Unfortunate Fortune

The map the guy at the bar had drawn for him on a paper napkin, was labyrinthian. There were many turns and forks, and dirt roads that had no names. It would be a two hour drive taking him deeper and deeper into the wooded mountainous outbacks. Little notes and arrows drawn onto the map identified landmarks to keep an eye out for. A rusty old bridge. A stone chimney still standing among the charred remains of a house. An abandoned gas station. At one point driving across a shallow stream, he was supposed to turn up-stream and drive through the water for 3/4 of a mile. At that point, he would see the old woman's shack off a ways through the trees.

The old woman was not a fortune teller, per say, but was said to often have an uncanny sense of the near future. He had heard talk of her in the little town where he had taken a room above the pub, and was quite interested in meeting her. He was writing an expose of sorts., for a magazine. It was about fortune teller scams and psychic shysters. As he pushed through the dense undergrowth winding back through the trees, he could hear the clucking of chickens. He was supposed to ask her if she had any eggs. He saw her hobbling around in front of her shack tossing handfuls of grain out onto the dirt. The chickens milled everywhere around her feet pecking at the ground. She was making clucking noises herself. "Hello." he called. She looked his way and gave a small nod. It seemed the closer he came to her, the smaller and smaller she appeared to be. She squinted her eyes and shaded them with her hand as she tilted her head back to look up at him. Her skin seemed shrunken tight to the bones of her chin and jaws, and was dark and leathery, criss-crossed with wrinkles, and dotted with purple blemishes. Her eyes seemed sunken deep back into her eye sockets. "I was wondering if you have any eggs for me?" he said. She nodded and turned and hobbled back to her shack, stopping at her door to turn and look at him.. She gestured for him to follow her in. It was a dark and dimly lit room smelling of ashes from the crude rock fireplace.

She sat wearily down on her couch with a low aching groan, and motioned for him to take the chair. The low table between them was cluttered with oddities. He made quick mental notes as he looked at the array. The dried claw of a chicken, and some chicken feathers. A tooth. Little bottles of oil. One was called Omega Oil. Another was labeled Wizard Oil. There was a larger jar filled with a yellow powder; it had a hand-scrawled label that said 'sulfur'.


"Why do you come for these eggs?", she said in a high pitched raspy voice. "I would like to know something of my future." he replied. "And, what would you like to know?" she rasped. "Anything. Anything at all that you can tell me that might lie ahead." he said. She reached for a round tin pan on the table in front of her, and then picked out a brown speckled egg from the bowl next to it. He watched intently as she cracked the egg into the pan, and then swished it about in a circle the way a prospector might swish a pan of pebbles and creek water around, looking for gold. At last she sat the pan down on her lap, and stuck her finger into the broken egg mix. It dangled wet and slimy looking as she raised her finger to her nose and sniffed it. Then she rubbed her finger on her lips. She grimaced, as she smacked her lips several times. "It is bitter." she said. "The egg is bitter? What does that mean?" he asked. She shook her head. "No, it is not the egg. It is your future." "What? What will be bitter?" he asked nervously. She didn't answer. She dipped her finger down into the pan again, and repeated the ritual. "For me, as well." she said. "Bitter." "Why?" he asked. "Why is it bitter?" She picked another egg out of the bowl and cracked it into the pan, and stirred it with her finger slowly, and for what seemed a long time. Outside he could hear the chickens clucking, and scratching the dirt. There was the distant drone of a small plane in the air somewhere. She wiped her finger on her dress and just sat there staring down into the pan. "Do you see anything? What do you see?" he asked nervously. The sound of the plane was getting louder. A rooster standing in the doorway startled him with its sudden crowing., and it sent a shiver up his spine. She shook her bowed head and closed her eyes, and he was beginning to think she was falling asleep. "What do you see?" he repeated. The plane must be nearly overhead, quite loud and flying low. Then, quite abruptly, she lifted her head and stared at him with a wild look on her face. "Neither of us will leave this place alive." she hissed. He felt a chill come over him and stood to leave, just as there was a loud crushing, crashing sound, and the roof of the shack was blown apart by the nose of a single engine Cessna.

The local paper the next day showed photos of the scene. There were four people aboard the small plane that crashed into the forest south of town. They all died instantly. The plane had torn apart the humble home of an elderly woman widely known to be a seer. The woman too, was found dead. A sixth body, a male, has yet to be identified.