Short Writing Week 5
“Prediction”
Some context here.
Jen pushed the curtain aside and smirked. The inside of the little tent was exactly what she’d expected: fake candles (can’t burn the place down), a few pictures of nonspecific creatures and gods (probably AI at this stage, really) dotted around the place, the woman herself in flowing, colourful robes and a beatific smile. Even though really she’s a fraud and just after a few quid. Well, you pay for entertainment, may as well get a laugh out of it.
The psychic was sitting on a wooden chair, her tent in the middle of a street festival somehow blocking out all the noise from outside despite looking and feeling like it was made of Tesco Basics tarp. She reached out her hand and held Jen’s for a number of seconds, not shaking it or anything sensible, just holding it for long enough that Jen felt she had to say something.
“How much?” was what came out.
“Entirely up to you,” said the psychic. “However much you feel the reading is worth.”
Jen hated this kind of pay-what-you-like sales gambit, just tell me a number and I’ll give it to you. This lady has taken dynamic pricing and made it run wholly on guilt. What if it’s not worth anything? That’ll show her.
The psychic was still holding her hand and Jen gently withdrew it and sat down.
“I need an item,” she said to Jen, who scrambled around her pockets. She found and rejected an old tissue, considered a train ticket stub, and settled on a notebook she carried around ostensibly to write down ideas, but that remained entirely blank.
The psychic held it in her hand and closed her eyes. Jen lost interest a bit and gazed around the tent. Little statue with a few arms. Might be your man from Mortal Kombat. Finish him.
“You have a choice coming up,” said the psychic, eyes still closed.
“Oh yeah?” asked Jen. Everyone in the entire world has a choice coming up.
“It’s an important one,” she said, eyes opening.
“Wouldn’t want it to be a pointless one.”
“I cannot tell you what it is or what to do.”
The amount Jen felt the reading was worth was plummeting.
“What I can tell you is how to prepare yourself for it. You must disregard your knowledge of the world as you see it. You must take what you see at face value and act accordingly. Are you prepared?”
“Uh, no,” said Jen, a little creeped out. “I didn’t know I had to do it just in the time you were talking there. Can I try again?”
“Time is important.”
“Right but I can’t just chuck all my presuppositions into the bin at a moment’s notice because some lady in a tent said I should.”
“When you were seven years old you found a bird.”
Jen froze.
“It didn’t fly away. You tell yourself it didn’t fly away because it was damaged or injured in some way, but this is because you cannot face up to the possibility that it trusted you. You picked it up and held its wings closed. You lifted it up to your face and looked into its eyes. You put it in a puddle and held it there until it stopped moving.”
“How,” began Jen, and then faltered.
“You told Monica what you did and she was sickened. She didn’t tell anyone but she was never your friend again. Neither sets of parents knew why, and still don’t know to this day. But you think about it constantly.”
“This is impossible.”
“Now you are prepared.”
“That wasn’t what I was supposed to prepare for?” asked Jen, looking around at the tent exit.
“You will be dead in eighteen days.”
“One hundred per cent fuck this,” said Jen, standing up and brushing down her skirt.
“Take it at face value and act accordingly.”
“What does that even mean?”
“You can look for a trick or a deception, or you can accept the world as it exists and wait for your choice to arrive.”
“No,” said Jen, simply.
“How much is the reading worth to you?” asked the psychic, as Jen strode out of the tent.