In The Middle of the City.

I saw him as we drove by—an old man wearing a straw hat, an unlit cigarette resting on his lips. He sat on a pylon, staring into the distance as if time no longer mattered. His dog lay in the grass at his feet.

We circled around to the parking lot. As we started walking, we passed one of those old houses with a hand painted on the window—an eye in the middle of the palm. Beneath it, in faded letters, it read: FORTUNE TELLING – $20.

It was a nice day, so we said fuck it and went in.

A teenager sat behind the counter.
“How many?” he asked.
“Two,” we said.

He stood up and pulled a dark curtain aside. “Come on in.”

The room looked exactly like the ones on TV—crystal ball in the middle, candles, the whole thing. As soon as we sat down, the guy at the counter turned on a fog machine. We could hear it humming.

A middle-aged woman entered and moved the crystal ball to a nearby table.
“Hello, hello,” she said.

She wore everything in big hoops—earrings, rings, a nose ring. I glanced at my friend. He looked skeptical, almost smug.

“Who first?” she asked.

I volunteered my friend by pointing at him.

I knew he’d read about cold reading. I expected him to give her a hard time—but I wasn’t expecting her to get angry.

She talked about his dead wife, how she missed him, how she was still watching over him. He let her go on before calmly saying he’d never been married.

Her face snapped.

“Turn off this stupid thing,” she barked at the kid out front. “You’re one of those who come here just to waste my time.” Her bracelets clinked as she waved us off.

“It’s all bullshit anyway,” my friend said. “Why are you so mad I caught you?”

To this day, I wish he hadn’t said that.

Her anger vanished instantly, like it had never been there. She sat back down and pulled a freshly rolled cigar from a drawer.

“All bullshit, eh?” she said.

She lit it with a match, muttered something in another language, and shook the flame out. Smoke curled around her face.

With the same hand holding the cigar, she pointed at us.
“You fucking kids want real?” she asked.

Her voice sounded different—heavier. The accent thicker. Maybe I imagined that.

My friend shifted uncomfortably, but I knew he’d gone too far to back down now.
“Sure,” he said. “I mean, we still got time left on the twenty, right?”

She clicked her tongue, muttered again in that other language, stood up, and walked toward the wall behind the counter.

She struck it once—and I saw the teenager flip the sign from OPEN to CLOSED and lock the door.

“Dude, what the fuck,” I whispered.

“Relax,” my friend said. “We’re in the middle of the city. Nothing’s gonna happen.”

She heaved what looked like a very heavy door open and flicked a switch. Nothing happened.

She cursed—in English and the other language—grabbed an oil lamp, lit it, and nodded toward a creaky staircase.

“Come.”

I didn’t want to leave my friend alone, but everything in me wanted to run. I’d heard about old tunnels under houses like this—Prohibition-era stuff.

The walls were bare rock as we descended.

At the bottom, it was dark. She flicked another switch, furious when nothing happened.

That’s when I saw him.

In the corner sat the same old man from the street. He didn’t move. He stared at a random spot on the wall, barely breathing.

She stepped closer and lit the cigarette in his mouth, whispering something in her language.

Smoke drifted from his nose. He finally moved—lifting his hat with one hand, holding the cigarette with the other.

In a deep, raspy voice, he asked her something. She stopped, turned, and looked at us.

“Hmmm,” she said, crushing her cigar against the stone wall. “Come. Sit.”

She pointed to chairs across from him.
“They want the real thing,” she said, air-quoting.

“I see,” the old man said. “Then let’s begin.”

She dimmed the lamp until the glow of his cigarette was brighter than the room.

“So,” he said slowly, smoke rising, “what would be real enough?”

His voice rolled with the flickering light.
“You want to speak to the dead? See the future? Want something specific?”

The lamp pulsed, like a heartbeat.

“Let me tell you a story.”

This is where it got weird.

I swear the smoke started to move—dance, even. Shadows in the corners stretched and shifted. Maybe it was the light. I don’t know.

I can’t remember the story itself. I don’t think that was the point.

His eyes were wrong.

They looked like a predator’s—like a tiger trapped in a cage. There was red in them.

The room dissolved. I saw a dark forest. A fire.

The old man was there again, but different.

“Sit,” he said.

I did.

“Remember this,” he told me. “There was nothing you could have done.”

“I can tell you the future,” he said. “But what difference does it make now?”

He paused.

“It’s a shame. Your friend is still young. But I can help.”

“I’ll make you a deal.”

There was a scream in a language I didn’t know—

—and suddenly, I was back in the room.

The woman was walking toward us. The old man hadn’t moved.

My friend was pale, staring at the table. Sweat poured down his face.

When she reached us, the old man asked for one last drag of his cigarette. She hesitated, then handed it back.

He inhaled deeply, exhaled a massive cloud, leaned back, and tipped his hat.

Then he was gone.

“Now get out,” the woman said.

I dragged my friend up by his jacket. He barely reacted.

“What did he do to him?” I asked.

She laughed.
“He did nothing. Your friend will be fine. Now get out.”

Outside, my friend was shaking.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

He looked at me, eyes wide.
“I saw it,” he whispered. “When I die. How. You were there.”

“When?” I asked.

“Tomorrow.”

I tried to laugh it off.
“You know it’s bullshit. Smoke and mirrors.”

Eventually, he calmed down.

As we drove away, I saw the old man again—sitting on the same pylon, the same unlit cigarette.

He stared straight at me.

When I checked the mirror, he was gone.