The cup with the tealeaves fell from the old lady’s hand.
It hit the floor and smashed into several pieces of china, each piece dotted with wet leaves. She had been reading tealeaves since she was very young, under the guidance of her long departed mother. She had been peering at them for decades, she knew all the symbols. People often came to her for a reading. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Was it clumsiness? Was it that she’d had the briefest glimpse of the death symbol high up on the side of the cup? She couldn’t be sure. She knelt and began gathering up the fragments. She froze when she saw it again, still there and undisturbed, the symbol she understood, but had never actually seen before. She knew he needed to be told.
As she continued collecting pieces in the palm of her hand, she reflected on the fact that the visitor that stood next to her looking on, was a healthy looking twenty-something man who was not likely to pass away from natural causes. She knew that this was leading to something tragic. Something sudden and unexpected. Did she really need to tell him? She took a deep breath and slowly stood up, apologizing and tipping the bits into a bin. “I’m so sorry, dear. That was very clumsy of me.”
The young man, now looking quite anxious, went to speak, then shook his head. “No need to apologise,” he said, finally.
She glanced back at the bin. “I shall have to go looking for another one.” She winced. “You can’t read from just any cup, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know. I’m sorry too. About the cup, I mean. He put his hands together as though in prayer. “So, what does it mean then?”
Her eyebrows raised. “Mean?”
“Yes, about the reading, I mean?”
“Oh! Nothing. Just a silly accident on my part, I’m afraid.” There! She’d said it! She had told him that it meant nothing, and she couldn’t take it back. After rinsing her hands under the tap and drying them she held out the note he’d given her.
“No,” he said, looking surprised. “I think I should still pay you, after all…”
She cut him off. “No dear, you don’t understand. It would bring me bad luck if I were to take money when no reading was given.” There! There she goes again, more lies.
She saw him too the door.
He thanked her again, before making his way back to his shiny red sports car.
“Drive safely!” she called.
Not that it would do any good.