The Forgotten Prophet

 

The prophet

In the heart of Washington D.C., where power corridors hummed with ambition and tourists chased monuments under gray skies, there lived a man no one truly saw.

They called him Crazy Elias, though no one knew his real name. He wandered the streets near the National Mall in torn, faded jeans that hung loose on his gaunt frame, a threadbare shirt stained by years of rain and neglect. His beard was scruffy, wild strands threaded with premature gray, and his eyes—those eyes—burned with a feverish light that made people cross the street.

Elias saw things.

Not the mundane future of lottery numbers or stock tips. He saw endings. Tragedies. Moments that shattered lives.

He would approach strangers with trembling hands, voice cracking like dry leaves.

"You—ma'am in the red coat. Don't take the Metro tonight. The third rail... it sparks. Please."

The woman would hurry away, clutching her purse, muttering about mental health services.

"Sir, the bridge on 14th Street—ice forming. Your daughter in the backseat..."

The father would laugh nervously, steer his child away, call him a nutcase.

No one listened.

And the worst part—the cruelest twist—was that once Elias spoke your future, you forgot him entirely. His face, his voice, the warning—all erased from memory like chalk in rain. He was a ghost in life, delivering prophecies that vanished with him.

Elias knew this. Felt it every time someone walked away without a backward glance.

He had been a history professor once, at Georgetown. Brilliant, respected. Married to a woman named Clara who laughed like summer rain. They had a daughter, Lily, with curls and a gap-toothed smile.

Then the visions started.

First small things—a colleague's heart attack, a student's car crash. He tried to warn them. They thought he was losing his mind.

Then the big one.

He saw Clara and Lily on the Beltway, a drunk driver swerving. He begged Clara not to go to her sister's that weekend.

She went anyway.

The funeral was closed-casket.

After that, Elias unraveled. The visions came constantly—strangers' deaths, accidents, betrayals. He couldn't teach. Couldn't sleep. Clara's sister took the house, said he was unstable.

He ended up on the streets, carrying the weight of futures no one wanted to hear.

Years passed. His clothes rotted. His beard grew wild. The visions never stopped.

But there was a prophecy. An old woman in a shelter once, before she died, grabbed his hand with surprising strength.

"The one who remembers," she whispered, eyes milky with cataracts. "The one who hears your name and remembers your face—they will heal you. Call the name three times. Offer water. The burden lifts."

Elias clung to those words like a drowning man to driftwood.

His name. His real name.

But no one remembered him long enough to speak it.

Winter came hard that year. Snow piled in corners of the Mall. Tourists thinned. The homeless shelters overflowed.

Elias sat on a bench near the Reflecting Pool, watching his breath cloud in the air. His fingers were numb, joints aching with cold.

A young woman approached—college student, maybe twenty. Dark hair, kind eyes carrying too much sadness for her age. She carried a paper bag from a nearby café.

She sat on the far end of the bench, not close, but not fleeing either.

Elias felt the vision hit like ice water.

Cancer. Fast-growing. Six months, maybe less. Treatment would bankrupt her family. She'd die alone in a hospital bed, thinking no one cared.

He turned to her, voice hoarse from disuse.

"Young lady... please listen."

She looked up, wary but not afraid.

"The lump you found last week—it's not nothing. Get the biopsy now. There's a trial at Johns Hopkins... apply immediately. Tell them Dr. Ramirez sent you—he owes me a favor from twenty years ago."

Her face paled. "How do you know about—"

"Please," Elias begged. "Just remember this. Remember me."

She stood slowly, backing away. The forgetting would start any moment—he could see it in her eyes glazing.

By the time she reached the path, she was shaking her head, confused why she'd stopped to talk to a homeless man.

Elias buried his face in his hands.

Another failure.

But the girl—Sarah—didn't forget entirely.

Something about the man's eyes stuck with her. The desperation. The specificity of "Dr. Ramirez."

She got the biopsy. Applied for the trial. Got in.

Months passed. Treatment was brutal, but it worked.

During chemotherapy, when pain and fear threatened to drown her, she remembered fragments. A man on a bench. Torn jeans. Gray in his beard.

"Elias," she whispered one night, alone in her hospital room. "His name was Elias."

The memory flooded back—the warning, the plea.

Sarah recovered.

Spring came to D.C. Cherry blossoms bloomed pink against blue skies.

Sarah walked the Mall daily, searching benches, looking for torn jeans and scruffy beard.

She found him near the Lincoln Memorial, thinner than before, eyes hollow.

He didn't recognize her at first—the forgetting worked both ways sometimes, to protect his sanity.

Sarah sat beside him.

"You saved my life," she said softly.

Elias turned, confused.

"I had cancer. You warned me. Told me about Dr. Ramirez."

His eyes widened. "You... remember?"

"Yes." Her voice cracked. "Your name is Elias. Elias Thorne."

She said it three times, clear and strong.

"Elias Thorne. Elias Thorne. Elias Thorne."

Something shifted. The air grew still. The constant pressure in his head—the weight of futures—eased.

Sarah pulled a bottle of water from her bag, hands shaking.

"Drink," she whispered.

He took it with trembling fingers. The first sip was cool, clean.

The visions stopped.

For the first time in decades, Elias Thorne's mind was quiet.

He wept then, great sobbing gasps that shook his frail body.

Sarah held him as tourists walked past, cherry blossoms drifting like pink snow.

The forgotten prophet was forgotten no more.

And somewhere, in the quiet spaces between moments, the old woman from the shelter smiled.