A Change of Perspective (Short Fiction Contest Entry)
Submission for The Writer’s Cramp competition on writing.com. Featured in the editors picks of the May 11th 2011 writing.com newsletter :)
For the first time in - oh, about 25 years - the fortune-teller’s mind was a complete blank.
The cards lay before her on the table, resplendent in their dazzling designs and colours, but completely devoid of meaning. This was … deeply unsettling.
Megan reached one bejewelled hand towards the velvetine table, and her black fingernail marked one corner of the next unturned card. With a flourish, the card was overturned and then slowly placed into its proper position among the others. “Six of Pentacles,” she said aloud.
The image on the card was the one she had seen countless times since she had first dabbled in the paranormal at the age of fifteen, and which had somehow become her career. Upon the card was a smiling gentleman in red robe and head-dress, handing gold coins to two beggars at his feet. The image was deeply personal to her by now. It had come to her in dreams on several occasions, and both times its particular significance had been obvious upon awakening. It had never been just a picture on a card.
But now - she felt like a complete rookie, with only dry superficial facts from books to aid her in her deductions. “Six of Pentacles: a gift, a fleeting opportunity - “. Megan trailed off, and slowly closed her eyes.
Where was her talent? Where was the quirky skill which had been the shame of her adolescence, but had always kept her at least one step away from trouble?
There was of course one difference in this reading. She opened her eyes and stared glassily into the space where the client would usually be sat. The chair on the other side of the table was empty, and for the first time ever.
She had always been superstitious about doing readings for herself. There had been a forbidding warning about self-divination in one of the manuals of paganism she had read many years ago: some dire threat about horrors which would surely come in her dreams, and cast her into oblivion while her vacated body slept on. Nothing to be trifled with.
But that fear had come in her teenage years, and all these years later it seemed ridiculous that it had affected her so. Oh, the irony. A psychic who can’t see into her own soul, despite the countless clients who had walked away happy. The starch-shirted businessman who came to her without fail each quarter of the financial year, and whose famous name she had sworn to never speak for fear of his association with the paranormal. The tall, grinning spanish guitarist who found inspiration for compositions in her readings.
And now herself - one unhappy customer. Megan Wainright stretched both arms above her head and spoke in melodious tones: “I respect and accept all the information the universe is free to give me. If the cards do not aid me, then I request that my unconscious mind give me the answer I seek in some other form.” And then she fixed the image of her predicament in her mind. The house she wanted to buy, the one with the towering conifers and hedges cut into animal shapes. The one with the original rustic wardrobes built into the walls. The one which was more than a smidgen too pricey for her kind … but she just had to have.
The following morning at the breakfast table, Megan’s mobile phone suddenly rang and in her fright, she nearly drowned it in skimmed milk. It was Stacey, her red-haired pal from yoga. The usual pleasantries were exchanged, and then the conversation got onto more serious subjects. Megan recounted the previous day. “Oh the reading! That was weird, it was just a complete mental blank. A bit like when you’re so tired, and … Well, anyway it was really simple in the end! Such a silly oversight.”
The quick, metallic chatter of Stacey’s reply came over the earpiece.
“No, it wasn’t that!” replied Megan. “People do self-readings all the time, it’s only me that was superstitious about it. And I’m definitely sure I’m over that now. No, it was a slightly more subtle insight. I went and sat in the client’s seat on the other side of the table, and suddenly it all made sense!”
Again came the breathless electronic reply over the phone.
“No it was nothing to do with the room. You know, when I do a reading for someone else - which is all the time - I’d always deal the cards so the other person could see them. So I’d see them the wrong way up. This time, for some reason I dealt them the right way up. It just seemed weird to do it the normal way with no-one there to see them. So when I sat on the other side of the table and saw the cards the usual way, suddenly everything fell into place …”
“Stacey - I’m only psychic when the cards are upside down!”