The falcon could talk. I swear.

At the seniors’ residence in the small Canadian town where I have ended up, that’s the part everyone has trouble with. Not my age necessarily, even though it is well over a hundred and counting – or my childhood adventures in Paris, London, and Vienna at the turn of the century.
   
It is that talking falcon.

They sit respectfully enough when I talk about the power of the Strange and how it both cursed and blessed my young life. They are riveted by my tales of the cunning and beautiful Mrs. Nevermore. They do not look dubious when I tell them that she was a sorcière and confidence woman who could persuade anybody of just about anything— she could even convince the next King of England that the Eiffel Tower was for sale. How do you sell the Eiffel Tower to the King of England? they demand to know. Ah, that’s the story, isn’t it? The tale that has to be told.

But when I bring up the falcon, that’s when doubtful glances start to fly. I can’t blame people, really. I’m a pretty ordinary fellow these days. I sit in the Great Room at the residence and, like most of the others, I fall asleep during the so-called Happy Hour. I join in the grumbling about the food even though the last thing I’m interested in is eating. Along with so many other things I have lost my sense of taste. I can still move around pretty well, but, like just about everyone here, with the aid of a walker.

Someone comes in each morning to help me dress, a good-natured Jamaican woman named Esther possessed of a deep, rolling laugh that erupts when I start up my fantastical yarns. I don’t think Esther believes a word I say, but her eyes sparkle when I talk in the way good listeners can make you think they are hanging on every word.

Except for its most unexpected gift—longevity—age robbed me of the Strange some time ago. I awoke one morning and its power just wasn’t there any more, like my appetite or my ability to move freely. 

Maybe it wasn’t the Strange I lost. Perhaps it was imagination. Without imagination how could those events out of my past possibly have transpired—the gargoyles that sprang to life from the Other World, the evil Corbeau who wanted to kill me, the one-eyed Natalia who tried to seduce me to her side?

The falcon was part of all that, but no one wants to believe it. That doesn’t change basic truths, though: the bird could talk, the gargoyles could fly, the Eiffel Tower could be sold, and a fourteen-year-old boy could become transfixed by a transfixing woman. He could come to learn the curious ways of the Strange, and at the same time discover resources within himself that would serve him the rest of his long life.

That is the story I have to tell, of Paris at a remarkable time, of magic, and of a transforming iron tower. These days I tell it to anyone willing to listen. After all, why keep anything a secret at this point? There is no one left to be harmed by anything I have to say, and it wiles away the time and focuses the attention of my fellow travelers through the twilight land that is old age.

Is it true? they ask. Of course it is, I say. After all, like Mrs. Nevermore, I am in the business of making people believe things they would otherwise never believe. I have been in that business for a long time.
   
So what follows is a truthful chronicle, right down to the talking bird. I’m certain it is. 

How could it be anything else? How could I possibly make it up?