In a city lying on the curve of the sea there lived a man. He was a stranger there. As dark as night, and as tall as a baobab tree, yet as willowy as a blade of grass. The people of the city viewed him with wary, suspicious eyes. They were tired of strangers and distrusted them instinctively. Too many had come and now they wished was for everything to be as it had once been. It was telling that so many looked back on the days of war and chaos with such fond nostalgia. It was better then, some said, sighing wistfully. They held onto old prejudices, living now as if it was then. They fought amongst themselves, and trusted no-one, especially those whose difference was so pronounced. Time had passed but nothing had really changed.
 
The man walked the street by the sea all day and night accompanied by the music of his trade. The melodious chime of metal on metal heralded his coming. The burnished copper of his pot glowed against his pale robes, the aroma of the burnt coffee grounds drifting on the air like a poem. Despite his appearance, and the fear that he seemed to instil, people still came to him for their coffee. Coffee was their lifeblood, the essence of their existence, its bittersweetness the only thing that got them through their day. And those who came realised that he was as taciturn as he appeared. For the man was a man of stories, and the stories lived in the acrid liquid that he poured into minute cups.
 
When one came closer, the bitter aroma of coffee assailed the nostrils. People would approach him and he would stop and carefully pour the hot liquid into a small cup, a thick wisp of steam rising as he did so. He spoke rarely. Indeed, he spoke very little of the language of the city. But he did not need words to be able to understand men’s thoughts or motives. The need for a coffee was a universal language.
 
Perhaps the people of the city were right. Perhaps there is wisdom in bewaring those who come from far away and keep their histories hidden, and to fear what is strange. The coffee seller was not like other men and had good reason for his taciturn manner. What he sold from his dully gleaming metal pots, while it may have smelled like coffee, and tasted like coffee, was in fact a potion which allowed the drinker to see a glimpse of their future. For the coffee seller was a sorcerer and making potions was his business. He had been forced to the city by terrible things which occurred in his homeland, a place that few even knew existed, but he continued his livelihood as best he could. It was his purpose on this earth after all. There were many here who needed his skills and wished to see what lay ahead of them on life’s path, for people are curious and, while the future is best left unknown, man’s curiosity was unquenchable.
 
One day, as dawn was breaking over the sleeping city, he walked by the sea. It stretched calm and still to the horizon and his thoughts turned, as they so often did, to his home which lay so far beyond it. He missed the vast deserts, the unearthly tranquillity of its landscapes. And, as he stood there gazing out to sea and thinking of the distant past, a young girl approached him and asked him please, could she have a small cup of coffee to drink even though she had no coins to pay for it. She was so very cold and had been out all night. The man looked at her closely. She seemed so small to be all alone. She was one of those who had come from across the border, he could see that from her face. He asked her where her parents were. She said none, she replied. They were dead, killed by the bombs which had dropped on the city from which she had fled. He was curious…she had come here alone? No, she answered, she had been brought by people who now forced her to beg on the streets all night. That was why she was so cold and thirsty.
 
The coffee seller was a kindly man, for though sorcerers are often thought to be dark of heart  sometimes they are not so. They are so ordinary men in their diversity of personalities. He was sorely torn. Although he knew that he did not have any real coffee to give her, his potion was hot and it would warm her. Just a little could not hurt. If one did not understand then perhaps it was mostly harmless. He poured her a cup and she gratefully drank it, thanking him profusely. As she turned to go he warned her:
 
“Beware and take heed of any dreams you may have and the things you may see within them.”
 
The girl regarded him quizzically, wondering what his words meant. He had a strange heavy accent; maybe she had misheard him. But she did not question him further. She merely gratefully smiled and went on her way. The coffee seller gazed sadly after her. He had no idea what the drinker would see, what their future had in store for them, but something told him that evil beckoned the little girl. Nor did he have any power over changing destiny. His potion simply gave the drinker a glimpse of what was to come. There were so many times when people had drunk the potion with awareness, and tried to cheat fate. But, no matter what they did, it always came to pass. The weaver of destiny sits and spins the threads of our fates long before our births; we are all powerless to alter what has already been decreed.
 
An hour had passed since her encounter with the coffee seller and the girl finally laid her head down upon her hard pillow and drew the dirty blankets that were not quite warm enough over herself. Sleep…ah! She longed for it. Sometimes it did not come quickly but today…she had barely to close her eyes before Orpheus worked his magic and she was whisked to the dark land of dreams.
 
The coffee seller continued on his way around the city. His encounter with the girl bothered him. Rarely did people drank the potion without knowing. His disguise was merely a ruse to hide in plain sight and to keep him safe. There was a distrust of men like him, for some felt that meddling with things like prophecy was dangerous. He himself had never drunk from his pot. He did not want to see what fate had in store for him, knowing as he did that there was nothing he could do to alter its path. No, he preferred to wake each day in uncertainty. The alternative was surely a way to madness.
 
The dream which came upon the little girl should more properly be called a nightmare. Such terrible things. Although she could not see her face, she knew that she was much older; her body felt bigger and strange. She was in a small room, with no windows and a door which tightly shut. Although she could not see, she knew that it was barred on the outside. The room was cold and dark, and felt claustrophobic. Rats scampered up and down in the walls, their claws scratching suggestively on the rotten plaster, which fell upon the cement floor with a soft rustling. The oppressive smell of damp and mould assaulted her, the clammy air damp against her skin. As dreams do, the room faded and new visions came…Terrible visions. She was beaten and tortured, for crimes she did not know she had committed. She felt the sting of leather on her flesh, cutting into it, and the warm trickle of blood from her wounds. The dull ache of the bruises on her neck and wrists, the coppery taste of the blood running from her lip, cut from a heavy ring on the fist which punched her. Men came and went; legions of faceless, unfeeling souls who never saw her at all. She felt soiled, physically and spiritually. Hunger gripped her. Her hair was limp and greasy, and when she ran her fingers through it clumps came away.
 
She woke up in a terrible cold sweat of fear. Rays of warm orange light from the dying evening sun filtered into her room, but they did not dispel her dreams; unlike so many dreams, these were not fading with the coming of wakefulness, and remained clearly vivid. She thought of the coffee seller and his words. What did he mean? Was this a glimpse into her future? But no-one could see into what had yet to be. Old people had spoken of that back home, the grandmothers with their tales of magic from days gone by. No. The future was not set, it could be changed.
 
Out on the streets she began to look for the coffee seller again. All the faces she saw, she looked for his. She tried to pick his tall figure out from the crowds that thronged the streets. But she could not find him anywhere. Every night for weeks she searched. She went to the sea in the dawn hours, where she had encountered him before, hoping. But he was never there. As time passed she began to think that it all had simply been a dream. One which had scared her, but only a dream. No, the future was not set and none could see what had yet to be.
 
Time passed…months, then years…and the girl grew, but her life did not change for the better. The streets were still her home, and the flame of hope which she had held in her heart was growing dimmer. But she still remembered the coffee seller. One night, as she scanned the crowd with the vague hope that somewhere within it would be the face of the coffee seller, she caught the eye of a man. She evoked a reaction within him; she was just what he had been looking for and thus he began to thread his way towards her. When he spoke to her, a feeling of unease crept over her; ill-defined, gnawing unease and disquiet. Something about him frightened her, but his voice had a soothing, reassuring quality to it and so she tried to dismiss her concerns as purely silly. The streets had made her wary of strangers. He asked her similar questions to those that the coffee seller had asked her that night so long ago; where she was from, why was she alone, and she answered as she had done before. And the man told her that he would take care of her now, keep her safe. The streets were no place for a girl like her. There were all sorts of bad people about. Girls like her, they needed protection.
 
Despite her misgivings, the girl went docilely with the man, arguing within herself that her vague inklings of fear were a silly thing. For some reason, she had a desperate need to see the coffee seller now. She had a feeling that if only she saw him…a fork would appear in the path…a new choice would manifest…but, it was only a feeling, and a vague and indistinct feeling at that.
 
The man took her to a house, a large, dark, forbidding house with walls which were crumbling and windows guarded by heavy iron bars. She noticed that all the windows on the lower floor were bricked up. As the girl took a step inside she felt a feeling of cold familiarity, that she had been here before. But she knew she had not. The man bolted the heavy door behind them, the noise of the ponderous iron bar echoing loudly in the empty corridors. He led her down a long passageway, past many doors. All shut, their worn wooden faces closed against prying eyes. Past another door…The sight of it caused a sudden jolt of fiery ice to rush through her veins. A feeling she had never felt before. The door…It was the outside of the door in her dream. She knew it as much as she knew her face. And the skeins of fate twisted tightly around her.
 
Elsewhere in the world the coffee seller, who had now drifted to new pastures where he continued to ply his trade, felt the curious feeling he always had when a fate had been sealed. He sighed. Life was a thankless thing. And he sat down and brewed himself some tea. He could not abide the taste of coffee.