A band of gypsies came to a small country town, brought their caravan to the outskirts of town and began to ply their various trades. They were a beautiful, colorful and dark Mediterranean people dressed in the flowing flowered skirts, peasant shirts and bright bandanas atop their heads. The women all were alluringly beautiful, even the matrons of the group had an aura of sensuality as they strode confidently about directing the set up of small tents for displaying wares and a large tent which served as a eating place, with large pots over fires, game birds roasting on spits in the center and long wooden tables circling the kitchen area. The men stood straight and strong, to a man they wore mustaches of various thicknesses and length; some of the more outrageous were actually tied behind the necks and hung down the back like ponytails. The young were bright eyed and energetic, running among the activity – sometimes grabbed by their elders in mid stride, spoken to quietly and walking contritely away (at least for the first ten steps or so). It was a boisterous, bustling scene and drew the attention of many of the townsfolk who hung about watching and commenting on the activity. When all was done a row of ten small tents stood with the large food tent at the end. Behind the food tent was a clearing where jugglers, acrobats, clowns and puppets jumped and pranced about entertaining young and old as they ate the savory food the gypsies had to sell.
What is a gypsy caravan without a fortune teller? The fortune teller was a woman of incredible beauty, from her black hair with natural streaks of brown to her blue-green almond shape eyes in an almost perfect oval face to her Rubenesque shape she captured the attention of men, women and children. From the flowered bandana atop her head to the ankle boots on her delicate feet she was the very idea of bohemian beauty. But she was far more than just beauty; she truly had The Gift and the wisdom it imparted to the chosen. All day the line to her tent was long and none could speak badly about her readings and predictions. She would first read the palm of the seeker, as she called her clients, and describe their life up to that point to the amazement of all for she would speak of things she could not have none about these complete strangers. Then the Fortune Teller would have the seeker shuffle a deck of Tarot card, then cut them and place them before her. She would then place the cards in a group of five cards with one at the center with four cards surrounding it in a pattern that looked like a compass. Starting at the top card facing the seeker, the Fortune Teller would give the significance of the card, what it described and then proceed to read the card. Then starting on the left, towards the heart she would explain, she read each card saving the center card (the heart of the matter) for last as it was the culmination of all the seeker had already been told. The Fortune Teller was never wrong with her palm readings and some of her predictions came true while the troupe was still in the town, for they stayed over a month because of the good response they had received.
There came a youth of 18 years to see the Fortune Teller. He was dressed in similar fashion to the gypsies, but with subtle differences that made him a curiosity among both the townsfolk and the gypsies. The Youth was barefoot, though he did have a pair of knee length, soft deerskin boots hanging from a weathered rucksack with a bedroll attached to the bottom and bow with quiver strapped to one side. On the other a guitar hung upside with sound hole facing the side. It hung low on the hip so the Youth could somewhat cradle the bottom as he walked, keeping it from bouncing about. He wore tattered, patched leather breeches and a hooded tunic with a large front pocket with access from both sides which could be closed with a drawstring. His long black hair was tied in a ponytail and he carried a staff with the headstock naturally shaped resembling a wolf’s head. He was not tall, but his brown eyes as dark as to appear black at times, startled people at first, giving him an air of restrained danger – a catlike presence. He went about politely and quietly, stopping into various tents and eating at the food tent and enjoying the sideshow. He set up a hammock on the far end of the clearing with a small campfire and stayed for a while, patching a second pair of breeches and occasionally playing his guitar and singing softly. The music, which enchanted all, could be heard coming across the open field, though the Youth sang softly to himself and could not be heard from the distance though many strained to hear the words to the haunting melodies that floated in the mist as the moon rose and campfire lit the trees behind him. Though he had not exhibited any rudeness or malice towards anyone during his stay none dared approach his campsite and he kept his conversations to whatever business he had in town and made no attempt to socialize.
The Youth had been in town for a week when he first saw the Fortune Teller. It was early in the morning before the sun had fully risen and light was coloring the sky from below. Dawn had arisen and she was illuminated in sunrise and surrounding by the fog that would soon flee the sun’s rays. The Youth stopped clumsily in his tracks as though struck from in front and stood staring awkwardly. Usually he would go hunting in the early morn, always returning with game for his cooking fire. On most of his trips into town the line to her tent was long; the Fortune Teller was in her tent most of the day. The Youth was struck by the Fortune Teller’s beauty and approached shyly, resembling for an instant a young buck hesitantly stepping in a clearing. He spoke in a soft voice that did not seem to fit his gruff exterior and asked her if she was opening her tent. When she replied that yes, she always came to her tent in the early morn to prepare herself and read her own fortune to start the day. The Youth pausing and shuffling his feet as spoke ask the Fortune Teller might he be the first that day to have his fortune read and she replied he could walk with her to her tent and he could wait while she prepared herself. The two walked in silence down the row of tents to her tent. She bade him sit at the round wooden table (to symbolize this world she told him) covered in an intricately embroidered table cloth depicting the Sun, the Moon and the Constellations in bright vivid colors and a multi-colored tasseled hem that seemed to always be moving slightly. The Fortune Teller lit some small candles and burned some sage in a brass bowl. She sat down, shuffled the Tarot cards, cut them and placed them before her. The Youth shyly turned his head so as not to see the cards but the Fortune Teller told him it was all right, only she could gain knowledge from the cards, he could look wherever he wished. She turned the cards one by one and pondered each for a moment before moving on to the next. As she turned the center card she was momentarily taken aback but quickly recovered her composure, though this was not lost on the sharp eyes of the Youth as he had not taken his eyes from her face since she bade him look. He said nothing but his face softened and his eyes no longer seemed dangerous. The Fortune Teller picked up the cards and placed them back on the deck, asked the Youth if he was prepared and he nodded yes.
She asked him for his right hand and he extended his arm with his palm facing upward. The Fortune Teller smiled gently and turned his hand over, holding from the bottom with her left hand and gently running her right hand over his, stopping at scars and beauty marks. She told him the back of the hand says almost as much about a person as does the palm. Life’s lessons and mistakes are there to read said the Fortune Teller. She then turned his hand over and repeated the process. She began by saying to him he was raised by monks, friars forbidden to speak who had found him as a babe left at the monastery gates on a night of pouring rain and thunderous lightning. Now it was the Youth’s turn to momentarily lose his usual relaxed composure and recover which was not lost on the Fortune Teller either. He nodded his head up and down slowly in agreement saying no one but he had ever spoken those words. She continued saying his people were not of this country or even this continent that he was of a jungle people who had lost their way in a tempest to land on a foreign shore, dying. He had been left by dying relatives so he might survive where they had not. No longer surprised the Youth nodded, for although many mistook him for Mediterranean he knew this to be true from a necklace of turquoise and pearls that hung about his neck since he was found. The monks had taken him to their cavernous library and shown him books on native tribes of Central and South America and he learned much from them and the thousands other tomes in the library.
The Fortune Teller smiled at him and held his hand between both her closed hands and said and you play guitar wonderfully but sing too softly for even the owls to hear. The Youth smiled and relaxed, sitting back from the edge of the chair. She read his love line and told him again what he already knew – how he had little time for affairs of the heart though he would find the partner he needed in the due course of time. Then the Fortune Teller looked at his life line and was again startled. She asked him how he had gotten the scar than ran along his lifeline, accompanied by twelve holes, six on each side. The Youth explained he had been working on the monastery roof of Spanish tiles, tearing out rotted wood and making repairs as needed. He was tossing a huge beam off the roof when a bent nail jutting out caught his hand and nearly took him to the stone courtyard below. He recovered his balance falling back against the roof with the beam on top of him where he was helped by the monks and his wound was stitched. His palms, so callused from the honest hard work at the monastery bent three needles before the monk used a fish hook with the barb filed down to penetrate the skin. She nodded and said the beginning scar marked the moment he was saved from certain death and she could not tell where it ended, it simply faded into the lifeline and marked a passage of realities. The Youth said he did not understand and she replied she did not have any further answers at that moment.
The Fortune Teller began the Tarot reading, giving the Youth the cards shuffle and cut. She took the deck and placed the five cards on the table. The Fortune Teller was visibly affected and took a slow deep breath before turning the first card. This is your long ago past the Fortune Teller said and she said how he had grown up in silence, always pondering his beginnings and his fate. The bottom card she told him was where stood, what he planted his soul upon. The Fortune Teller told the Youth it was the wooded earth giving his power and his peace and he could never live long in towns, needing the woods and trails to gather strength and awareness. The card on the right was his strength card and she told him his heart was tied to the night and the moon when he could see the earth as it was meant to be and not the world that had come to be, from here came inspiration - his music and his writings. The youth looked up quickly, for again she spoke of his writing which no eyes had ever seen and his lyrics that no one had ever heard. The Fortune Teller told him it was through his music his heart opened and his mind flowed with thoughts and images born of his questioning soul. The top card was the head card, how the Youth thought of himself, life and how he went about doing things. She told him he had always considered himself out of place, belonging to no one but himself. He bore humanity to a certain point but preferred the solitude of the woods and books to the foolish lot of mankind he had come to know from his reading of the classics and first hand experience with man’s treatment of those different from the throng. Now for the last card and the Fortune Teller again took a moment to compose herself. She turned the card over and stared for a long moment before she sighed and told the Youth this is where she asked the Seeker if they wished to continue, for fate is real and time only waits for man to catch his breath before moving on. The Youth slowly replied he wanted to hear what she had to say but somehow he felt he would not like the answer. The Fortune Teller took both his hand in hers and told him she only reads the fortune placed before her, that the intricacies of fate made for two outcomes for each decision in life and each outcome began another strand in the web of your life reaching out like spokes on a wagon wheel with your soul as the center hub. She told him when he reached 28 years of age he had two outcomes on his birthday. The Youth stopped her, raising his hand like a student in class, telling her he did not know on what day he had been born though the monks had guessed him to be about three weeks old when he arrived at their doorstep so he had an idea of the month. The Fortune Teller nodded and said he would know the day when it came. She took another deep breath and told the Youth that on that day he could be killed in an accident. The Youth paled, stood slowly and walked in a small circle behind the chair. The Fortune Teller gently told him to sit, he had not heard all. She told him she said it could happen on that day but if it didn’t later in his life he would achieve his dreams and meet the love he needed, which would be difficult but would temper him a prepare him for the new stage of his life. The Youth smiled with a resigned look on his face and told the Fortune Teller he had often had that very dream since he was a child and had long wondered if it was just a dream or a vision of the future given to either torment or warn him. The Fortune Teller nodded, still gently holding the Youth’s hands saying she new he had a good soul and deserved a better lot in life but that was fate. It doesn’t determine your outcome, it provides the situations for you to make a choice – good or evil, right or wrong are decisions all make every day and their ripple effect changes each subsequent chance of fate. The Fortune Teller told him there was nothing more she could tell him and rose from the table. The Youth stood and approached her extending his hand. The Fortune Teller took his hand, gently pulled him to her bosom, held him tightly with her head to the side of his and kissed him passionately full on the lips. The Youth stood almost reeling for a moment and had to grab the edge of the table for support. The Fortune Teller, breathing hard, told him in a faltering voice she wished she would see him again one day. He started to take a step towards her but a voice from outside the tent asked if she was open for business. The both stood awkwardly for a moment, like boys and girls lined up on different sides of a grammar school prom – both sides not wanting to take that walk across the open gym floor. The Youth removed his necklace from around his neck, placed it in the Fortune Tellers palm and gently closed it. He walked from the tent and returned to his campsite. Later that day, after gathering what provisions he needed in town he packed his hammock, put on his rucksack and left the town to be seen no more.
The years past and the Youth continued on with his life as before. He walked about the countryside, providing himself with most of what he needed and bartering for what civilization offered. He would return to the monastery at the change of each season to return the books he read, for that was almost all that was in his rucksack, and get new ones. After a time he forgot about the Fortune Teller’s prediction but not her beauty or her kiss. Time approached his twenty eighth year and as the month he believed he as was drew near he became increasingly nervous, being careful not take any chances that might end poorly. Towards the middle of the month he was so agitated he could hardly function or go about his daily chores. The Youth no longer, he was now a Young Man but still had the appearance of one much younger and was often mistaken for a young lad instead of the man full grown he was. He returned to the monastery, hoping the thick walls and the pious air would protect him from accidental death. One day the Young Man and one of the monks were aboard a wagonload of firewood the two had split that day. They were on the road back to the monastery when the monk signed to him that he was turning around for he had left a book of verse beneath a tree and did not want it to be ruined by the coming rain. The monk turned the wagon into a field and began to back the team of horses into the road. Behind them another wagon, loaded with huge logs for was barreling down the road, the two young monks aboard oblivious as they drank from a huge bottle of wine. The Young Man turned his head and saw the wagon as it came within inches of his face and screeched to a stop amid a cloud of dust. The monk with him forgot himself and began berating the poor novices in such language a sailor would have blushed. The Young Man was laughing so hard he fell off the wagon, sitting up with a surprised start only to begin laughing uproariously. The cloud had lifted and his soul was at peace. He jumped up and cried that now he knew the day he was born and it was also the day he was born again. The Young Man continued with his life as before. He had good times and bad times but kept on, always remembering the Fortune Teller’s words and her kiss which he could still almost feel upon lips.
Years later, he approached the same town where the Fortune Teller had long ago read his future and stole his heart. He came to the edge of the town where the row of tents had been and there was the Fortune Teller’s tent, still sitting in the same spot from all those many years ago. It was barely dawn and again the light was brightening the morning, the first rays of sunshine streaming through the trees and into the morning mist. The Young Man heard steps on the gravel behind him and turned to see the Fortune Teller walking towards him, seemingly not a day older and smiling widely with tears brimming in her eyes. They ran together, smothering each other with a huge hug and passionate kisses.
“I’ve prayed for your return all these long years”, said the Fortune teller, “I let the troupe go without me for I feared you would never find me again if I kept my wandering ways”.
“Here I have stayed, waiting, hoping against hope, that you would make your way back safely to me for my fortune has been tied to yours since the day I read my cards that day”.
The Young Man replied, “I too have not forgotten that day or you – how could I when my heart always looked back to try to find you?” The Fortune Teller, whose name she now told him was Caroline, told him that he was there now and their days would be spent together in this life and the next. The Young Man, appropriately name Ulysses, for all his wanderings, by the monks said he had always dreamt it since they parted and hoped it was another vision.
Hand in hand they strolled through the town. He helped pack her belongings and the two walked down the road and eternity forever together.
Moral: Some things are meant to be but only if you believe it to be. -->
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