Fate is what is written

“Let us, then, be up and doing, with a heart for any fate; still achieving, still pursuing, learn to labor and to wait.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

'How treacherous talent is. It really is the most curious thing', he thought as he made his way through Bond Street. Just when he had taken it for granted, just when he had dared to consider it a constant companion, it left his side, leaving him alone with his now empty thoughts, with the debries of a magnificent burnt down building. Without it beside him, what could possibly come from being inside his own head anymore? He was disgusted by his rookie self. 'At least I shall have a good laugh now', he thought as he got closer and closer to the fortune teller's home, with nothing but the sound of his worn out shoes as they stomped the street beside him. The stomping seized. This was it. Why he had agreed to come to this dump was a mistery to him. He had been persuaded by an old friend who swore on his life this woman's accuracy was frightening. But, then again, not a lot of people would call someone who foretold a life filled with amazing wealth and spectacular women a charlatan.

With the slow and cautious movements of some one entering an unknown place, he took off his hat as he made his way through the courtain and into the over-perfumed and dark room. Placing his hat on the table where the tarot cards already lay waiting for some one to lie to, he streched out his hand and introduced himself as Harry Hunders Jr. The fortune teller looked at him with the most penetrating look he had ever encountered. Her eyes ordered him to sit down, which he instantly did.

'A writer, are you?', she said as she brushed her dark oily hair from her face.
'Yes, I suppose... I find the term 'repressed poet' to describe my situation much more faithfully. I am actually an accountant. How did you know I write?'
'Ink in your fingers. Dreams in your eyes', she murmured quickly.

Her hands travelled acrossed the table swiflty and quickly found their prey. She expertly shuffled the deck of cards, the quickest of movements interrupted by a sudden change of pace, her fingers carefuly laying the cards on the table as if she were putting them to bed. But what they revealed were far more than just dreams.

'I see... a smile. A sincere smile. Your face beaming with absolute bliss. Your eyes shining even under the darkest of hats. You are not alone. A huge family walks beside you in the most exotic of lands. An almost magical forrest that doesn't know of winters or summers or springs, and where leaves are always dyed of bloody red. Peace shall always reign in your confined bubble. Happiness is so powerful it blinds me... nothing else is on sight. Just absolute bliss. Only that, and nothing more.'

Her words had captured the young poet in a way he did not believe possible. His eyes stared at the cards, amazed, and smiled at the possibility of ever smiling truly. His look overflowed of hope. This oniric state was quite brief, as the mystical fortune teller did not take long to announce that $250 were to be paid for her servicies.

Clocks' hands turned round and round thousands of times. Thousands of suns set, and other thousands of moon rose. But none where enough to erase the fortune teller's already dusty words from Harry Hunders Jr.'s memory. Was it possible for a woman to be so right and so wrong at the same time? His face did gleam, and his eyes did shine under the darkest of hats. Everything was dyed of bloody red, and he did live in a confined bubble. But the gleam was that of bitterness, his eyes shone thirsty for life, for true happiness. His home did work as a confined bubble, since he hadn't spent time with another human being for so long that he couldn't even remember the face of the last person he had seen. He had somehow managed to drive everybody away, and had found that no one was next to him when he had turned round looking for a shoulder to cry on. To cry, I mean, because of the bloody tragedy that had overcome his family: car crash; mother, father and sister dead faster than a clock's hand can even try to move. One sunset they had all been there... when the moon had risen, they had been gone.

Really, he owed his life to Mr. Gary Gigglemot, PhD. Yes, it was quite necessary to add 'PhD', Gary detested it when Harry didn't include it. Mr. Gigglemot, who spoke in a very funny southern accent, took him to his only shelter. He sofly whispered seductive sentences, spoke the exact words Harry needed to hear... after he had succumbed to the deepest of depressions, to the darkest of oceans, Mr.Gigglmot extended a pen and said “Here's your lifeguard, Harry. Come ashore with me”. And Harry indeed followed him. He jumped into the page. Mr.Gigglemot's cabin was deep inside the forrest, between the third and fourth line; he knew the path by heart, and covered it quickly and joyfully, stomping on fallen leaves in the way, immersing himself in the peaceful pleasure of wondering around a surreal forrest. And then the time came for him to put on his hat and close his eyes, enjoying the fresh breeze that caressed his face and savouring the delicious and inexplicable smell that filled the air. In the distance, his son's sweet laughter was heard, and sang in symphony with his wife's melodic whistling. He just sat in the cabin's porch and quietly waited... he waited for the pen to continue moving, for the ink to bring the happiness he had been promised, for the story to procede with the grand event that that woman had fortold, that he knew should come – would come – infallibly. He just waited.

On a particular Friday, Harry recieved a phone call informing him that his brother, the only family he had left, had passed away from a heart attack half an hour earlier. He thanked the nurse for the information, put his unfinished and unknown novel in a drawer, turned the key and headed out. He knew the path by heart. His feet stomped the hard cement as he made his way violently towards Bond Street. He enterted with the quick movements of someone who remembers a place all too well and put his hat on the table.

'The repressed poet', said she.
The fire of wrath burnt in his eyes.
'You owe me $250... and my life. I want my life back. You got everything wrong, you crazy charlatan! No bliss, no magical lands, no loving company, nothing! I have nothing... I did nothing with my life because I counted on your words, I counted on the promise that my life would improve and so waited for that to happen... and now that I've waited my whole life for happiness I have to come to the end of it to find out I am not happy!', he blurted out.
'Are you so sure of that... Mr. Gigglemot?'
'How... how?', he asked with the thread of voice he could rescue from his amazement.
'What you are waiting for has already come, Gary... it is in the porch of the cabin, between the third and fourth line of the pages lying in the living room drawer.'
He had not a second to lose. He knew how to spend the rest of his days. He put on his...
'Hat! You almost forgot your hat', she said.
'Thank you, ma'am', a lovely southern accent replied.