I came to visit an old woman one day,
looking to have my fortune read.
I didn't really believe in any of it—
I thought it was all bullshit,
an endless stream of nonsense and tricks,
old women speaking in vague tones,
their promises: futures almost guaranteed,
like the sun rising,
or a heartbreak.
How cold, the sensation
that something in this world is deeply, deeply wrong.
Everyone feels it—
that something is deeply, deeply wrong.
And they don't come to these kinds of places to fix it.
They come to these kinds of places
to have their suspicions confirmed.
That's what they believe.
That's why they're here.
But I was there for something else.
I can't remember what it was.
I think it was something I saw in a dream—
something from a dream that pulled me,
in a way that made me more at ease with the world,
already at ease with everything.
And that ease of the world
was what I wanted shattered.
That's why I went to the old woman.
I went a little further outside the city than I normally did,
past all the pristine roads,
where the first potholes and cracks
started to ride across the surface,
where the lawns became a little wilder,
where the houses became a little less titanic and grandiose.
She was right next to a church—
a more opulent building, if only very slightly.
The church was humble, worn down, broken.
The only pristine thing about it
was the cross that sat on top of the roof.
The masonry and the bricks that sat on its facade
were dirty, almost black, from the years of neglect.
The little fortune teller sat in a more modern establishment,
recently constructed by modern sensibilities
and modern hands with modern tools.
I went inside and she was waiting for me.
On the table—the table was green,
I almost said marine—
a flowing piece that didn't have any more than a single leg.
Also there was a plastic tree.
The first time I walked inside, I sat down,
and she exchanged no words with me.
She reached down behind her,
pulled out the deck of cards,
and told me to pick one.
She didn't speak, mind you.
She didn't say anything to me.
She just kind of looked,
and I knew what she wanted me to do.
So I took my card and held it in my hand.
I felt it cool—
and colder,
and colder.
I didn't flip it to see the other side,
but what I did
erupted in a pale white fire.
The fire raced from my fingertips down my arm,
tracing itself into my ears, into my eyes.
I saw the fire in everything.
I heard its sizzling, burning.
I smelled its phosphor,
and its hate,
and its rage,
and its brightness.
I couldn't see, couldn't hear anything,
and it was cold—like a blizzard.
I imagined the fire fell into a river
and vanished immediately,
snowflakes on the road.
And I knew that my dream was not a dream.