The Third Eye
by Nicole Howard
illustration RAchelle
If you could know your future, would you take it? That thing just dangling, enticing, throbbing, ringing in your ears, always lurking there. Fuck living for the present day and that Zen Buddhist “um-sounds-real-good-and-easy-yeah-I-can-meditate-on-this-moment-I-guess.” You know you want to know. It would be so much easier in the morning, instead of getting stuck on washing your hair, thinking, washing your hair, thinking… the mirror’d be saying, “Yeah, I know what’s in store for you today, ya little blimey.” And all the swirls of life spent riding on a treacherous rollercoaster of a Sit ‘N’ Spin would stop and just stand still. That toy kaleidoscope called life, where the colors are all distorted because someone won’t stop playing with it, no matter how much you yell, would suddenly just slam down and the mist would clear. You’d be heady with the power of the obnoxiouslessness and mysteriouslessness of just… knowing.
I love psychic charlatans. I gasp at their words and I stumble for the little pieces they throw forth. There is a little piece of truth in everything and these people gobble those pieces up then regurgitate them back at you depending on how much money you’re willing to part with. I decided a long time ago to cheat when it comes to knowing my future; I’m a robber. And I’m sick of the complete shallowness of contrivance and weapons always aimed at me while my back is turned, and the cuts wound deep. So, no more. I am fighting to know and it all starts here, “Nicole’s Journey Into the Kaleidoscope.” And you get to come along whether you want to or not. Face it, you’re hooked by now and want to know the ending. Everyone always wants to know what the ending will be.
Maybe you think that palmistry is the phrenology of the 1990’s, or as useless as astrology. I am not so convinced. On the palm of your hand may live a map of your life etched in a series of lines. There are mainly four; head, heart, life and fate. My interest led me to study palmistry for a good six months, so when my wanderings took me to see Mrs. Cora in Boston, I was not totally ignorant. She charges $15.00 for a “certified” palm reading, I quote from her “business (I use the term here very loosely) card,” “Mrs. Cora (offers) personal and professional confidential readings, no matter what your problems are, she can help you! She can see into all areas of your life.” Uh-huh, definitely not mine. She did not psychically pick up on the fact that after spending not even five minutes with me for a $15.00 palm reading, I would hereby destroy her.
Using my powers of perception, I broke through the hollow walls of that apartment above Copy Quik and determined the formula that is used on Mrs. Cora’s hapless, hopeful victims. It has three quick steps and takes no more than four minutes if done proficiently. One, take a good look at the person you are doing a “psychic reading” on and suck as much as you can from them. Focus in on things, such as, “she wears a lot of silver jewelry and therefore must be creative.” Next, assume that the person is there because they are insecure about where they are in life right now. Tell them things like, “you are having a hard time right now, but will come through it victoriously.” Third, the person is sitting in front of you because they want to know about the general pertinent questions of life; mainly success in career and love. By generalizing around these stepping stones and asking small questions to the generally pathetically agreeable goop sitting before you, you can pull off a reading with virtually no skill at all. How guileless and cunning.
I will say that I was told very nice, sicky-good things, but what the hell was she going to do, tell me that my whole life will suck? Lately, I’ve noticed that I have this new air of confidence about myself (yeah right) after seeing Mrs. Cora because I KNOW that I will have lots of money, own my own business, have several careers, establish a name for myself, have a summer romance, and meet my “soul-mate” around New Year’s (he will be tall). I think that my appearance made her throw in a couple of other oddities, such as, “you will move to San Francisco” (what??!!) and “you will be a counselor for children” (no way!!!). She did hit on several things such as, unhappy childhood and recent painful break-up, but if you gave me your palm I could easily tell you that too (and for free). But don’t call me “Mrs. Cora!” I am a moon-beam Star-Bright chick and I refuse to be daunted by people who masquerade behind crystal balls, because I know there are genuine psychics out there. Sheryl in Braintree is one of them. For $15.00 you are supposed to get fifteen minutes, but she ended up spending over a half an hour with me and did not charge me anything extra. She did several tarot spreads (using two different decks of tarot cards), plus a psychic reading where she held my hands and told me different things about my future and past. I dabble in tarot cards and am even capable of giving readings and gaining some specifics, but she was most excellent at this art. She did all sorts of tarot spreads I had never before seen and that I am still trying to duplicate.
She told me that I have “guardian angels” looking out for me, which actually scares me more than anything. Even if they are good, there has to be evil attached to their wings somewhere. And are they there all the time? Don’t they get sick of me? I sure do. Or maybe they like me way too much and are obsessively stalking me. This set me off on a tangent (which lasted about three days) and ended in a witch-like summoning of “them” (this is to say I barely called them as they worry me more than they interest me, so it was a half-hearted weak thing that might be termed a “muttered whisper”). I said (in my mind) “if you’re there then give me a sign.” And sure enough that night I woke up in the middle of the night for no apparent reason, and there were sparkles flying all around me. It looked like loose glitter falling. I bet you think I am a syndicate from that I Saw An Angel show, or that drugs were involved, but no, this is a true story. I am so very sane, but then again, I could be lying.
I guess that Sheryl could have been lying, but she hit on too many pertinent things. She knew I was from Cape Cod, knew that New Hampshire was good for me (a lot of my friends are there) and knew that I would be living on the beach for the summer. She said I would come into a large sum of money soon, but I am still waiting for it. The only way that I would ever get any money is if someone died, so it’s making me a little anxious. She said that my “soul-mate’s” name is “Ron,” and that I will meet him in eight years. I am glad that I know this so far in advance so I can prepare for his arrival. I have already gotten him a monogrammed bathrobe and I changed my license plate to say “LUVRON.” I am psychically prepared for things now. I am a toy soldier with a gun, but I keep on dropping it. All these inklings are dripping all around me and I’ve hardly ever seen rain that amounts to anything other than sorrow. And now I am perpetually poised with my toy gun aiming at all the things that I think are going to happen. Merde!
The thing that I have figured out is this; psychics can make very good predictions of your future. I truly believe that they can have a good idea at that exact moment in time. The trouble is, things change rapidly. We travel down all sorts of unforeseen tributaries, so the predictions change alongside this. It’s all tied up in the way we never really have anything certain, no matter how real it may seem. You really have nothing right now, because any second, something could come along and take away the things you call “foundation” and “security.”
Things like this convince me of a “flexible fate.” There are things that you will encounter, particular types of situations, but they are not fixed. We’re travelling on this huge web, with chain reaction action, setting and closing things off all in the same breath. We’re just travelling, travelling… eventually we’ll run into things born out of different situations, no matter which part of the web we chose to climb or drop down. Spiderman was good at this. He always caught himself before falling. I’m always trying to keep myself from going splat on the pavement, a dead bug.
I think that the day will come when psychologists and psychiatrists are overlooked and passed over for psychics. They’re cosmic band-aids, after all! They’ll never tell you anything bad about yourself and the payment for both services probably equals out. I recommend going to see a psychic (but I would never recommend going to see a “Doctor of the Mind”). A psychic may give you some insight, plus it’s fun and things look less swirly and more orderly afterwards.
Hey, contact me at Lollipop for free palm and tarot card readings. My business card says, “everything I tell you now is true at this exact moment in time.”
