She writes my pain down on a piece of paper. The sum of my misery scribbled across the stark back of a grocery list. There is no hesitation or thought as she writes. With a swift flourish of thoughtlessness she is finished.
She folds her note and slides it toward me, the used car salesman of psychics.
My hand reaches across the table, hesitant and then ravenous. I rip the note open, my fingers two ravenous monsters lustful for their query. She gazes at my greed and I notice a question flicker somewhere within her dull eyes.
This is when I realize I will be disappointed. I stop.
She looks nothing like the others and everything I envisioned. There are no beads framing the doorways of her smoky trailer. The walls are sun soft yellow or perhaps just stained by cigarettes. They are sprinkled with pictures of the same four children, grandchildren perhaps. They are smiling and beautiful. It aches to look at them so I don’t.
We sit at a rusted Formica table beneath a light that flickers too often and illuminates nothing. To her left is an old ash tray in the shape of a porcelain ladle, to her right an inconspicuous little jar. The elephant in the room.
A puzzled smile clouds the greed in her dull eyes, suppressing it entirely for now. She pats my arm, her leathery old hands somehow soft.
“Go on.” Her voice is choked by gravel.
I glance once more to the damn jar, stuffed to the brim with green appreciation. With the jar nagging me it is impossible to consider her concern genuine. The jar and I both know what she is after.
I don’t know why I keep coming to these places. It’s become an addiction. Maybe I’m just a masochist; they never give me what I need and I leave just as hungry and unsatisfied as when I came.
But I suppose it is cheaper than therapy.
I glance at the paper she slipped me, the black letters stark against their pristine setting. The curves of her handwriting cannot mask the vulgarity she has scribed. She has recapitulated my grief with one succinct word.
Anguish.
But this I knew and so did she. It did not take a psychic to pinpoint my teetering mental state. The circles beneath my gaze, the lines across my face. Unkempt hair and mismatching socks. The way I can’t bear eye contact. They all gave me away. Everyone can see it though no one will acknowledge it.
Maybe that’s why I keep finding myself here.
“Why?” I ask.
It’s the only answer I came here for today.
She smiles, a sage with pink cotton candy for hair and acrylic talons. She has mistaken my question for a validation. But I already know where this is going and so would a real psychic.
She closes her eyes and furrows her brow. Because of this, I am to presume she is meditating. She raps her talons steadily against the Formica. Like reading tea leaves or tarot cards, the resounding sound is her channel to the other side.
“I’m getting something from a small woman with dark hair. Her name starts with an S. I am sensing great love from this person.”
It amuses me that I, the paying customer, am always expected to supply the psychic with answers.
One eye pops open, a response to my silence. I shrug my shoulders at her and she takes my ambivalence as an aggression.
“I can’t read for you unless you are more open,” she grumbles.
“Thank you for your time,” I say.
Her smoker’s lips scowl as I stand to leave.
“If you keep wearing it like a crown it will never fade away,” she grumbles.
I toss a quarter in her jar and walk out the door, leaving her with what she left me- one cheap shred of substance.
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“The sum of my misery scribbled across the stark back of a grocery list”—this is a fine line is a very good opening. me likey.
“hesitant and then”—you could kill “and” for the sake of word economy. or not. up to you.
“She looks nothing like the others and everything I envisioned”—this line stopped me. if either feels incomplete or maybe you wanted an “or like” instead of an “and.” something to consider.
“We sit at a rusted Formica”—does formica really rust?
“greed in her dull eyes”—this is the 2nd time you’ve described her eyes as “dull.” might want to think of something else.
“the black letters stark against”--and there’s “stark” again. is it bad? no- but noticeable.
“a sage with pink cotton candy for hair and acrylic talons”—perfect and funny. you’ve a fine eye for details. well done.
“the resounding sound”—this landed odd for me maybe because the word choices are too similar. would you consider “resonating?”
“I shrug my shoulders at her”—you could kill “at her.” it’s implied.
cute ending. very good. i hate psychics.
criticisms?
mind your word economy and repetition. other than that- this is a fun piece. well done.
The double use of ravenous can be very off-putting and immediately jerk the reader out of the piece. Using it twice to describe your hand then fingers is like hearing a cd skip, it prevents the song (or story in this case) from being fully absorbed from point to finish. You repeat greed and dull eyes quite a bit, too. The same effect is felt again in resounding sound. I think you should use onomatopoeia here in conjunction with resounding, like ‘resounding taps’.
That being said, I really wondered where this was going and what the situation was to lead a search for psychics. The simple, yet detailed descriptions kept me curious, and I think that’s the strength in this piece. You’re able to turn a moment into story, and that’s a powerful thing. I’d love to read more.
As much as I love the word ravenous, you use it twice too close together.
Greed is mentioned twice in close proximity as well.
I like many of your word choices, I think you can tidy this up into a smart little piece. Good luck.
This piece was nice but, a bit to wordy in some places. Like at the beginning where you describe the table, and the setting. There were just too many details, it took away from the point of the story.
I like the idea of the story, and some of the writing is very good. However, I think the comment that seeing a fortune-teller is “cheaper than therapy” should be expanded on. Also, from my experience of fortune-tellers, a note containing one word passed across the table is not part of their modus operandi.
I really like “the used car salesman of psychics.” and also “The walls are sun soft yellow or perhaps just stained by cigarettes.” Sums up the cynicism of the protagonist perfectly. (There should however be a hyphen between sun and soft and a comma after yellow.)
A few notes on the text:
“My hand reaches across the table, hesitant and then ravenous. I rip the note open, my fingers two ravenous monsters lustful for their query.” Ravenous is used twice in consecutive sentences. Also, perhaps “query” should be “quarry” ?
“I shrug my shoulders at her and she takes my ambivalence as an aggression.” Should be “takes my ambivalence as aggression”. However, a shrug of the shoulders does not really indicate aggression. Maybe disdain?
“to her right an inconspicuous little jar. The elephant in the room.” Inconspicuous and elephant don’t go together.
“The way I can’t bear eye contact. They all gave me away. Everyone can see it though no one will acknowledge it. Maybe that’s why I keep finding myself here. “
“gave” should be “give”, as “gave” changes the tense halfway through this passage.
Overall, a nice little story, but I think it could be improved to become a great little story.
For some reason, page 2 appears twice, perhaps a software fault?
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