The Fortune-Teller

In the bustling marketplace of an ancient city, there sat a woman who claimed to possess the most extraordinary gift - the ability to see into the future. She called herself Madame Pythia, and she had set up a small tent decorated with mysterious symbols, colorful scarves, and glittering crystals that caught the sunlight and cast dancing rainbows on the fabric walls.

Madame Pythia was a dramatic figure, dressed in flowing robes of deep purple and gold, with numerous bracelets that jangled musically whenever she moved her hands. Around her neck hung a collection of amulets and charms that she claimed enhanced her mystical powers. Her dark eyes were lined with kohl, giving her an otherworldly appearance that both fascinated and intimidated her customers.

Every morning, she would arrange her tent with great ceremony, laying out a deck of worn tarot cards, polishing her crystal ball until it gleamed, and burning incense that filled the air with exotic fragrances. Then she would seat herself on a cushioned chair and wait for customers to seek her wisdom.

“Come one, come all!” she would call out in a voice rich with mystery and authority. “Learn what the future holds! Discover your destiny! Madame Pythia sees all, knows all, and reveals all - for just a few silver coins!”

Her reputation had spread throughout the city, and indeed, people came from far and wide to consult her. Merchants wanted to know if their next trading venture would be profitable. Young women sought to learn whom they would marry. Farmers asked about the weather for their crops. Soldiers inquired about their chances in upcoming battles.

Madame Pythia received each customer with great ceremony. She would take their hands in hers, studying their palms with intense concentration, tracing the lines with her finger while muttering mysterious words under her breath. Sometimes she would gaze deeply into her crystal ball, claiming to see visions swirling in its depths. Other times she would spread her tarot cards in elaborate patterns, interpreting their meanings with confident authority.

“I see great wealth in your future,” she told a poor cobbler one morning, “but beware of a man with a red beard who will try to deceive you in three weeks’ time.”

The cobbler left her tent with hope in his heart and silver missing from his purse.

To a worried mother, she proclaimed, “Your daughter will marry a man from across the sea, and she will have three sons who will bring you great joy.”

The mother departed, comforted by this vision of happiness to come.

A nervous merchant was warned, “Do not travel south this month, for I see danger on the road. Wait until the new moon, and fortune will smile upon your journey.”

The merchant canceled his planned trip, convinced that Madame Pythia had saved him from disaster.

Day after day, Madame Pythia dispensed her predictions with supreme confidence. She spoke of love and loss, wealth and poverty, success and failure, all while sitting in her mystical tent surrounded by the tools of her trade. Her customers hung on her every word, believing completely in her ability to pierce the veil of time and glimpse what was to come.

What made Madame Pythia’s predictions so convincing was not their accuracy - for most were vague enough that they could be interpreted many different ways - but her absolute certainty in delivering them. She never hesitated, never showed doubt, and always spoke as if she were merely reporting facts that she could clearly see written in the stars.

“The future is as clear to me as the past,” she would tell people. “Nothing is hidden from my sight. The cosmic forces speak to me directly, revealing their secrets.”

One particularly busy market day, Madame Pythia was in the middle of reading the palm of a young farmer when a commotion erupted in the marketplace. People began running and shouting, pointing toward the residential quarter of the city.

“Fire! Fire!” someone screamed. “There’s a house burning on Olive Street!”

The farmer whose palm she had been reading jumped up in alarm. “That’s near where I live!” he exclaimed, and he ran off toward the source of the excitement, leaving Madame Pythia sitting alone in her tent.

More and more people began rushing past her tent, all heading in the same direction. The excitement was contagious, and soon even some of her waiting customers abandoned their places in line to see what was happening.

“Come back!” Madame Pythia called after them imperiously. “The future cannot wait! Your destinies must be revealed!”

But her calls fell on deaf ears. The marketplace was rapidly emptying as everyone hurried to witness the spectacle of the fire.

Madame Pythia sat in her tent, fuming with indignation. How dare these people abandon their consultations for such a trivial matter! Didn’t they understand that learning about their futures was far more important than gawking at some unfortunate person’s house fire?

As the minutes passed and no customers returned, her anger grew. She could hear the distant shouts of people trying to organize a bucket brigade to fight the fire, and the acrid smell of smoke began to drift through the marketplace.

“Foolish people,” she muttered to herself, shuffling her tarot cards irritably. “They waste their time on present troubles when they could be learning about what truly matters - what lies ahead.”

Finally, unable to contain her curiosity and frustrated by the loss of business, Madame Pythia decided to pack up her things and see what all the fuss was about. Surely once the excitement died down, people would return seeking her wisdom.

She carefully wrapped her crystal ball in silk, gathered her cards, and began to dismantle her tent. As she worked, the smell of smoke grew stronger, and she could hear the crackling sound of flames in the distance.

“Probably just some careless cook who let their fire get out of control,” she said dismissively. “People are so dramatic about such simple things.”

When she had finished packing, Madame Pythia made her way through the nearly empty marketplace toward the crowd that had gathered on Olive Street. As she got closer, she could see orange flames licking at the sky and thick black smoke billowing upward.

The crowd was larger than she had expected, with people passing buckets of water from the nearby well in a desperate attempt to save the burning building. Others were helping to carry furniture and belongings out of neighboring houses, fearing that the fire might spread.

Madame Pythia pushed through the crowd, trying to get a better view of the spectacle. “Excuse me,” she said importantly, “I am Madame Pythia, the renowned fortune-teller. Make way, please.”

But as she reached the front of the crowd and saw the burning building clearly for the first time, her words died in her throat. Her face went pale beneath her dramatic makeup, and her jeweled hands flew to her mouth in shock and horror.

The house that was being consumed by flames - the house that was collapsing in on itself as the fire destroyed its wooden beams and thatched roof - was her own home.

“No!” she screamed, pushing forward toward the burning building. “That’s my house! My belongings! My life!”

But it was too late. The fire had taken hold too strongly, and there was nothing that could be done to save the structure. As Madame Pythia watched in anguish, the roof collapsed with a thunderous crash, sending sparks and embers flying into the air.

Everything she owned - her furniture, her clothes, her savings, her books of mystical knowledge - was being reduced to ash and cinders before her very eyes.

“How is this possible?” she wailed, tears streaming down her face. “Why didn’t I foresee this? Why didn’t the cosmic forces warn me?”

An old man standing nearby heard her lamentations and turned to look at her with a mixture of sympathy and irony in his eyes. “Aren’t you the woman who sits in the marketplace every day, telling people what will happen to them in the future?” he asked.

“Yes,” Madame Pythia sobbed. “I am Madame Pythia, the seer of all secrets, the knower of all mysteries.”

The old man shook his head slowly. “Then tell me, wise woman,” he said gently but pointedly, “if you can truly see the future, how is it that you did not foresee the burning of your own house? How is it that you were sitting in the marketplace predicting the destinies of others while your own destiny was unfolding in flames just a few streets away?”

Madame Pythia had no answer. She stood there amid the smoke and chaos, her elaborate robes now seeming costume-like and foolish, her mystical jewelry meaningless trinkets. For the first time in years, she was speechless.

The old man’s words echoed in her mind: If she truly possessed the gift of prophecy, why had she not seen this coming? Why had she been so focused on the supposed futures of strangers that she had neglected to pay attention to her own present circumstances?

As the fire finally burned itself out and the crowd began to disperse, Madame Pythia stood alone before the smoking ruins of her home. She realized that she had spent so much time claiming to know the unknowable that she had forgotten to pay attention to the knowable - the real world around her, the actual needs and concerns of her daily life.

From that day forward, Madame Pythia gave up fortune-telling. She found honest work and focused on living in the present, taking care of her immediate responsibilities instead of pretending to divine distant futures. And whenever she saw other fortune-tellers plying their trade, she would remember the lesson she had learned too late: those who claim to predict the future for others often fail to manage their own present wisely.

Moral: Those who claim to foretell the future for others often cannot see what is happening in their own lives. It is better to focus on managing our present circumstances wisely than to pretend we can predict what is unknowable.