to all.