If there’s any truth at all to astrology, fortune telling, tarot cards, precognition or any other psychic phenomena in which the future is predicted, I may as well climb into bed, pull the covers over my head, and stay there. Forever.
My actual, day-to-day life is OK, but the future prognosticators typically foresee for me — on those occasions I’m foolish enough to ask — is flat-out lousy.
The first time I was psychically slapped upside the head I was at Cedar Point with my friend, Rose. I’m not a big roller coaster guy (unless you count my relationships) but Rose loved them, so there we were.
After getting my brains scrambled on the aptly named Mean Streak, I was ready for something more sedate. Fortunately, the park maintains a “Frontier Town” area, complete with a quiet, non-brain scrambling museum filled with old stuff that’s fun to look at while your corn dog and cheesy fries digest.
Hidden away in a dark corner of this museum is an actual, working fortune telling machine. You slip in your penny, pull a lever and voila, a card bearing your fortune in 7-point type pops out.
I’m not sure what the science is behind this device. Probably has something to do with chaos theory, black holes and the space-time continuum, but I was an English major and can’t even balance my checkbook without a calculator. Esoteric physics theories are forever beyond me.
At any rate, Rose’s penny delivered a card with the sort of fortune one might expect for a penny; happiness, wealth and a rich, full love life lay in her future. The fortune my penny delivered was considerably less rosy.
According to the card — and I only wish I were kidding here — my future included ill health, disastrous financial decisions and (this is an exact quote) “dying alone and lonely.” The only “good” thing the card predicted was a long life; the better to enjoy my poverty and sickness, lucky me.
What sort of fortune telling sadist would even write a card like this? Being a rational, 21st century man, I decided to ignore it. Time passed and I forgot all about that card.
Until last Friday.
That’s when I met with the tarot card reader, a “clairsentient” named Pam. Pam runs a fortune-telling service and I was interviewing her and one of her clients for a story. After the interview, Pam offered to give me a free “reading.”
I told her I don’t really believe in all that hooey, but the price was right and the place I had interviewed her served martinis. I figured what the heck.
As soon as she began dealing from the tarot deck, I knew I was in trouble. The initial hand — something called the Celtic Cross, if I’m remembering correctly — showed that I was going to have problems at work. As she moved around the cards, she also predicted problems at home, financial troubles and a romantic future more devoid of life than the surface of Mars.
“That’s OK,” Pam said, looking worried, shuffling the deck. “Why don’t you try asking a few yes/no questions and we’ll see what the cards say?”
“OK,” I said, hoping for a reprieve from the previous fortune, or at least an amendment of some sort. “Will I find love?”
Pam shuffled, dealt three cards, all but one of which appeared upside down. Upside down cards, it turns out, are not a good thing. Pam looked apologetic, and maybe a little nervous to be sitting so close to me when it was fast becoming apparent lighting could strike at any moment.
“Money?” I asked. “Will I finally have some this year?”
Three cards, including “Death” and “The Hanged Man,” slipped out of the deck, all upside down. Pam casually inched away from me.
“Well, I’ll be broke and alone,” I said. “Will I at least be happy?”
The cards didn’t actually burst into flames, but they might as well have. I don’t remember which cards Pam dealt, but they were all upside down, all bad.
Pam spent the next hour or so trying to assure me the message of the cards was not written in stone, that things could, conceivably, maybe, possibly, change. But I could tell she didn’t really believe it.
Between antique penny carnival machines and professional mediums, there seems to be a psychic consensus forming around my life. Is it enough to make me a true believer? Let’s just say, the cards say no.
But it makes me wonder if my recent purchase of a black cat was such a great idea.
Mike Taylor’s book, “Looking at the Pint Half Full,” is available at Robbins Book List in Greenville and in Kindle format from Amazon.com. Email Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.
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