It's Hell Living Without a Hero

On a fine summer day, an old man sat alone at the porch.
He was a very strange fellow, this old man. His grey hairs, deep wrinkles and shriveled hands were the only clues to his age, for as far as the townspeople were concerned the old man had been, always, grey, wrinkled, and old. On a closer inspection, one could discern a faint trace of once handsome chin, shrewd eyes, and a tall stature. However, everyone referred to him as ‘that crazy old man’
His unfortunate disposition failed to improve his reputation. He was often loud, shouting out insults towards his neighbors. He never seemed to enjoy a company of another living thing. People assumed this based on their few encounters with the old man: when the townspeople greeted him with a courteous “It’s a lovely day, wouldn’t you agree?” he would answer in silence, showing an obscene gesture with his middle finger and deeply affront the innocent people passing by.
No one could tell why the old man was so angry all the time, but there was no doubt that something was seriously bothering him. He would bark at songbirds singing in trees, growl at a dog playfully chasing its tail, and scorn at the children’s laughter carrying through the kitchen window. Fresh green blades of grass or the white petals of daisies did not seem to please him; on the contrary he seemed to devote a major portion of his time trying to remove these specimens from the soils of his small barren garden.
But isolation didn’t seem to satisfy him either. Although he was surrounded by the stillness of a warm Thursday morning at this moment, he neither seemed to be pleased nor relieved at this result. On the contrary, the lack of movement around him seemed to deepen his sorrows even more.
He did nothing but sit there in absolute silence, and someone might have mistaken him for a corpse, were it not for his shrewd eyes darting restlessly.
No one knew the truth about this old man. No one knew that this 'crazy old man' was very famous when he was young. No one even considered the possibility that he might have had a life before he became so old.
This old man had been capable of many great things. With his charms and talent, along with unfathomable amount of hard work, he gathered money and power. His brilliance had also allowed him to come up with many ingenious plans to conquer the universe – although he had never succeeded. Each time, at the last moment, when all the pieces of his plan seemed to be falling perfectly into place, an anomaly would occur. An anomaly in the name of -
The old man blinked. It was no use to brood in the past though. What was done was done. It was only when he had accidentally succeeded in deleting the ‘anomaly’, did he realize that the world without him – it, he corrected – seemed to have no value anymore.
“It’s hell living without a hero.” said the old man.
A gentle breeze brushed softly against his cheeks.