By Hobo Harry, Mystic of the Forgotten Flame
Woke up this mornin’ with a raccoon paw on my face and the taste of destiny in my mouth. Coulda been the expired Vienna sausages I gnawed at 3 AM, but I trust the gut. She’s a cruel mistress but never wrong.
The day began with my usual rituals: trash fire meditation (stared at the flames till they turned blue and started whisperin’ the chorus to “Free Bird”), followed by my sacred scryin’ into the Twelve Holy Bean Cans. Each one resonates with a different zodiac sign, and today they hummed in harmony like a choir of aluminum angels. The Leo can practically jumped off the pavement, and Virgo’s was suspiciously full of a strange green mist. Omen of change. Or mold. Either way, noted.
After the scryin’, I wrapped my coat of many holes around me and drank deeply from the mug of cosmic clarity (black coffee, no filter, possibly motor oil), and then—I was gone. Lifted clean off the ground by a gust of metaphysical wind, carried across alleyways and astral planes.
I walked through dream cities built from forgotten coupons. I danced with a ghost train conductor who wore no pants and gave me cryptic advice: “Don’t trust a man who buttons his coat from the bottom up.” I spoke to a sentient shopping cart named Randall who told me I was the reincarnation of a medieval jester who accidentally invented jazz. All of this made perfect sense.
But then—
BLAM!
CRACKLE!
WHOOSH!
I awoke mid-levitation in a plume of smoke and the unmistakable scent of burning mattress foam. The warehouse, my humble chapel of mystery, was ablaze. Some kid musta knocked over a candle shrine to Saint Dumpster Steve. Grabbed the cans, grabbed the boots, forgot the squirrel skull (dangit), and hoofed it outta there with the grace of a limping cat on roller skates.
Now I sit outside a Shoney’s, wrapped in a blanket someone tried to throw away, yelling at the sky. Not in anger, but in warning.
“I HAVE SEEN THE CREAM-FILLED FUTURE!” I bellow, as concerned diners pretend not to see me.
“IT INVOLVES SCORPION-THEMED LOTTERY NUMBERS AND A GIANT DUCK MADE OF FEELINGS!”
They’ll thank me later.
The stars are quiet now. The cans are cooling.
Tomorrow holds fresh beans and new visions.
But tonight, I shout.
Because sometimes, prophecy needs volume.
— Hobo Harry
Mystic, Scryer, King of the Can Realm
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