The Psychic’s Den

I'm not one of those skeptics who try to sniff out and expose charlatans. I believe in signs and omens, patterns and fate, good luck and bad. And most definitely psychics. Maybe this one was having an off day, or my vibe was terribly weak.

I downed the sweet coffee in just a few gulps and handed the demitasse to the polyester-clad clairvoyant. The well-known seer peered into my future with a confident if not entirely enthusiastic air, swirling the coffee grounds into shapes and runes of meaning. According to these dregs, I suffer from extreme indifference. My guardian angel, speaking through the medium, complained that I don't listen to nearly enough music.

La señora began to call out letters; I was to stop her when one of these correlated to the initial of a person I wanted to know about, a person whose fate was strongly linked to mine. She pronounced "W" and looked at me expectantly; I looked blankly back. X. E. G. M. R. C. Z. (Whose name starts with Z?) J. L. M. D. S.

I felt bad just sitting there, but refused to pick a letter simply to stop the painful process.

The matronly psychic con¬tinued naming letters until, nearing the end of the alphabet, she spotted with obvious relief an "F' implying felicidad (happiness) in my near future. And then a "p,” which mysteriously stood for éxito, or success.

Like a fleeting stream of sunlight on an oth¬erwise dreary day, however, the psychic's more positive predictions were short-lived. My reading continued its initial down¬ward spiral when the woman spotted an unfortunate "fuga de dinero": money was leaking steadily out of my life.

Well, she's gotten that right. I handed over 200 pesos for the consultation feeling quite the fool. To her credit, she did ask me if everything was to my liking, if I'd benefited from the reading. Too polite or uptight to tell her otherwise, I accepted my "money leak" and assured her all was well.

---Jane Onstott