The Tailor of Old Town

In Old Town, where the streets were narrow and the rooftops leaned toward one another like old friends sharing secrets, there lived a tailor named Bram. He was very old now, older than the great bell in the square, some people said, though that was surely just a story. His back was bent like a question mark, and his hands, once quick as swallows, moved slowly. But when Bram threaded a needle and pulled cloth across his knee, something in the room grew quiet, as if the very air leaned in to watch.

For Bram was no ordinary tailor. The grandmothers of Old Town remembered a tale their own grandmothers had told them: that once in a long while, when the moon was thin and the nights were cold, Bram would sew a coat unlike any other. It looked plain enough, a coat of brown wool with simple buttons of bone. But the one who wore it, the story said, would be granted a single bold wish. Not a small wish, not a wish for a warm dinner or a sunny day, but a great one, the kind that turns a life around like a key in a lock. The coat asked only this in return: that the wish be true, and that it be the wearer's own.

Most people in Old Town smiled at the tale and did not quite believe it. Yet none of them ever laughed at Bram, and none of them ever forgot to greet him kindly. Just in case, they said.