What's Your Favorite Urban Legend? (Warning: Long Post Ahead)

Disregard the poster image there, because while I love the movie, I'm not actually here to review Urban Legend.

Yet. Don't worry, @deadspace -- just like that dead goat underneath you, it's coming eventually.

No, today I'm treading back into some territory I've written about before. Whether you call them folklore, dorm stories, campfire tales, friend-of-a-friend narratives, slumber party stories, or urban legends, there's no denying the power of these stories to captivate and entertain us, especially if we're between the ages of 12 and 20 and hearing them for the first time. Jan Harold Brunvand has, over the decades, collected and collated hundreds of these stories for his research into the traditions and movements of folklore across cultures and countries. He's published a number of books which I've written about and reviewed here on Steemit in the past, including Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid: The Book of Scary Urban Legends and The Vanishing Hitchhiker.

Beyond the film bearing the title, urban legends have wormed their way into novels and cinema for decades. Tales like "The Hook-Handed Killer", "The Kentucky Fried Rat", and "The Babysitter and the Telephone" have appeared in countless versions, told both straight and parodied across films, comic books, television shows, novels, and even video games. Urban legends have been pop culture since long before pop culture was even recognized as a thing. Everybody's got a favorite piece of folklore, even if they don't identify it as such, and while there are many which tickle my fancy (one of which I quoted in its entirety in my review of Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid), there's one which has stuck in my craw ever since I read it the first time in Lord Halifax's Ghost Book when I was just seventeen years old. I've encountered several variations of the story over the years, but I'll re-tell it here in my own words just for @janenightshade's edification. This is...

The Bordeaux Diligence

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While visiting France on holiday, a young man took a seat on a park bench next to a middle-aged couple. They exchanged pleasantries for a moment, then the older man said, "Pardon me, monsieur, but I wonder if I might ask a favor."

"Of course," the younger man replied.

The older gentleman pointed to a young woman several meters down the sidewalk. "Would you be so kind as to ask that mademoiselle what time the Bordeaux Diligence begins this evening?"

The young man didn't know exactly what this meant, but he didn't want to perpetuate the stereotype of the typical American tourist, so he agreed, walked over to the woman, and said, "I'm sorry to bother you, but the man and woman over there would like to know what time the Bordeaux Diligence will start tonight. Could you tell me?"

The woman stared at him for a few moments, then curled her lip in a sneer. "I don't know why you're asking me such a thing," she replied. "You should ask that policeman over there." So saying, she pointed to one of the local gendarmes and stormed off in a huff.

Confused and embarrassed, the man watched her leave, then did as she had suggested. Approaching the policeman in the politest manner he could muster, he repeated his question. The officer's mouth dropped agape, and he grabbed the man by the shoulders, demanding to know why he would ask such a thing. The poor man apologized and pointed toward the bench where the older couple had been seated, but his heart sank as he saw it vacant. He explained this to the officer, but the officer was not assuaged. Instead, he clapped the man in handcuffs and walked him to a nearby police car. Before long, they arrived at the police station, where the man was taken to the sergeant for processing.

The sergeant, naturally, asked what the man had done to warrant his arrest. The man replied, "I'm sorry, I didn't realize I had done anything wrong. I merely asked your officer what time the Bordeaux Diligence was to begin this evening. I don't understand what the problem is."

The sergeant glared at him then told the officer to place him in a holding cell. As this was a Friday afternoon, he would have to wait until Monday to see the magistrate. The man spent two miserable days in the French jail, but Monday came and he was taken before the judge, who naturally asked what he was doing in his court. "I honestly don't know," the man responded. He related the story of meeting the older couple, then speaking to the young woman, who then directed him to the officer who had arrested him and dragged him off to the police station. "All I asked was what time the Bordeaux Diligence was supposed to begin that evening, and that was three days ago!"

"I see," the judge replied. "I'm afraid I have no choice but to pronounce sentence immediately. You are hereby commanded to spend the next seven years doing hard labor on Devil's Island. We will contact the American Embassy and explain what you have done. There will be no possibility for parole." So sentenced, the man was dragged off to the infamous French prison, where he began his sentence.

As the months went by, he got to know many of his fellow inmates, and one Friday evening they were all gathered in the cafeteria when one of the men asked what each other man sitting around the table had done to deserve their incarceration. The man listened as one by one, the prisoners all confessed to heinous crimes: murder, robbery, and all manner of illicit drug and business deals had landed each prisoner their fate. When it came around to him, he said, "Maybe you can explain something to me. I've certainly never murdered or robbed anyone; all I did was asked what time the Bordeaux Diligence was going to start. How could that possibly be a crime? Why would they send me to prison for this?" Every convict around the table fell silent at this admission, shifting their gaze around to avoid looking at him. Finally, one by one, they stood up and silently walked away, leaving him alone.

The next morning at breakfast, one of the guards noticed the man sitting all alone and inquired, "What on earth did you do to get ostracized like that? Are you a pedophile or something?"

"No!" the man replied, shocked. "Nothing of the sort! I just told them why I was in here, that I'd asked what time the Bordeaux Diligence started, and they all got up and left. No one will even talk to me!"

"I see," replied the guard. "Let's take a walk." He grabbed the man by the arm, and led him to the warden's office. After hearing what happened, the warden looked at the man and said, "Is this true?"

"Yes," the man said. "Just as I told the guard here."

The warden looked at the guard and said, "Solitary confinement, then. Unlike in your country, we don't tolerate that kind of nonsense here."

The next six-and-a-half years passed slowly and uneventfully, but finally, his sentence served, the man found himself outside the prison gates and back on the mainland. Uncertain where to go or what to do, he decided to head for the US Embassy and see if he could re-acquire his passport so he could go home.

On the way there, he walked through the same park where he had been seven years before. Imagine his shock when he saw the older man who had first asked him for a favor, sitting alone on the very same bench where he and his wife had been seated seven years prior.

"You!" he said, stopping in front of the man and dragging him to his feet by his coattails. "Because of you, I served seven years in prison for a crime I don't even understand! Why did you do it? Why me, of all people?"

"Monsieur, please," the older man responded. "My wife died two years ago, and I am profoundly sorry for what has happened. But we cannot talk here." The older man pulled a small notebook and a pen out of his pocket, and slowly wrote down an address. "Come to this place, tonight, at nine o'clock. I'll be waiting for you, and everything will be explained." The older man then placed his hat atop his head and hobbled away down the sidewalk.

Shortly before nine o'clock that evening, the younger man made his way down the streets until he reached the address the man had written down for him. It looked to be a very busy pub. Right on time, he saw the older man walk up the front steps and enter the building. He rushed across the street to catch the old man, but in his excitement had failed to look both ways before crossing. The last thing he heard was the blaring horn of a cargo van as it slammed into him, killing him instantly.

---

At first glance, this is nothing more than a "shaggy dog" story. "Shaggy Dog" stories are so named for an archetypal tale which is a long-winded account of how incredibly shaggy a certain individual's dog is, which ends suddenly without providing either a conclusion to the story or the punchline to what the listener presumes is a joke. And to a certain extent, it is: it takes a winding route to reach the climax, only to slap the reader/listener/audience in the face at the end. We never learn the answers to any of our questions concerning the Bordeaux Diligence, and that's annoying as shit.

But there's a reason Lord Halifax published this story in an anthology of spooky tales, and that's because there's an undercurrent of subtle menace about the whole thing. In not explaining the Bordeaux Diligence, it acquires some truly terrifying properties. No matter how old we are, humans are obsessed with knowing the most they can about the world around them. We need to know, and there's little more terrifying than the thought we are somehow 'out of the loop'. Our minds are pattern-seeking machines, looking to answer questions even when the questions themselves are only in our heads. And the Bordeaux Diligence is paranoia at its finest: a secret which everyone else except me knows, which is so dangerous that authorities have made it a crime to even discuss it in public. It incorporates our fears of being ignorant, being out of our native element, and having our lives uprooted and changed due to circumstances beyond both our control and our understanding.

A world where "the Bordeaux Diligence" exists, where we could be punished for something so seemingly innocent as asking a simple question, is a Kafka-esque nightmare on par with works like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and John Carpenter's The Thing. It's the whole point of movies like Closet Land and The Trial. We're all afraid that just when we think we have the rules figured out, those rules are going to change. This is never more true than when we're children: we go from living a secure life at home to attending elementary school, and the rules change. We move from elementary school to middle school, and again, the rules change. Middle school to high school? High school to university? Whether we're getting our driver's license, registering to vote, applying for an apartment lease, or starting our first day on the job, the world is an ever-changing menagerie of updates, addendums, alterations, retractions, and additions to life's rules. Each and every time, we are reminded of how little we truly know. And it sucks.

From this point, it isn't hard to understand how conspiracy theories can so easily take root and fester. There really are days when it seems like the whole world is actively plotting your downfall, even if we understand, rationally, that "the world" does not care about us, though individuals certainly can and do.

"The Bordeaux Diligence" is, hands down, my favorite urban legend, my favorite piece of folklore, my favorite campfire tale. Not because of what it does specifically, because what it does isn't all that effective. But rather because of what it doesn't do. It offers no solutions. It provides no answers. It gives no light at the end of the tunnel and no resolution -- no hopeful one, at any rate. It's a reminder that no matter how much we know, or think we know, about life, the universe, and everything, we're still profoundly ignorant of a great many things, any one of which could bring about our downfall. We wouldn't even know why it happened. And not knowing why is the most terrifying fear of all.

Do you have a favorite urban legend, campfire story, or other piece of folklore? Write about it on your own blog, leave a link in the comments below, and tell us why. There are some shares of @steembasicincome available if you entertain me with your tales, memories, and thoughts!