by Antonio Napoli

A sorcerer dreamed of receiving two blows to the head. Upon waking, the thought disturbed him: he was greatly respected, who would dare strike him? “Perhaps the king or one of his ministers? But no one here is my enemy…” he wondered uneasily.
As every day, he went to various places to perform his sacred tasks and, around noon, returned home.
While walking down the street, he saw two blind men fighting, striking each other with their canes. Moved by compassion, the sorcerer intervened to separate them, but he was too late: one hit him on the forehead, and the other struck him on the back of the neck. He was about to receive a third blow when he raised his voice:
“Enough! I dreamed of receiving only two blows, not three! Now stop fighting!”
At those words, the blind men suddenly stopped, struck by a sense of shame, and lowered their canes, but allowed themselves a smile.
That evening, the sorcerer understood the meaning of the dream. He had always believed that fate spoke through occult symbols, messages that only the initiated could decipher. But that day, he learned a different lesson: sometimes, the future manifests with the clarity of the obvious, yet it remains invisible to the eyes of those who think they know everything.
He smiled to himself, stroking his aching head. “Even a wise man needs to be struck to see the truth,” he murmured.