All I wanted was for the world to give me a chance. For this is the reason, one rainy Tuesday afternoon saw me knocking at the door of an infamous fortune teller. Had I known then what she was going to tell me, I would never have set foot into that part of town.

The room I entered was dingy and smelled slightly mouldy. In one corner, a bucket collected droplets of rainwater that found its way in through a leaky roof. I took off my cap and let my gaze wander through what served the Madame as anteroom. Next to the bucket stood a yellow couch that almost disappeared under pillows and cushions in all colours and with ridiculous tassels. There was a round table in front of the couch. A little booklet lay on it, and I curiously walked round the table to read the title.

FORTUNE TELLING
The Various Ways of Fortunes and Their Specifics

My first impulse was to open it and read a few passages, but I decided against it, and instead set for studying my surroundings further. On every possible surface stood objects that could in some way be connected to the supernatural. Crystal balls in all sizes dominated, but there were also some statues of Egyptian nature, and some icons and symbols that made me shudder because of their association with witchcraft and Satanism.

I was contemplating leaving again when Madame Fortuna – clearly a pseudonym to ensnare those simple creatures of gullible nature who avidly avoid crossing paths with a black cat and never pass underneath a ladder – called to me through the beaded curtain and bade me enter.

I do not remember much of what occurred in the next half of an hour. I still know that I was surprised at the competent impression Madame Fortuna made on me. In stark contrast to her rooms, the Madame herself was clad in almost understating fashion in a simple black dress, with only the merest hints at her profession given by the small beads sewn onto the sleeves to form obscure patterns.

She gestured for me to take a seat opposite her, which I did, though slightly hesitating. A moderately sized crystal ball stood between us, and a deck of cards lay next to it.

“You are here because you are unhappy,” she stated, gazing intensely at me with dark eyes made up heavily in black.

I was far from impressed. My clothes had clearly seen better days; it did not take a soothsayer to make the obvious connection to my momentarily dire situation.

She cleared away the cards and stood up to dim the lights by switching off the electric light so that we were left with only the flickering of some candles.

“Please lay your hands here,” she pointed next to the crystal ball.

I did as she asked of me, still dubious. She laid her hands on mine, and bade me close my eyes. I did so with the disquieting feeling of helplessness. How did I know that the Madame was not planning to rob me? I would not be the first victim of this kind, the papers were full of people whose only mistake had been to trust a stranger.

She began to chant under her breath. At first, I tried to follow her recitation, yet soon realized it was a tongue unknown to me, but bearing distant relationship with Latin.

To this day I do not know what really happened to me, if maybe I was drugged, or if I was the unsuspecting dupe of a mean deception. Preferable though as the notion is, I fear I know deep within me that it is not the truth, and that in those minutes in Madame Fortuna’s dimly lit room, I caught a glimpse of a reality too disturbing to relate in spoken conversation.

After she had recited passages of undoubtedly forbidden works that may only be known to her and others of her craft, Madame Fortuna told me to open my eyes. As I did so, my attention, and soon my whole mental awareness, was immediately caught and held by the now strangely glowing crystal ball. I frowned, but just as I wanted to look at the Madame, she sternly commanded me to keep my eyes fixed on the globe.

There was a new edge to her voice that commanded the utmost respect, and so I did as told, staring unmovingly, as one struck by sudden paralysis might, into the crystal ball now alive with uncanny lights that flickered and wafted asdf asdf. And under my watchful gaze, images formed. Images that both horrified and excited me, for they seemed to show my future.

I watched myself leave this city, where I had dwelt my whole life, with naught but a backpack and a walking staff. This is where I think I must have lost my mind, for now I saw myself suddenly admiring works of extraordinary beauty but clearly not made by human hands. Next, I was walking through a space filled only by colour, and for lightyears, there was nothing but me and vortexes of purples and blues and blazing white, swirling with the slowness that stems from dimensions too alien and massive for the human mind to fully grasp. And I took these colours and formed them in the likeness of a big palace, so that I might dwell therein. And people came to live in my palace, but on their heels there followed a darkness that was not natural, for it moved with a will of its own.

I fought the darkness, but I was thrown into the void, and I tumbled between stars and galaxies, and for centuries and centuries I fell, and I watched the birth of worlds and the deaths of suns, and I beheld the stalking Giants of Time, and the Devourers of Planets, and the Master of Worlds, and their mother, the hideous Darkness Beyond Time that breeds the night without stars.

Beholding them, those behemoths that haunt Madness’ personal nightmares, I screamed until my voice cracked, screamed just so I had something to distract me from the horrors my mind tried to grasp, and suddenly, it all rushed past me – or maybe I fell with the speed of light, I do not know, I only recall a sense of velocity that surpasses everything I have ever experienced.

I must have fainted then, for I know nothing more; and I am infinitely grateful for that fact. Who knows what else might have assaulted my unprepared spirit? What abominations, what creatures defying all laws of nature?

When I came to again, I was lying in a shadowy alley, shivering, my overcoat and boots gone, and I searched for my wallet in vain.

I never found Madame Fortuna’s parlour again.