The origins of S. Fisher Williams are, at best, a matter of contradictory record. Sources disagree not only on the year of birth, but the century, the continent, and in one notable case, the species. Depending on which obscure publication or errant whisper you choose to believe, their story begins anywhere from an abandoned observatory to the backroom of a cursed library sale. Some claim he slipped through a crack in the world; others that he was simply misplaced at birth and never properly retrieved. What remains are these scattered fragments, gleaned from burnt letters, rain-soaked field notes, rumors scratched onto the undersides of tables, and the occasional muttering librarian found in empty hallways.
What follows is a collected account of events believed, disputed, and otherwise shrugged over by those who claim to have known him. No comprehensive verification has been attempted.
Early Life and Minor Cataclysms
At precisely midnight on a Tuesday, S. Fisher Williams is said to have emerged fully formed from a misplaced stack of folklore pamphlets. Witnesses recall an odd smell of moss and ink. The local authorities shrugged and filed it under "Routine Occurrence #47."
By the following Thursday, Williams had already been expelled from two primary schools: once for replacing all the classroom globes with orbs that showed only imaginary continents, and again for teaching the local crows how to operate a typewriter.
The Apprenticeship of Moth-Eaten Wizards
At the tender age of somewhere-between-eight-and-eternity, Williams briefly apprenticed under the Brotherhood of Tattered Illusionists — a group whose greatest magic trick involved convincing several towns they had once existed.
Their lessons included how to sketch doorways that led nowhere, how to breed shadows, and how to bow properly to a question mark. Williams excelled at none of these arts, but was tolerated for producing the best invisible sculptures of the decade.
The Incident at the Painted Monastery
While posing as a novice fresco restorer at the Monastery of the Unfinished Gaze, Williams accidentally unleashed a plague of sentient pigments from a forbidden mural. The colors seeped into the stone, argued fiercely among themselves, and later elected a Prussian Blue governor.
Several monks were found debating whether color could feel remorse, and the Abbot was last seen chasing a crimson hue across the cloisters with a butterfly net. Williams, meanwhile, escaped on the back of a slightly embarrassed donkey, leaving behind only a paint-smeared apology nailed to a weather vane.
Rivalry with The Collector of Unfinished Thoughts
Throughout their career, Williams has been plagued by the sporadic interference of one Dr. Halvern Vetch, a collector of abandoned ideas and half-baked dreams.
It is rumored that Vetch once tried to purchase Williams's "unborn" projects at auction, only to be outbid by a ghost in a velvet hat. Their rivalry climaxed in the infamous Duel of the Drafts, an event so confusing that even the witnesses are uncertain who won or if the duel ever properly ended.
The Founding of the Department of Inconvenient Wonders
Following a misunderstanding with a traveling almanac society, Williams inadvertently became the founder of the Department of Inconvenient Wonders — an organization tasked with cataloging phenomena too small, slippery, or socially awkward to properly document.
Among the Department's notable findings:
The Whisper That Can Only Be Heard When Forgetting Something Important
The Thirteenth Shadow (only visible out of the corner of an unwelcome memory)
The Plant That Grows Sideways Into Alternate Yesterdays
The Department's official charter was reportedly lost during a flood of whispering leaves and has yet to be reconstituted.
Notable Expeditions
Traversed the Swamps of Forgetfulness in one ill-fitting boot, retrieving a map stitched from expired sighs.
Negotiated safe passage through the Lower Gloaming District by trading an insult so clever it looped back into a compliment.
Staged a quiet coup at a museum where every exhibit was slightly alive and each admission ticket was printed on the back of a lost wish.
On the Matter of Ghosts
Though Williams denies any formal education in necromancy, he is frequently sighted in the company of "Mistress Bellwhistle," a spirit believed responsible for spontaneous library reorganizations.
He has also been linked to The Lantern Man of No Street, an apparition rumored to guide those who draw maps of places that no longer exist.
When questioned on these associations, Williams simply stated, "Some friendships transcend breathable air."
The Great Studio Collapse
In a now-legendary incident, Williams's hidden studio collapsed after an experiment to "trap a metaphor mid-bloom" went poorly. Rescue workers claimed to find, among the debris: a chair that wept ink, an entire cloud folded into a matchbox, and several paintings whose eyes visibly tracked anyone in the room.
Williams himself emerged from the rubble apparently unharmed, carrying only a small leather-bound volume labeled, "Mistakes Worth Making."
Current Status
Sources conflict. Some insist Williams is sketching the future into existence from a studio lined with moth wings. Others claim he is merely asleep beneath a blanket stitched from lost hours.
Recent sightings include a figure matching his description seen:
Sitting atop a crumbling clock tower during a lightning storm, calmly sketching the pattern of the rain.
Browsing through books that no one else could see in a derelict train station.
Hammering a bronze nail into the middle of an abandoned road, "to keep the earth from sighing too loud."
Wherever he is, reports agree on one detail: Williams leaves behind a faint scent of old ink and distant laughter.
Some believe Williams now tends to invisible gardens where unwritten books bloom like sorrowful flowers, and that every once in a while, he leaves a gate ajar for the stubborn, the curious, and the slightly lost. Others say he has become the whisper behind forgotten doorways, an archivist of the nearly-happened.
Their last known message, scribbled on the torn corner of a shipping manifest, simply read:
“Gone to water the nightmares. Back eventually.”