The Wheel
I had felt it since that night.
Some days it was barely there. A thought beneath the day. A soft pressure beneath my skin.
On other days, it rested on my shoulders like a warm cloak.
The one thing we cannot control, explain, or deny.
The lingering presence of Fate.
When I opened my eyes, I saw a man standing before a huge wheel made of starlight against the dark night sky.
It was an astonishing sight.
Silver light illuminated the wheel as it spun slowly through the darkness. I could not see where it began or where it ended. It seemed older than the night around us, older than the questions I had brought with me.
The man seemed familiar, but I could not place him anywhere.
His face was friendly, and his eyes held the particular spark of someone who had already seen something interesting and was trying very hard not to spoil it.
He moved his hands in a small, elegant gesture, and the wheel behind him turned a little faster.
“You are here.”
His voice was calm.
Neither soothing nor intimidating.
I looked at him, then at the wheel again.
Slightly irritated.
He noticed.
A warm laugh escaped him, sudden and genuine.
“Oh, come on. Yes, you might have expected three very mysterious ladies or a brooding dark figure. But I am none of that.” He looked down at himself for a moment. “And I like surprises.”
I nodded, more automatically than consciously.
“You are…”
I let the sentence remain unfinished between us.
“Fate,” he said slowly, with a grin.
“The one and only.”
Then he winked.
“Fate,” I echoed.
The name sat strangely between us.
After a pause, I asked, “Why am I here?”
He tapped his foot a few times against the non-existent ground. The wheel spun faster.
“Just a little conversation. Professional curiosity,” he said, smiling at me. “You do not need to be afraid. I just want to talk.”
Against my better judgement, the words came out of my mouth before I could stop them.
“Why does… Fate… want to talk to me?”
I crossed my arms over my chest.
He looked at me with a smile and walked slowly towards me.
“Because you finally seem to be following me. Took you a while.”
He glanced at the wheel, which turned as if it had heard him.
“But you came eventually.” His eyes found mine again. “I appreciate persistence. Even the reluctant kind.”
I looked at him, still slightly irritated.
“So it seems,” I murmured. Then I added, “But I cannot be the only one following you and getting invited to a little chat.”
He laughed.
“No, of course not. But I am curious, Cassandra. How was your last year?”
I stared blankly at him.
“The last year,” I murmured. “You mean after that night, when I felt you standing beside me and everything changed?”
The wheel spun faster behind him.
He smiled at me again.
“Yes. That night. And since then, I have been watching you. You did well. Better than I expected. At least most of the time.”
“Comforting.”
“Like everyone, you tried from time to time to control Fate. You tried to slow things down. You tried to make other things happen faster.”
I looked at him.
“Can’t promise you I will stop.”
“Good,” he said “That would have been terribly boring.”
He moved his hand, and the wheel answered him with another turn.
“You can try to negotiate with it, fight it, ignore it, or attempt to outsmart it. People have been doing that for centuries.” He smiled. “It never gets old.”
“See? It has its own timing, no matter how you try to slow it down or make it faster.”
“Wouldn’t have ever thought that,” I replied dryly, with a smirk.
“I know,” he said, rolling his eyes with a laugh.
“Anyway, you are here. No questions? I am surprised.” The laughter in his eyes was unmistakable. “Timid?”
“Alright,” I said. “Why?”
He waited.
“You know what people say. Everything happens for a reason and so on.” I looked at him. “Is that all you?”
He laughed out loud.
“You believe that? Come on. You can do better.”
I looked around, then back at him.
“Things happen randomly.”
He did not answer. He just looked at his fingers and moved them without rhythm or order. The wheel spun faster.
“Alright,” I said. “Maybe not all randomly. Maybe some things are from you.”
He tilted his head and raised an eyebrow.
“A bit boring,” he said.
I stared at him, grunting a little.
“Not all from you. Not all random. Not just some things from you…”
I paused.
“What is that wheel doing, then?”
He looked at me with a smirk.
“Oh, that one?” He glanced over his shoulder. “As if there were another one.”
“Yes. That one.”
“Moving.”
I waited.
Nothing else came.
“That is your answer?”
He looked at me, completely serious.
“It is a very good answer.”
I thought about it.
Nothing he said really made sense.
Or perhaps it made too much sense, and I simply did not like it.
He tapped again on the non-existent floor.
“You still thinking, or admiring the view?” he teased me.
“Both. Definitely both.” I looked at him. “You are not helping me, are you?”
“I do not think you need help. And you would not like it anyway, because the answer is so obvious.”
He said the last word very slowly, a mischievous grin spreading across his face.
“Alright, alright. Give me a minute.”
I looked once more at the wheel.
“So we are either getting a good fate or a bad fate?”
He looked at me as if I had just suggested something deeply offensive.
“Because what? I decide it?”
“You are Fate.”
“Yes, darling. Not customer service.”
I stared at him.
He smiled.
“I do not decide whether you get a good story or a bad one. I merely make sure it keeps moving.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“It is not meant to be reassuring.” His eyes lit up. “It is meant to be interesting.”
I looked at him.
Really looked at him.
“So you are telling me that you are not deciding anything at all? How do you know what is right or wrong?”
For the first time, something quieter entered his face.
Not sadness.
Perhaps recognition.
“I don’t,” he said. “I have no idea. Not a single clue.”
I could not say a word.
I stared at him and blinked slowly, twice.
“That is a surprise,” I finally said.
“Yes,” he said smiling.
The wheel behind him slowed a little.
He looked at it. Then back at me.
“It is giving us choices,” I said.
The words sounded almost right.
Then I shook my head.
“No. Wait.”
I looked at the turning silver.
“It is giving us possibilities.”
For once, he did not answer immediately.
Then his smile appeared - bright, almost proud.
“There you are,” he said. “I was wondering when you would find it.”
“Find what?”
“The difference.”
He gestured towards the wheel.
“A choice can feel like a door closing. A possibility is a door that has not decided what it wants to become yet.”
“We decide.”
“Mostly.” He looked at me. “Often against your own judgement.”
I laughed.
“Yes. To that I can agree.”
His smile softened.
“The wheel never stops.”
I looked at it again.
Then I closed my eyes for a brief second.
When I opened them, the question had already risen to the surface.
My hands were shaking a little.
“Why did he leave me?”
The wheel kept turning.
Fate did not answer immediately.
For the first time, there was no laughter in his face. No teasing. No clever answer waiting behind his eyes.
He looked at me for a long moment.
“I hoped he wouldn’t.”
I nodded slowly.
We stood there in silence.
There was a strange beauty in that answer.
Fate had hoped, as I had.
I looked at the wheel again.
It was still turning slowly against the night sky. Turn after turn.
Possibilities.
Hope.
Choices.
Some arrived slowly, almost unnoticed. Some so fast that we might recognise them only in the blink of an eye.
He stood there, looking at me, and moved his hands again.
Next turn, I thought.
“Did anyone ever, in all ages, choose right?” I finally asked.
For the first time, he looked surprised.
Then a satisfied smile appeared on his face.
It was true.
He liked surprises.
He came a little closer.
“What is right?” he asked.
The silver light moved across his face.
“So my answer might be no. No one.”
He paused.
“And yes. Everyone.”
I looked at him.
“That makes no sense.”
He smiled.
“It rarely does.”
Then he glanced at the wheel.
“All spins of the wheel.”
After a moment, he smirked at me again.
“What now?”
“I don’t know,” I said, smiling at him.
“Don’t ask me.”
He chuckled.
“Next time we meet, you should try spinning the wheel.”
“And if I do not like what it brings?”
He laughed.
“Then complain elegantly. You are very good at that.”
The wheel began to move faster.
“Follow its rhythm. Or don’t. Fight it for a while if you must. But do not stand beside it forever, pretending you are not curious.”
He paused and blew me a kiss.
“Nothing is ever what it seems on the outside. You know that.”
I made a tiny bow. A recognition of what he had said and of what lay behind those words.
The silver wheel spun faster until its shape disappeared into light.
Then I heard his last words.
“Not a goodbye.”
A pause. A warm laugh, resonating through the darkness.
“That was an invitation.”