He sat in silence, day in and day out. Neither an angry one, despite his place, nor a sad one. He liked the sunlight when he could get it, but so long as there was a window he was content. He didn't look like an old man, but his eyes held a wisdom that only age or experience could buy. The attendants were kind to him, but none of them seemed to understand him.<br/><br/>Visitors came but only rarely, and they were never the same person twice. The only thing that was the same was their reason to visit; to thank him. Once, a middle-aged woman with three children. Another time, a young man with a scar across his cheek. Another time, an old couple who spent several long hours talking in silence with him. If asked why they were thanking him he would, more often than not, only smile.<br/><br/>At a glance he did not appear to be the sort to be locked up in an asylum. There was a quiet calm to his green eyes, and his thick brown hair was carefully combed each and every day. He scheduled haircuts on a tri-monthly basis; every ninety days, on the nose, he would have precisely an inch removed. No more, no less. His shoulders were broad and his chest deep, his body of a naturally powerful build.<br/><br/>Some guessed that he had been a football player once, or maybe rugby, or some sort of physical sport that had left his mind damaged. Any who coaxed speech out of him knew better. He spoke but rarely, though when he did it was calmly, quietly, and with total clarity. He was never unkind to the attendants, and never put up resistance when it came time to give him his medicine. Not that it mattered; the empty sugar pills he'd been put on did nothing to affect him, a dare one of the attendants had been put to and followed through on.<br/><br/>He never said why he had been put there. The guests never said a word, always with the same excuse.<i>He begged us not to say anything.</i>And so the curiosity built, the rumors circulated, and the days passed in peace and quiet. To most, he was a quiet curiosity, a mystery that would not be solved by just anyone. But to the attentive, he was waiting. For what, they didn't know, but they knew that much if nothing else.