The Future Begins Here

Many of you will have noticed that I have been drifting aimlessly through life for quite some time now. Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with this. It's quite common for people to be perfectly content living their whole life one day at a time.

I, however, am not one of those people. I am the kind of person who constantly worries about what tomorrow will bring and whether or not I'll have the ability to contend with it. I have a very poor ability to accurate gauge where my life is taking me and what troubles it may lead me headlong into. I am even less able to formulate appropriate and effective responses to said troubles. Needless to say, I am constantly wracked with a sort of nonspecific anxiety.

I recently, finally, came to the conclusion that I could no longer be content with merely persisting in the laissez faire fashion I'd become accustomed to. The time had come to actually do something about it. I was aware of only one course of action that would give me any edge over the future's ambush tactics. I went to see a fortune teller.

Fortune telling might seem like a load of hogwash to you. Personally, I've long had an interest in the mystic arts and am an amateur(ie. self taught) palm reader. Admittedly, my knowledge is far from complete, but I can easily identify and read the heart line, Lifeline, head line, Dr. Fate line, etc. My own analysis of my own hand, compared to the life events I've experienced, indicates a strong corrolation between the two. So you'll have to forgive me if I choose to believe there is some legitimacy to this stuff.

Of course, the number of fakers and charlatans in the fortune telling profession only lends much wood to the doubter's fire. Most of them are lazy immigrant housewives whose knowledge comes from internet courses and pocket books. So finding the right fortune teller can be it's own ordeal.

I was looking only for a gypsy fortune teller (the original, and still the best!). Unfortunately, these tend to be rare, especially here in the new world. It was my good fortune then (hmmm) that my local yellow pages were able to yield up one Ungorag Hegreblegsho. She was a hungarian national who had the misfortune(hmmm) of being in Poland right around the same time that Germany invaded. She managed to escape, despite having Reinhard Heydrich himself on her tail.

In time, she and her husband left the old country forever and arrived in america. In the decades since, they have lived in relative poverty in over two dozen cities until he died six years ago. Since then, she has been plying her trade out of the basement of an old brick building in downtown Kelowna. In total, we're talking about sixty years of fortune telling altogether. I had my doubts about finding a more accomplished professional in the field.

When I arrived at her fortune telling headquarters this morning, I found it to be much as you would expect. Dimly lit rooms were more like mighty mounds of dusty clutter, occasionally punctuated by a few traversable corridors. Stacks of moldy books and strange things that looked like abstract scuplture, but probably served some mystical diving purpose, littered the place. I even saw a skull with a candle on top, though I suspect that was just for atmosphere.

And cats! My god, the cats! Cats on the floor, cats on the ceiling, cat on my head, cats in pajamas, you name it.

Ungorag herself may well have been a walking stereotype, with wrinkled pruneface and missing teeth, hunched back, bandana atop her head and jingling tassles all over her colourful clothes. I had clearly come to the right person. I was further impressed when, rather than starting off with a bunch of small talk, we got right down to business.

We sat at opposite sides of a round table, a crystal ball between us. She required three objects of dear personal value to me. I provided her with my grandmother's mummified hand, a Jar Jar Binks toy from Taco Bell, and the label from the only bottle of Stein Lagos, a beer I'd invented in college and intended to market as "distinctly elvish". Though I strongly believed in the product, the project was shelved when taste testers were put off by my slogan. They said it made Stein Lagos seem gayer than Zima.

With the trio of objects arranged before her, Ungorag began to mumble and chant. Her eyes rolled back into her head, a clammy fog rolled in from parts unknown across the floor. Cats yowled to one another from room to room. Ungorag's chanting became louder and faster. Cats bolted from the room, knocking over shit the way the always do. Then the chanting and the commotion ceased as suddenly as the began. All was quiet. Until Ungorag spoke. Her head was tilted back as far as it could go. Watching her throat bob up and down as she spoke was both mildly disconcerting and hypnotic.

"You will have three great fortunes in your life. You have realized one of them already."

I thought hard about this. It occured to me that when my Grandmother(not the one I wrote a letter to some months back) had died, the one who's hand was now on the table, she had left me a considerable inheritence. I was young at the time, though, and squandered this wealth. Nevertheless, this must have been what the old gypsy was refering to. I told her of those circumstances, and she agreed that had been my first great fortune.

"What of the others yet to come? Can you speak on them further?" I inquired. This, after all, was basically what I had come to hear. There was a low gurgling in the back of her throat instead of a proper response. Confident that we had not yet finished here, I waited patiently. Finally, an answer came.

"You will discover a thing of value if you watch and listen with care. You have twice passed over this treasure, but a third chance you will have."

Of this, I did not know what to think. I simultaneously cursed myself for missing this thing twice while wondering where to concentrate my attention so as to not miss it this third time. Without knowing the nature of this treasure, it was hard to think in specifics... which was the condition that brought me here originally. Uncanny! I encouraged her to speak more on the subject.

"You will soon meet a person who will be of great influence should you cultivate their friendship."

It was not clear to me if this was the treasure I had missed, or another great fortune due to me. I pressed her for clarity on the matter.

"Difficult to see. Always in motion the future is."

This struck me as unusually profound. Before I could inquire more, she had already moved on.

"You have been involved with several loves. In all, your conduct has been perfectly blameless. Regardless, you had trouble with your relations as a result."

I nearly fell over, even though I was sitting. She had very nearly exactly described the situation with my sister and the circumstances that lead to my being kicked out of the house. I wished suddenly that I'd brought a tape recorder. Ungorag didn't need to tell me of my blamelessness in the matter, I was already convinced of that. But it would help me out considerably if word of my innocence got to my mother's ears from lips other than my own. I told her the details, and she declined to speak to my mother in person. I asked how this situation would resolve itself.

"Your relations will be prepared to treat you with great unkindness, but if you show them only resolute conduct, you will daunt them."

Sounds cool. Next stop; Resolute City!

"You have had an enemy who had caused you much grief."

No question. Roddy McAmsterdam.

"His efforts to do you harm will go too far and recoil apon him. Else, you will live beyond his death."

Her words that I would outlive this foe only confirmed my suspicions of their identity. Roddy's brain cloud meant he had only a short time left to live. Still, it seemed he was not yet done with me, and would be yet one more thing to be attentive for.

"Ere long, you will meet someone who will fall in love with you, if encouraged."

I wondered who this might be briefly, then realised that I hadn't met this person yet. I wondered if there'd be room for her on the pile of laundry between me and Stephanie. The revelations were coming in fast, now, as she was speaking again before I could enquire on any one subject.

"A friend has done you wrong for a wrong you did first."

This sounded like Marshall to me. I hadn't seen hide nor hair of him in quite some time. Even his acts of vengence apon me had ceased ever since I slipped off the "Blogs of Note" list. She paused long enough for me to enquire how to fix things.

" A thing once done cannot be undone, but it may yet be mitigated."

I felt like I'd heard this before. It didn't really matter as long as there was still cause for optimism. This was good, for I still felt guilty and responsible for the whole mess. I leaned back in my chair and let out a sigh of relief. As I was leaning back, my eyes drifted up to the ceiling, right to the spot where her own eyes would be looking. And I saw a bunch of notecards glued to the ceiling! The lettering was large for her old eyes to read, so the words were easily discerned by youthful peepers. All the answers she'd been feeding me could be found up there. I'd been had. I confronted her with the evidence.

"The spirits put them up there!"

I stormed out of there in a huff. All that time and energy wasted. As I swiftly made my way down the street, no better off than when I'd arrived, I realised that I had no proof that spirits hadn't put the cards up there. So now, instead of just plain not knowing what the future held, I now had some idea of what the future might hold, but with no way to know the accuracy of what I knew.

I couldn't decide which was the worse situation to be in. I knew what to do about it, though; Go home and go back to sleep.