Ninety-one years old. That’s how old I’ll be when I die, according to the fortune-teller I saw.
I didn’t ask to know this, she just told me. If you could find out the exact date of when you were going to die, would you want to know?
“You will be ninety-one, and you will die on the seventh day of a certain month.”
“What month?” I asked,
“I will not tell you. That is not fair” I didn’t see her logic, but we moved on anyway.
Naturally, I think we’re all sceptical of fortune tellers, so I decided to see one.
My Mum had recommended Mystic Meg to me. She had seen her a few years earlier and was amazed by the accuracy of her reading.
Operating from the privacy of her own home, Mystic Meg avoided large crowds (as well declaring income I would imagine).
On entering her house I was welcomed with a warm hug and a cold cup of Turkish coffee. A small dog, which seemed very anxious to mate with my leg, was then introduced to me. Mystic Meg told me that the dog sometimes helped her with her readings. This lady is crazy! I thought to myself.
“I’m not crazy, you know” she answered with a strong Eastern European accent “I’m eccentric!” Had Mystic Meg just read my mind?
I apologised for being late to the appointment, blaming it on my lost phone which stored all my appointments.
“Your phone is not lost” came her reply. “You will find it in your bedroom when you get home”
This was as reassuring, as it was scary. This lady seemed to know everything!
Soon we were sat at her dining room table, a lit candle flickered in between us.
Facing each other, she asked me to place the palms of my hands on the table. She then gently rested her own hands on mine. Her eyes closed. We were ready to begin.
“Who is Jeff?“ she asked
I racked my brains, but I couldn’t think of a Jeff that I knew.
“I don’t know a Jeff, sorry”
“George?”
“No”
“John? “
“No”
“Jen?”
“No!”
We weren’t off to a good start.
A moments pause, and then,
“Who is Chubby?” Finally a name I knew.
“That’s the name of my sisters teddy bear”
“Thank you” she claimed, laughing evilly as she nodded her head at me prompting recognition.
Mystic Meg had certainly plucked the name from nowhere, but I couldn’t help but wonder how this would help me in any way.
She continued,
“I see the number ‘1300’” I waited for more information as she began talking to herself, “Thirteen hundred minutes? No. Hours? No. Days? Yes!”
A long pause heightened the suspense, “In thirteen hundred days, something special will happen to you”
What an anticlimax!
As unfulfilling as it was sweeping, Mystic Meg had delivered information that I could do nothing with, other than wait. This was a catch-22 heavily favouring the fortune teller; no matter what she said, I couldn’t prove whether she was right or wrong until the future had become the present, by which time I would probably forget anyway. I have since made a mental note to expect something special to happen in the year 2012. I’ll keep you posted!
“Excuse me Sebastian”
“Yes?” I answered nervously,
“Someone is talking to me” This comment I found strange as I knew that there were only two people in the room; Mystic Meg and myself. There was of course the dog, which was still attempting to hump my leg, but I could tell she wasn’t referring to him. “They’re standing right behind me” she then specified.
I extended my neck and squinted my eyes just to double check. This confirmed that there was definitely no-one there. I quickly came to the conclusion that Mystic Meg was either a) mad, b) referring to a midget that was hiding behind here chair, or c) channelling a spirit from the afterlife. After checking under her chair for small feet, I eliminated ‘b’. She was either crazy, or the real deal.
A ghostly silence ensued as I waited patiently for her to finish the conversation she was having with someone I couldn’t see. Her lips moving ever so slightly, I couldn’t help but wonder what topic of conversation one might have with a ghost or apparition; World politics? Celebrity adoptions? Favourite scene from the movie ‘Ghost’?
My coffee cup, which was now empty, sat centrally on the table. As Mystic Meg opened her eyes, she grabbed at it and flipped its upside down on the saucer. Without a word, she left it and then looked back at me before again closing her eyes.
“You’re about to travel overseas”
“Yes, that’s right”
“Thankyou” she once again claimed. “Let me tell you something” I sat there waiting for a bomb shell. Her face tensed with concentration, as her mind skipped forward through time, “You’ll be on a boat”
“Yes!”
“I see you crossing an ocean”
“Yes!” Number ‘40’ on my list- sail the sea’s!
“You will need a certificate first though”
Mystic Meg had hit her stride emphatically. Only days prior to our meeting had been told that I would need to get a sailing safety certificate before I could work on a boat.
Caught up with excitement, I mentioned that I was completing a list of sorts.
“I know” came the reply. Of course she did! “You will complete your list and will influence others in doing so”
Things were getting better by the second! I was going to complete my list! I wondered whether this might happen in 1300 days?
“People will read of your journey as well” Although this also excited me greatly, I kicked myself for having to prompt her. I would have preferred her to have worked towards this herself. None the less, I had a huge smile on my face.
Soon enough, I also found out that I would own a house on stilts and that I would have a wrap around balcony. Within that house would be a wife, and this lady may well be of a darker complexion. This, I told her, would not be hard, as I hadn’t seen the sun in a while. Mystic Meg laughed.
Things were really looking up in my life, until she pointed on my left foot.
“Be careful!” she screamed.
I jumped up thinking the dog, who had not stopped gyrating on my leg since we started, was about to ejaculate, but she quickly asked me to sit again.
“What is it?” I asked, trying to compose myself.
“I can feel you’re left foot being hurt. Be careful!”
Having not given me a time frame in relation to this comment, I automatically presumed my foot was in imminent danger, and so I shielded it with my hands.
“When?” I asked, hunched over on my chair,
“I don’t know when, but make sure you wear the right footwear on your travels”
Before I had time to reply, Mystic Meg opened her eyes again. She then picked up my coffee cup slowly, as if expecting a small bug to crawl out from inside, and rotated her hand so that the mouth of the cup was now facing us. Our heads, now side by side, vied for a better vantage point as we peered deeply inside the cup looking for something that to be quite honest I was still unaware of.
The coffee residue was thick at the bottom of the cup, but whilst being upside down, gravity had enticed the larger clumps to venture towards the mouth of the cup leaving thick trails of dark residue behind them.
“You see?” she said proudly.
See what? I asked myself. If she was referring to coffee residue, then yes, I could see, but I knew that she wasn’t.
“Your wife is here”
I always thought I’d meet my wife whilst socialising at a racecourse or perhaps coincidently through a car crash, and not in a coffee cup. Apparently I was wrong.
Mystic Meg pointed deep within the cup at a particular streak,
“You see, here are her legs, her two arms, and her head. She is beautiful”.
As Mystic Meg continued to point at parts of my future wife’s anatomy, I began to convince myself that one particular streak did resemble a beautiful lady.
“Oh yes! I see her” Although beautiful, I only hoped that she would be bigger in real life.
“And there’s your boat! I told you!”
The boat was actually a lot clearer to see, and I was quite impressed with the detail.
“And this…” she continued, “…this is you and your injured foot” I chose to not take notice of this last comment. Instead, I perved on my wife’s breasts. They were delightfully perky!
It had been two hours since we had started our reading, and we had covered a lot of ground. We were both tired. Over the course of our reading there had been a few things that simply made no sense to me, but at the same time, there were a few things that did make a lot of sense. I’d like to think that all of the fortunes ahead, apart from my injured left foot of course, prove to be correct, who wouldn’t, but as is often the case; time only will tell.
There was of course one thing that I needed to ask; a question that I ask everybody,
“What is one thing that you want to do before you die?”
Without a pause, Mystic Meg faced her right palm to the roof, and slowly raised it, her eyes tracing every movement,
“Levitation”
I had never had this answer.
“I want to experience levitation one more time”
“You’ve levitated before?”
“Only once, whilst having sex. I want to experience sex one more time”
Instantly, I was as confused as I was intimidated. In one foul swoop, we had turned metaphysics into sexual fetish.
Thankfully my time was soon over, and following one last embrace, I left.
How accurate the reading proves, only time will tell, but regardless, I enjoyed the whole experience immensely. Mystic Meg was certainly the most eccentric character I met that day, and her dog was certainly the friskiest.
Was Mystic Meg the real deal? I’m not sure, but on returning home later that day, I decided to have one final search for my phone, confident that I’d find it. After an hour, I gave up. A day later, I found out that it was stolen.
100Things…What’s on your list?
