Foretold in smoke

Poretold in smoke chapter 3

You are the river. You are the force that cuts a path through the unknown, that courses where it wills. You are a rush of life, pure and sweet, with the power to shape and form and forge your own future.

My gift to you is no parlor trick, my predictions are not conjecture; I simply tell you what you are, and what to look for, and you will find it every time.

I do not spin the threads of fate, but occasionally, I give the threads a gentle pluck.

***

Jim B. 1/5 Stars

Filing a police report. This woman is a scam artist.

Maurice W. 1/5 Stars

Waste of time and money. Basically told me my life was going to s**t. Real downer. And the incense smelled like burnt hair.

Bryson D. 1/5 Stars

This is why I don’t trust hippy-dippy, twinkle-dust, voo-doo garbage. Creepy art, obnoxious music, and some old hag just getting off on telling people how terrible their life is going to be. And no refund policy? Well, f*** you.

I know your type. You’re all the same. You come to me, seeking something you believe life has withheld from you. Arrogance hangs on you like a garment; you wear disdain like a second skin. You burst through my doorway, ignoring the closed sign in the window, insisting you just need a few minutes from this crazy lady and her crystal ball.

Your eyes adjust to the dimly lit room, and you squint at the artwork on the wall. You recoil, unsettled by its abstraction: its unorthodoxy disgusts you, makes you squirm. You cover your nose and cough against the cloud of bitter smoke hanging in the air, swishing your arms like an aggravated primate. The twanging of unfamiliar instruments rises above the silence, warbling from a hidden speaker. The sound is eerie, foreign, and makes goose-flesh ripple across your arms. The stock-image experience you anticipated is something altogether different—it’s alive, sinister, and it smells like fire.

I sense no hesitation within you—you have come to grab the future by its horns and demand it bend and submit to your desires. You are impatient with life’s natural process of discovery and want to know what obstacles lie ahead on the path on which you’re blindly running. There is no fear of the consequences of knowing, no regard for how it will change the now. You want answers, and you will have them. You claim a chair and wait, twisting and wringing your hands impatiently until I join you across the small table.

You watch me like a stray dog you think might bite, your jaw set in defiance against anything you’re prepared to reject. Because you don’t want the truth. You want to be immersed in shimmering nonsense, to stretch out your palm and receive a shiny token of fabricated tales, to be placated by promises of a glowing future. I sense your coldness, your heart of stone, your resentment of everything that stands in your way. What I will tell you is the truth, and the truth will unfold as I tell it—not because I have cursed you, not because I am a she-devil hiding under beads and bangles, but because you are a curse to yourself. And you know it.