It is bewildering for a distant observer, such as I am, to read the reports coming from Zimbabwe. For some time, now, they have been saying that unless something drastic is done, the country will collapse.

In a land with, effectively, no currency, where four out of five people don't have work, where half the population is hungry, where there is no legitimate government, where sickness stalks the land unchecked, where the capital is frequently without water and electricity, where an average pay packet can't buy a loaf of bread, where you can be beaten or worse for having the wrong politics and where the right to property has become an ephemera ... what exactly would constitute "collapse"?

As is all-too plain to see, the situation is dire in the land so many remember as one of the best places to feel the welcoming spirit of Africa, despite its history; and remember it as a rich garden that, despite disparities, provided for all. And yes, it seems pointless to wonder how much further it can fall and how it can get any worse.

Yet the story of Zimbabwe is not over. There will be much yet to tell and it is worth asking now what the rest of the story might involve. What happens next?

Forecasting the political future is not only difficult, it's dangerous. That's because it's so easy to be wrong. In fact, it's so easy to be wrong you can pretty much guarantee you will be badly mistaken somewhere along the line, and you can go for a rather embarrassing fall.

So you'd better stand back a bit and give me some room.

Despite the risks, this is a necessary exercise. Anticipating the future is the best way of improving the present. It is only when you stop and think, really stop and think, about all the possible outcomes of present actions that you become able to give these present actions their true weight, and measure their real value.

In order to do it, then, you have to discern in the present the forces that are really driving events forward, separate them from the passing diversions of the day, and imagine how they would evolve. All the while, you must be mindful of the unexpected.

The first apparent driver of Zimbabwean events is the one everyone is looking at right now - the talks between the government and the opposition about a new government. It's a false indicator of the future, it's a hi-jacking of hope, and it should be discarded right away.

The talks are never going to produce anything, certainly not anything good, and assuredly nothing that will change Zimbabwe's unhappy future to a more hopeful one. If the talks had any potential to do that, they would have done so already. Rather, the stalled and stalling nature of the talks - in fact, the entire current political process - is a message that is crying to make itself heard; and it's amazing that so few seem to hear it. The message is: this is a dead end.

The decisive factor in the talks is Mugabe. The talking is in essence about what Mr Mugabe will give, and will not give. He is the maker and the breaker. At this stage, anyone who thinks that Mr Mugabe needs more time to make his intentions clearer ... or time to see the error of his ways .. or to bend to the counsel being offered from without ... is someone who is simply not capable of reading the record correctly.

As an exercise, imagine that Mugabe responds to some pressure we have not seen until now, or that hasn't worked until now, and the talks succeed in producing a unity government. How much unity can one reasonably expect there to be in such a government? Yes, not much. And how much unity of purpose and action would it not need to give Zimbabwe even the smallest hope of tackling its huge problems?

In fact, were the parties pressured into making it happen it would amount to no more than transferring the terrain of battle from the negotiating rooms to the corridors of power.  The opposition members would spend all their time crab-walking along the passageways, keeping their backs to the wall.

With little doubt, this is a stratagem Mugabe has been holding in reserve, anyway.

All this implies that Mugabe must go. And he will. Mugabe cannot hold on forever. That Mugabe will go - and probably soon - is not the issue. The question is quite how the final dénouement will play itself out.

The forces that will drive Mugabe out can come from either outside Zimbabwe, or within; or a combination of both. This is a statement of the obvious, of course, but it helps one to think about forthcoming events.

There is now a mounting clamour for Mugabe's departure. It is coming from the West; this weekend the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, called not only for Mugabe's removal but for his prosecution in an international court. Of late, it is coming, too, from some in Africa, like Botswana and Kenya. At the weekend Desmond Tutu, former archbishop of Cape Town, echoed Sentamu's call.

The voices are manifestly louder, more numerous and more insistent than they have been until now. But they will remain just voices. This is, therefore, not a new thing, and Mugabe's obstinacy is not like to melt in the realisation that he is not popular. The situation is way past that.

More meaningful forces are rising within. It must be said in haste, right here, that the long-suffering endurance of the population, and its failure to come out in open revolt is one of the remarkable characteristics of the Zimbabwe affair - and one that is far less studied and discussed than it deserves. This is especially so when one considers the phenomenon against the uprisings that have swept Eastern Europe in the last 20 years.

Nevertheless, something is astir, and has been seen to be so in just recent days. There are sporadic outbreaks of unrest in the streets of the two main cities. There is a common thread that connects all these outbreaks, even though they involve groups as different as doctors and soldiers. The link, of course, is that they all involve people who depend on the state for their living.

The conventional wisdom has been, up to now, that the state is able to dispense enough patrimony to ensure the loyalty of a critical mass of its dependents. But that ability is clearly eroding, and eroding fast. The currency in which people are paid is all but worthless. The banks place stringent limitations on withdrawals, and so salaries languish, slashed in value by several decimal points every day.

It is true, as is frequently pointed out, that those around Mugqabe are sustained by access to foreign exchange and the last resources of the state. But even these are dwindling. When there is no more coin in the realm - local or foreign - the game is up.

The pyramid of patrimony that is constructed from tribal loyalty at its base, the civil service above that, and the power elite above that, in turn, is what sustains Mugabe at its pinnacle. It will soon be too corroded to hold him up any longer.

Mugabe's fall may now be sooner than anyone expects, and it is worth speculating on what will transpire when he is toppled.

It is unlikely that Mugabe will withdraw to a tribal seat, there to live out his years as the venerated father of Zimbabwe's independence. The risk of some form of vengeance or, simply, recompense, for a nation ruined will be too great. Even if a taste for retribution doesn't come from the opposition, which has shown almost superhuman forbearance up to now - it may come at last from a populace whose fear of persecution has lifted, and whose anger, inflamed by hunger and despair, is finally unleashed.

On a formal level it is probably not likely that there will be a prosecution through the courts - although it can't be ruled out - but it is likely that a new government will want to know how much of the foreign-donor money purloined from the central bank can be recovered.

Mugabe will probably retreat into sanctuary offered by one of the many countries that have supported him - just as he has given sanctuary these past years to Mengistu, convicted of genocide by his home courts in Ethiopia. It is a sobering thought that there will probably be many eager for the perceived honour of receiving Mugabe.

The departure of Mugabe will take care of the immediate problem. But to say that Mugabe is the problem is not the same as saying that Morgan Tsvangirai is the solution. True enough, the opposition leader has shown considerable mettle in recent time in the way he has resisted Mugabe's attempts to steamroller his movement. In great measure, though, Tsvangirai has gained stature by default in the unconscious comparison made against his tormentor. In addition, a careful examination of his record shows that steadfastness and great depths of virtuous leadership have not always characterised Tsvangirai.

Even if the very best in leadership were to emerge from Mr Tsvangirai, the lesson of the states destroyed by their capricious, stupid, cruel or evil rulers is that they take decades to rebuild. Uganda, for example, needed almost an entire generation to restore average incomes to what they were when Idi Amin first took power - a period in which the rest of the world had moved on. Similarly, it will take Zimbabwe at least a generation to get back to where it was a generation ago.

So, however the political dice roll from here on, Zimbabwe's prospects are depressing. There is nothing, really, to be done now to change that. Zimbabwe took the wrong turning in history some time back.

Then, not enough people to make a difference looked far enough down the road to see where the unfortunate land would be today. The opportunity to change course was back then. It's gone now.

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