The Wheel of Fate Seen When Closing Your Eyelids

Our lives are made up of countless choices and coincidences.
I believed that without a doubt.
At least, until I stood in that bustling crowd in Southeast Asia.

If everything was determined from the beginning, like a single thread intricately tangled until it becomes a magnificent piece of fabric.
Would you call that fate?

This is a story about the world that spreads behind your eyelids, which I learned from an old woman.

If you close your eyes, you might be able to see it too.
The mysterious and beloved wheel of fate that has led you this far.

✅ The Fortune-Telling Granny of a Small Village

I was born in a small village, cradled in the bosom of the mountains, that didn't even appear on maps.
It was a boring but peaceful place where the only playgrounds for children were the hills behind the village or the stream flowing through it.
In that village lived an old woman called Granny Miyo.
She lived alone in an old, sunless house on the outskirts of the village, and the villagers called her the "fortune-telling granny," avoiding her because they found her eerie.
Even the children would always run past her house whenever they had to go by.

However, I was different.
For some reason, I was strangely drawn to Granny Miyo's deeply wrinkled face and the eyes that shone quietly deep within.
When I went to visit her occasionally, she would always squint and say, "Oh, you've come," and invite me into the depths of her musty house.
Then, while sipping strangely bitter tea she brewed in an old tea set by the hearth, she would tell me various stories.
Stories about the movement of the stars, stories about medicinal herbs, and stories about human fate.

Among them, there are words I remember most vividly.
One day, as I was idly gazing at the sky from the veranda as usual, Granny sat down next to me and said this.
"Listen. Close your eyelids. When you do, you can sometimes see things that are not usually visible. You have to clear your mind, though."
As I closed my eyes as told, I only saw flickering lights in the darkness.
When I said, "I can't see anything," Granny laughed in a raspy voice and only said, "Your heart is still too restless. A time will come when you can see it."

Granny Miyo seemed to make a meager living by fortune-telling for the few visitors who came from outside the village every month, but that didn't last long either.
By the time I became a middle school student, Granny passed away as if she were sleeping.
She had no relatives, so the village head and others took the lead in quietly cremating her.
I just watched in silence as a single plume of smoke rose from the chimney.
I never even got to ask what the "something" that you could see if you cleared your mind actually was.

✅ Me, Traveling the World

Eventually, I became an adult and left that small village.
University, then employment.
Now, as a trading company employee, I spend my days flying all over the world.
It is interesting how life turns out, considering that the village boy who couldn't even speak English properly now handles multiple languages and engages in intense business with people of different skin colors.

I also built a warm home amidst the hustle and bustle of Tokyo.
A kind and intelligent wife, and two daughters whose smiles never fade.
No matter how exhausted I am from tough negotiations, all my hardships vanish when I see the faces of my family waiting for me in the airport arrival lobby.
I have gained things worth protecting.
I thought I had a life that was as fulfilled as it could be.
The days in the village and memories of Granny Miyo had been tucked away in the depths of my memory during my busy daily life, and had completely faded.

That day, I was in a regional city in Southeast Asia for a business trip.
I had wrapped up a big contract and had a little time, so I was walking through an old market looking for souvenirs for my family.
The suffocating smell of spices, the blaring horns of motorbikes, the heat of the people.
In that crowd, a small folk art shop caught my eye.
I gasped at the sight of an old woman sitting in a chair at the back of the shop, quietly watching the storefront.

The way her wrinkles were etched, her small back, and her quiet eyes that seemed to see through everything.
She was the spitting image of Granny Miyo.
It's impossible.
My head knew that.
Because Granny had passed away decades ago.
However, my feet were drawn to the shop as if by a magnet.
When the old woman noticed me, she slowly raised her face.
At that moment, those words echoed in my mind like thunder.

"Close your eyelids. You have to clear your mind, though."

Unconsciously, I stood there and closed my eyes tightly.

✅ I Saw It! The Wheel of Fate

The usual darkness spreading behind my eyelids.
But something was different.
The noisy sounds of the market faded away, and a silence arrived as if I were sinking to the bottom of deep water.
Clear my mind.
Relying only on Granny Miyo's words, I focused my consciousness.

Then, from the depths of the darkness, something like a golden thread appeared, swaying.
One by one, it increased in the blink of an eye, and I saw it intricately tangling to form a huge wheel.
The wheel of fate.
For some reason, I understood that intuitively.

Within that wheel, countless scenes emerged and disappeared.
The university entrance ceremony; the person sitting next to me with a nervous look was my current wife.
The company I am at now, which I applied to last after being rejected from job hunting repeatedly.
The interviewer who saw through my potential.
That scene at the hospital where my two daughters were born.
Everything was shining brightly as part of this golden wheel.
All the encounters and events I had thought were coincidences until now were connected on this wheel without a single error.

And so was the old woman in front of me, who looked just like Grandma Miyo.
The fact that she was waiting for me in this shop was also an inevitability woven into this wheel.
My visiting this place, too, was all part of it.

When I slowly opened my eyes, the old woman said nothing, just smiled gently.
Her face no longer looked like Grandma Miyo's.
But the light deep within her eyes was certainly the same.
I bowed deeply, bought one small wooden doll, and left the shop.

Since that day, my family has started saying that I have changed a little.
They say I no longer get irritated by trivial things and have come to see things from a broader perspective.
I think so myself, too.
Because now, I have started to see it from time to time.
When I close my eyes, I can see a little bit of the future.
It is a fragment of the trajectory that the golden wheel of fate is about to draw.

Yes, I can see it even now.
The doorbell rings, and I see my eldest daughter opening the door with a slightly nervous look on her face.
And standing next to her is a young man I have yet to meet.
In his left hand, he is holding a wooden doll that looks very similar to the one I once bought at a market in Southeast Asia.

Perhaps fate is not something to resist or lament, but something to simply accept quietly and savor its beauty.
Well then, they will be here soon.
What kind of expression will I have when I welcome my future son?

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