The Fortune Teller
By: Harman Burgess
My head has a liquid feel to it as I stumble down the street. The bottle of red wine in my belly making it seem like my limbs have become balloons, and at any moment they might float away. Next to me, Michael has a stupid whiskey grin stretched across his face, making it look all bloated and red. I know this is going to hurt in the morning, but right now I couldn’t feel finer.
“…an’ tha’s the crux o’ the matter, yer see?” says Michael as he narrowly avoids a collision with a telegraph pole. “The past ain’t really exist. Ya feel? Go get me histery, would ya? Go fine me a Caesar an’ ‘ave him explain the intrakacies o’ his Gallic expeditions. Yer cain’t do it!”
I nod slowly to myself as the contents of what he’s saying dissolve in my mind. “I get it, I do. What about his commentaries, though? Didn’t he write some grand propaganda about Gaul? That’s Caesar, in a way.”
“But yer reed them propagandas in the present, see? It’s not like he’s in the room with ya, lookin’ over yer shoulder.”
“True, true,” I say. “Michael, my friend, I do believe we’ve just discovered presentism.”
“Tha’ the fancy philosophical term fer it?”—cars blur past the sidewalk, streams of light in the darkness— “See, why waste thousan’s an’ thousan’s in HIGHER EDUCATION if yer can just talk? Yer should be doin’ engineerin’ like me. Not philosophy. I sa–”
Michael’s discourse on the current state of tertiary schooling is cut short as he trips over a letterbox and sprawls on the sidewalk in a mess of limbs and pain. It seems unreal, somehow, and I can’t help but laugh, like I’m watching an absurd form of slapstick. Michael groans from his position on the ground, and I realize he might actually be hurt.
“You okay, mate?” I ask, bending down to help him.
“I’m good, ya bugga. Get yer bleedin’ hands off of me!”—he picks himself up and dusts himself off— “Poor plannin’ that is. Puttin’ a fuggin’ letterbox there, where innocent drunks could hurt thimselves on.”
“Oh, yeah?” I ask, eager to continue our debate. “Whose plan?”
Michael strikes a pose and declares; “Jee-suhs!” Which sends him into hysterics.
“Come on, you alko.”
We continue our ramble down the street, a symphony of cicadas and tire screeches for accompaniment. The air hangs hot and humid around us; the windows of the town houses we walk past have their blinds pulled down. It has always seemed to me that these hours—the ones between 1 and 4 AM—should’ve been called twilight, the word suits this time much better.
“Oi!” calls Michael from up ahead of me. “Check out this place!”
He gestures to a purple shop, all plaster gold, and tacky trimmings. A sign on the jutting multi-colored awning reads: MADAME TIME, FORTUNE TELLING & TAROT AT AFORDABLE PRICES! There is a painting on the front of the shop, a large autumn mural with wispy shadows of girls dancing in the shade of yellow trees. A neon sign flashes OPEN from behind the purple glass door.
Suddenly earnest, Michael leans into me. “Le’s git our fortunes red.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in the future.”
“Tha’ were ages ago, this is now. Come on, it’ll be fun.”
“Sure, but you’re paying.”
Michael punches my shoulder and leads the way inside.
* * *
I push past the plastic strips behind the purple door and enter the shop. The first thing that hits me is the smell: deep, thick perfume seeping from every corner of the room, making me want to sneeze. Next, the rows and rows of tacky trinkets; playing cards, crystal balls, and so on. Curios of the Christmas cracker variety, no doubt marked up outrageously to seem more reliable. A veil of beads marks out a back area and a contralto voice drifts out from behind it:
“I’ve been expecting you two.”
“Bet you say that to all the girls,” I reply.
Michael shoots me a look and steps towards the beads. “Can yer tell us our futures?”
“Come closer and find out.”
But as we approach, the veil of beads takes on an ominous glow. Perhaps it’s the drink, but I feel an incredible sense of wrongness emanating from behind that veil; a palpable hostility, the kind of predatory malice that separates a wolf from a puppy. I don’t want to go in there; I feel my intoxication wash away as adrenaline makes me keenly aware of each passing second. But Michael has already gone through the veil, so, reluctantly, I follow him– keeping an eye on the exit.
Inside the backroom is night, a crystal ball shines dimly on a small wooden table failing to illuminate anything. The walls are cushiony drapes of spiderweb silk, the other side of the table is completely black. The perfume in here is thick enough to choke on. There’s a rattle from the blackness like heavy jewelry or perhaps chains, and a purple-gloved hand emerges, gesturing to the two plastic chairs waiting for us.
“Are yer Mah-dame Time?” Michael asks as we sit.
“I’m Madame Time, yes,” says the contralto voice. Up close it sounds raspy and hoarse, as if its owner is being suffocated by sawdust.
“That the name your parents gave you?” I ask.
“Jon!” objects Michael. “Yer ruinin’ the vibe.”
“I don’t mind, Michael,” says Madame Time. “We’re friends here. Madame Time was my stage name at the Pandemonium Carnival, my first job. Partly because of my knowledge of Time. I live it completely, hence the nickname. I’m rather fond of it.”
“Tell us,”—Michael leans forward in his seat— “How’s Time work?”
Madame Time gives a contralto chuckle that makes gooseflesh bubble across my skin. Michael, on the other hand, laughs along with her. She knows something, this ‘Madame Time’, something awful. I wish I hadn’t let Michael drag me in here.
“Very well,” says the fortune teller. “It’s like this: the present, as you know it, the here and now, the endless today– does not exist. Not as you understand it. Instead, it is made up of lots of little moments of the past. Building and building and crashing down on us like a wave, bearing us into the future whether we like it or not. Cause and effect, my friends.”
“Oh, so just your basic determinism, then?” I say. “What you’re getting at?”
“Wha’s tha’?” asks Michael. “De-term-in-ism?”
“The idea that humans aren’t in control of their actions. That in reality our behavior is determined by past causes out of our control.”
“Yes!” says Madame Time. I hear the smile in her voice and dislike it, I don’t want to be associated with anything that could make her smile. “For example, say, Michael, you are hungry. You go down to a café and buy a hamburger. The cause is hunger, and the effect is that you get lunch. Very basic example, but I’m sure you can see the workings of cause and effect and apply them to everything else. And by investigating a person’s past for causes, I can make absolute predictions about their future.”
“How the hell do you do that?” I ask.
The fortune teller runs a hand across the crystal ball (I hear her jewelry rattle), the light bending and refracting like mini rainbows beneath her glove. “Magic.”
“Do me!” says Michael. “I wanna know me causes.”
“With pleasure,” says Madame Time. “However, the process is rather taxing, and I need something to replenish my energy… $10 a future.”
Michael, without hesitation, brings out his wallet. It’s empty. He looks to me with the sad eyes of a Dickens orphan and I let him stew for a couple of moments. Then, I get out my wallet and slide a $20 onto the table. I don’t want to get a future per se, but something is whispering in my mind that if I don’t get one, I’ll regret it. Michael claps me on the back and promises to buy me a beer later. I smile and add it to the few dozen others he owes me.
“Thank you,”—the glove rattles out of the darkness and takes the twenty, leaving two sealed envelopes in its place— “Your fortunes.”
“I thou–”
She interrupts me. “Please, I wouldn’t be much of a fortune teller if I couldn’t predict my customers now, would I? I made them earlier.”
Michael reaches for the envelope with his name on it and goes to open it.
“Ah, ah, ah,” says the fortune teller. “They haven’t finished fermenting yet. You can’t open them until tomorrow or else the magic will escape.”
So that’s her ploy. Spew a bunch of crap about Time then palm off any suckers dumb enough to buy it with fortune cookie vagaries. I admit, it’s clever, but something deeper warns me to be careful, that it couldn’t possibly be that simple. Pocketing my future (I can’t just leave it there) I pull Michael to his feet.
“It’s been a pleasure,” I say. “But it’s getting late, you know…”
“Of course,” says Madame Time. “Come again sometime, bring a friend even. The more the merrier.”
“See ya!” yells Michael as I frog march him out of the shop.
There’s a taxi driving by outside and I flag it down; paying to send Michael home before he notices any other strange shops. Relieved, I watch the taillights of the car disappear, before hurrying back to my apartment. The shadows seem darker than before, the streets devoid of traffic. The moon hangs in the sky like a crack den lightbulb, passing in and out of the clouds.
I feel relief wash over me as I turn the key in my front door and slip into the apartment. Depositing the envelope on my hallstand with my keys & wallet, I crash into bed without bothering to take my clothes off.
Sleep takes a long time to arrive.
* * *
Pain.
Angry, vengeful pain.
And at the same time an intense sluggishness, like I’m still drunk but without any of the fun perks of intoxication.
So, tired and in pain, I stumble out of bed and into the kitchen. Moving dirty dishes and empty takeout boxes out of the way, I put the kettle on and try to remember how to make coffee. No, that’s not it. Isn’t caffeine bad for you when you’re hungover? I hunt through the kitchen cabinets for some aspirin. Nothing. Great. I settle on tea (with 5 sugars) instead and collapse on the couch. I turn the TV on, muting the sound, and a clock in the corner of the news broadcast informs me it’s 4 o’clock in the afternoon.
Brilliant.
I notice the date by the clock: shit, it’s Monday! I’m meant to be in a goddamn lecture right now. I jump up to get ready and my head spins violently. Ah, screw it, I’ll catch up some other time. Settling back on the couch, I sip my tea and wait as cognitive thought reasserts its hold on my brain. Did I go to a fortune teller’s last night? The thought recalls images of sinister darkness and empty malice. I look over to the hallstand and, sure enough, the letter is where I left it. Summoning the energy to stand, I go over and pick it up; each muscle movement causing ripples of fire to trickle through my nervous system. Envelope secure, I sit back down and open it up. Perfume wafts off the pink, cursive handwriting:
Jon,
Michael is going to kill you. Now that I’ve got your attention, here’s why: he thinks that you are the reincarnated spirit of his abusive stepfather. Crazy, right? That’s schizophrenia for you. He’ll stab you to death unless you stop him.
Best,
Madame Time
P.S. In case you don’t believe me, enclosed is another prediction pro bono. Hint: unmute your TV.
A cream-colored bit of folded paper falls out of the envelope. I open it and see that it’s a transcript of some kind of interview. Something about farming or whatever. I turn the volume on my TV up and hear the blond news anchor say:
“… now, we go to J. D’s interview with the Minister of Agriculture about the recent droughts. J. D? Over to you.”
The picture cuts to two men in business suits talking about water restrictions. And every word, even the impromptu jokes and banter, is recorded verbatim on the sheet. Every single word. I finish watching the interview in awestruck silence. How the hell did she know what they were going to say? A contralto voice answers: cause and effect.
No.
Could it?
No.
But the possibility?
The possibility would mean that the fortune teller is right about determinism. That my thoughts and feelings are as inconsequential as a mirage, as truthful as fiction. The products of random events far beyond my control. No, I don’t want to believe that. I choose not to believe that. But is that choice nothing but the effect of some long-forgotten cause, some innate biological predilection for control?
My phone rings, shattering my thoughts and reawakening my headache. “Jon, speaking.”
“Stepfather?
“Michael!”
The line goes dead. I remember the note and go cold. Michael is going to kill you. I don’t like this; I don’t like any of this. I don’t like that she predicted the interview. And I certainly don’t like the slant in Michael’s voice. I don’t like what it says about cause and effect… oh, stuff that. I don’t have time to consider this right now. Grabbing my keys, I jog out of my apartment.
* * *
The air is pale as I stumble towards the bus stop, the sun straining against the blue clouds covering the sky but failing to break through; making the world look as though it’s underwater. Thoughts churn like whirlpools in my mind: anxiety about Michael, fear of what the fortune teller told him, desperate ideas trying to reject the proof she gave to determinism, and on and on, over and over until I reach the bus stop. Distracting myself with checking the timetable, I find the bus to Michael’s place and scan the times… good. The next one is only a couple minutes away. I pace up and down, trying to keep my brain in check. I imagine the problem in Michael’s accented drawl:
“…yer see, mate, the problem is,”—in my imagination, Michael pauses to belch— “Ah, Christ… yer know if this de-term-in-ism thing is true, tha’ means yer exitsense ain’t mean nutin’. Wha’ was tha’ Russian ya toll me ‘bout the other day goin’ on ‘bout. If there’s no God, everythin’s permitted. Seems ter me tha’ the secon’ part applies, call it Jon’s law: if yer don’t control yer actions, everythin’s permitted. Quite a dilemah, ya feel?”
The bus comes rumbling up to the stop and I get on. The ticket machine is broken, so the driver nods me forwards without me having to pay. Leaning my head against the cool window, I watch as the suburban landscape blurs past. The second part of Michael’s question is interesting. The average undergraduate could, no doubt, come up with a dozen reasons why life is meaningful and no, not everything is permitted. But when confronted with proof, concrete proof in the form of the fortune teller’s letter, what then? Take refuge in The Divine, take that leap of faith and join Kierkegaard’s crusade against logic? No. There’s a reason He’s called the First Cause. That would do nothing to refute the idea, it only assumes that the whole process must be good. And I don’t think assumptions are what is needed right now.
“Hey mate,” says the bus driver. “This your stop?”
I look out and see the granny flat Michael rents (it’s hidden behind a largish family house, but I’ve been there enough to spot it) flashing past as the bus rolls to a stop.
“Yeah,” I stand and walk towards the exit. “Thanks, man.”
“Big night?”
“Something like that.”
I hear the driver laugh as the bus pulls away from the curb with a pneumatic hiss. Time balloons as I walk up the driveway to the flat, each crunch of gravel beneath my shoe a symphonic crash in my mind. I see Michael’s car parked outside, which is a good sign. He almost never goes anywhere without it, so he’s probably in. I press the doorbell and wait. Nothing.
“Michael!”—I pound on the screen door— “Hey, buddy, you awake in there?”
There’s still no response. I try the handle, it’s unlocked. Careful not to make any noise, I push the door open and peek inside. The lights are off, and everything’s peaceful inside the kitchen/dining area that is the flat’s main room. I tiptoe in and sneak a look into the living room. The TV is on (playing the news, of all things) but there’s no sign of Michael. Stepping further in, straining my eyes against the darkness, I feel something cold enter my shoulder. The coldness glances off my collarbone and flicks down my back. Turning around, I see Michael holding a kitchen knife, the blade dripping red.
“W-w-w-w-wha’?” I stammer, my brain not comprehending what it sees.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I had ter, ya see? I had ter. The note said so.”
Darkness gathers in the corner of my mind and I feel an awful leaking sensation in my shoulder. I put my hand on the wall to steady myself, and Michael goes forward to help me, but stops. Pulling the fortune teller’s letter out of my pocket I throw it towards where I think Michael is standing.
“One of these notes, then?”
There’s silence and a black shadow that looks like Michael bends down to read the note. I slide against the wall, my consciousness becoming increasingly hard to hold on to. It’s like I’m caught in the orbit of a black hole.
“Oh, mah God!”, yells Michael, but his voice is distant. “God, Jon! Stay with me…”
But the echoes of his voice are lost as I fall into the slow timelessness of eternity.
* * *
Time dribbles by in different shades of shadow.
Pulsating darkness fills my mind.
Thoughts balloon like soap bubbles, swirling and fading and drifting away from me… I can feel something shift in the corner of my consciousness. The ripples of its movement reverberating through my brain.
I can feel it… an Other, something not me. Caressing the edges of my soul, feeding off my emotions: fear of the finest vintage, betrayal richer than chocolate; everything, in short, that makes me, me.
I scream, but no sound comes out. The Other seems to enjoy it more, the emotion. The food. Gathering my strength, I push against it. But it digs tighter into my brain, holding fast.
I push harder, giving everything I have to one desperate shove. Knowing intrinsically that if I fail and it remains, then I am lost.
And with a wet, sucking noise, the Other is pushed from my mind. There’s a distant scream as it flails into whatever void it came from and light fills my mind… my eyes flick open and gasping–
* * *
–gasping! I claw at the leather of Michael’s couch, my limbs as rigid as a corpse’s, my mind filled with swirling, psychedelic light.
“Jon!” calls Michael from very near.
I let myself go limp and run a hand across my temple as reality swerves violently into focus. I’m lying down, bandages are wrapped tightly around my shoulder, the leaking sensation is gone. Then comes memory: I see Michael holding a knife, feel him stab me, and then the realization that the Other is gone forever. That last one fills me with peace, as slowly the violence inside me subsides to a dull throb. Michael is crouched by the sofa, a damp cloth in his hand, eyes full of concern.
“You stabbed me,” I say. It is not accusatory, but merely stating a fact. Like a school child giving a history report.
Michael’s face slumps as he looks away. “I’m sorry. There’s a reason. Not a good ‘un, nowhere near a good ‘un. But it’s there.”
He presses a sheet of paper into my hand. Sitting up on the couch, I stare at the neat, pink handwriting, the words forming themselves into meaning before me:
Michael,
There’s a prediction enclosed that will show you I mean business. Turn your TV to the Channel 6 News. Done that? Good. There’s a transcript enclosed that will prove I’m for real. Watch the News with the transcript. Done that? Great. Now an unpleasantness, Jon wants to kill you. Here’s how you can prove it for yourself: 1) call him up and say the word ‘Stepfather’ 2) if he comes looking for you that means you’re in danger 3) should he enter your flat, kill him. Good luck.
Ciao,
Madame Time
I let go of the note and feel the fortune teller’s spell over us fade. An incredible feeling of violation coming over me. She played us. She played us good. I recall the presence I felt while unconscious and shudder. That has to mean something, it’s too much of a coincidence for it not to be. And then the pieces fall together in my mind, and I understand just what’s happened.
“… a b’ich,” says Michael, and I realize he’s been talking the entire time. “A no good, con artistin’ b’ich.”
“Calm down,” I say. “We’ve got more important things to worry about than being angry. I know her plan. I worked it out, just then.”
“Don’t keep it ter yerself then!”
“I’m getting to it! Give me the chance to speak, why don’t ya?”—Michael grins sheepishly and makes a gesture zipping his lips— “You see, she lures people in and gets them all worked up about nothing. Got you worked up enough to stab me! And then she feeds off the resulting emotion. I felt her doing it when I was unconscious. All the while keeping us unbalanced with a philosophy of pessimism; hand-tailored to make us feel powerless. And she’ll keep on feeding and feeding. Unless we do something.”
Michael begins to object but stops. The idea has a perverse kind of logic to it, and if she can predict a news interview and a stabbing, doesn’t that just show I’m right? He opens his mouth again: “How der we stop her?”
“Simple,” I say. “We go over to her little shop and kick the ever-loving shit out of her until she’s too scared to even dream about us. Sound good?”
A grin stretches across Michael’s face. Sitting there, smiling like that, he strikes me like a stone gargoyle, about to break free from its pedestal and commit some heinous act. And what he says next is like medicine to my aching head:
“It does, my friend, tha’ soun’s ab-so-lute-lee beautiful.”
* * *
The setting sun is amber fire in the pale sky, caressing us as we make our way towards Madame Time’s shop. A mother & daughter pair cross the road to avoid us and I’m not surprised; with my shoulder wrapped tightly in bandages and the size of Michael’s crowbar, I bet we look exactly like the type of people parents warn their children about. And that feels good. We stop outside the shop’s autumn mural, and Michael touches my arm.
“We really doin’ this?” he asks.
I open the glass door for him. “Absolutely.”
Michael goes into the shop, and I follow behind him. The, now familiar, smell of perfume washes over me. The same sense of wrongness drifts from the backroom; but I’m ready for it. I know what it represents, nothing more dangerous than a mosquito.
“I’ve been expect…” comes the contralto voice, but it is cut off by Michael hurling his crowbar through the veil. It flashes in the sparkling light and thuds into the back wall with a satisfying crunch.
“Ya wanna fug with me?” yells Michael, sweeping merchandise off the shelves in huge haymaker swings.
I flip the sign on the door to CLOSED as Michael begins tearing apart the shop.
“How did you do that thing with the TV?” I call into the backroom as Michael overturns a rack of playing cards.
“Come closer,” is the reply, more evenly than I’d expect given the circumstances. “Find out for yourself.”
I part the veil of beads and step through, Michael still raging through the shop like a Spanish bull. The perfume congeals in the air as I draw closer to the dark corner; the crowbar is resting on the table next to the crystal ball. A purple glove motions me to sit, and I can hear the fortune teller’s jewelry rattle. Sitting down, I say:
“Well, explain yourself!”
“I know you,” says Madame Time. “I’ve eaten you, Jon. Your fears, your hopes, your dreams…”
A shiver goes down my spine, like she’s walking on my grave. There’s a rattling sound as Madame Time leans into the light. And the vision that presents itself to me is one of pure nightmare:
The fortune teller’s face is that of a corpses’ left out in the heat for too long; the skin brown & leathery, cracked in places, and the eyes empty sockets of shadow. Perfume reeks from her body, there’s a rusty chain reaching from her neck into the darkness– folding under her purple carnival robes. There’s a flutter of beads behind me. I turn to see Michael—fresh from destroying the shop—sprinting outside, his face moon-white.
“Look at me!” commands the fortune teller, her voice acid bitter. “You people have it so good out there and you don’t even know it! Running around, dreaming of free will and all that crap. Maybe if I’m a good boy, my boss will give me a pay rise! You are caught in a long line of dominoes stretching back to eternity and forwards to the end of Time. Nothing about you is real. You are nothing. Less than a shadow,”—she leans back as her voice softens, and I feel my anger dissipate as I begin to understand her— “I’ve always seen it. Always. Kind of like watching a movie of myself: I see this person, me, going around doing things, but I don’t have any control over her. I didn’t write those futures, Jon. Something else did. Someone else. I only watched the world butterfly around you and fed on your confusion. I saw it, but I didn’t do it. My only sin is that of hunger, nothing else.”
My anger fades completely, she’s just the same as us, really. Only without the imagination to do anything about it. I have no desire to fight her anymore. Standing, I go over to the beads. Thinking of something clever to say, a final quip, I turn around. But the backroom and the fortune teller and everything are gone; borne away on some magic tide. I turn back to the main shop, but that’s gone too. The tacky trinkets and gaudy tricks replaced by construction tape and garbage. A FOR SALE sign hangs on the plain glass door. Outside, where Michael is looking in, the storefront is black and crumply.
“Now wha’?” asks Michael as I step out.
I crack my back and think for a moment. “Don’t know about you, but I could sure go for a drink right now.”
Michael nods and we walk away from the remains of the shop in silence. Each of us preoccupied with our memories, trying to fit something impossible into the confines of reality. Time passes.
“Der ya think she was right ‘bout tha’ de-term-in-ism stuff?” says Michael.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I may never know. But if you really want to know what I think? It doesn’t matter. Maybe the appearance of choice is choice enough. If you think you’re doing something for a reason, then maybe you are.”
“Huh,” says Michael. We continue in silence for some more. “Ya think she’ll come back fer us?”
“I don’t think so. I think we humiliated her enough that despite what she may feel, she couldn’t bear to show her face to us again. And she turned out to be relatively harmless, in the end. An old leech and nothing more. Maybe the next people she feeds on will finish her off for good. I don’t know. But I kind of get the feeling she has to be there, you know? If it weren’t her it’d be something else. Maybe something worse.”
Michael shudders at the prospect of something worse than the fortune teller. We come to a stop outside our usual pub. I go to head inside, but Michael grabs my arm. “Can I ask yer somtin’ sirious, mate?”
“Sure.”
“I left me wallet at home. Can yer stand me some cash?”
And the customers and staff inside the pub look out to see the source of the broad, smiling laughter: two friends chuckling to each other, happy, encased in a golden moment of Time.
* * *
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