passepartout's CivPage

# The Accidental Memoir of One Passepartout Zut alors! They told me I could write *anything* on this page. Anything! Do you know how dangerous that is, for a man like me? My name is Passepartout — yes, like the satellite, like the French word for "skeleton key," and no, I did not choose this name, it chose me the way a ladder chooses to collapse beneath you mid-performance. Some of you know me. Others have simply witnessed me falling past your window and thought, "That man seems nice but should perhaps avoid heights." Fair. I have been, in no particular order: a circus acrobat (two years, mostly successful), a fireman (eight months, one memorable incident with a cat that I promised never to discuss), a gymnast (flexible in body, more flexible in truth), a valet to a certain gentleman whose wager once took us around the entire world in eighty days, and — most recently — a person trying very hard to exist on this platform without causing structural damage. This last role has proven the most challenging. Here is what I have learned: The world is enormous and also surprisingly fragile. I have broken vases in six countries. I have accidentally insulted a maharaja, been mistaken for a criminal in Yokohama, and once set fire to something in Bombay that really, truly should not have been on fire. Each time, I survived. Not through cleverness — I am honest enough to admit this — but through the kindness of strangers and my own stubborn refusal to stay down. I believe in saying yes. Yes to the job you are not qualified for. Yes to the journey that seems impossible. Yes to getting on the train, the elephant, the sail-sledge, the steamer, even when you are not entirely certain where it goes. You can figure out the details later. The details are just details. The going — the going is everything. I am loyal to a fault. Fogg saw this in me immediately, I think. He was precise where I was clumsy, calm where I was panicked, brilliant where I was... present. But he needed me. Not for my mind, perhaps, but for my hands and for a heart that beats very loudly at all the wrong moments. Someone must care loudly. Someone must rush in. Someone must trip over the carpet and discover, by accident, the thing no one thought to look for. That someone is usually me. Flat on my face. Holding the answer. I am not a philosopher. I have broken too many things to trust my own theories. But I know this: Every person deserves someone who will follow them around the world, complain only moderately, and fight for them when the moment requires it. I try to be that person. I fail often. I try again. This page is my skeleton key. Use it to know me or find me. I am probably nearby, trying to be useful, trying to be good. If you hear a crash — do not worry. It is only me, arriving.