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Pardon?
Another ale?
Well, now, don't mind if I do.
And thank you kindly for your generosity. A real gentleman, you are, and that's rare to find these days. I don't mind telling you that coins are sometimes few and far between in my line of work. Oft times, a man scarcely has enough to keep body and soul together.
My line?
Well, frankly, I've toiled at any number of things over the years. Most often, though, I seem to find myself in the thieving trade. Oh, never fear, sir, your purse is safe enough; I make it a very firm rule never to steal from a man what buys me a drink.
Besides, theft is only what you might call a sideline.
Mostly, I'm a sorcerer.
I can see that bit of news amuses you. Perhaps because I am not exactly what you would expect a magician to look like. Well, my apologies for that, but I am what I am.
Do you think that I ever once asked to be born a wizard? Well, think again, my good fellow, because it doesn't bloody happen that way. In case you're interested in my opinion, this whole sorcery business is much over-rated.
And so is immortality, for that matter.
Oh, so you think immortality sounds pleasant? Easy enough to say, I imagine, if you've never had to endure it.
The thing about living forever is that life just keeps happening, and not just once, either, like for all you ordinary blokes, but again and again. It just keeps happening.
And me being the magician, the bloody sorcerer, I'm the only one who knows.
Knows what, you ask?
Well, everything, of course.
One more ale? Thank you kindly.
Oh, it's quite true. I know everything what's going to happen, and believe me when I tell you that being so wise doesn't make a man happy. Not a bit of it.
You want the truth?
As it happens, I've just enough of this fine ale in me-- for which I thank you again--to tell you.
Knowing the future doesn't make me happy at all.
Sometimes, it fairly breaks my heart.
Why so?
Easy enough to explain.
I meet people, get to know people, sometimes I even come to love them, and all the time I know what's going to happen. I know the deaths of those I care about from the moment I meet them.
What?
Oh, no. That's not the way it works, you see. I can't warn them. I can't save them. I can't do a bloody thing but stand there and watch fate happen. All over again.
It hurts.
You have a point. Might be easier if a bloke didn't care at all, I suppose. But would you like to live forever never loving anybody? That would be even worse, I think.
Beg pardon?
Sorry, I can't do that.
No, not even for another ale.
Don't get mad; I can't tell you your future, because I don't know it.
Why? Well, because you're not part of the story.
I'm quite sure about that. I always know when I meet someone who's a strand of my particular fate. Of the world I inhabit. One look in their eyes and I know.
S'cuse me, but would you happen to have the time?
That late? I better go. Work to do.
Not sorcery work, no.
Just a little bit of thieving.
Well, I thank you for the good wishes, but I'm afraid this venture is doomed to end badly.
Yes, I'm sure. The authorities will have me before this night is out.
Oh, I have to do the job anyway. Fate, you see. If I don't get arrested, I won't be on the prison ship when I'm supposed to be. And I have to be on the London.
That's just the way it is.
'Ta.
And death shall have no dominion,
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and
the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they were mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea
they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
-DYLAN THOMAS-
the end
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