(Sabrina the Fortune Teller. Photo Socotra)

You don’t need a fortune-teller to see the future. It is plain and laying right there in front of us, obvious as the level of crisp happy hour wine in the tulip glass in front of us. That is one of the reasons that Sabrina has gone over from telling fortunes to reading the charts of the stars.

It was a big Monday night at Willow. I was going to opt out and race home to see if the FiOS hook-up really worked, and if I was free of an oppressive master as implacable as the IRS, only even more frustrating: those Comcast bastards.

I am glad my Boss prevailed on me to go to Willow for just a couple. It was good to catch up on what is actually happening, rather than what I think is happening in my little office all the way down the hall.

I was astonished to see Long Hair Mike sitting at the Amen Corner alongside Ray the Jarhead. “Holy crap,” I said. “Good to see you!”

I gave him a hug. He had been laid low with a disease that devastated the immune system, and in the chemotherapy that caused his hair to fall out, making him the real Short Hair Mike, but we have not seen much of the other one lately, and maybe he will just be Cancer Free Mike, because that is what now defines him. He was drinking a club soda, so I assumed he was easing back into public life gradually. For a while, we were all as toxic as superfund sites.

It is nice to have a future. Lately there have been far too many people who have lost them all together.

Sabrina topped off my white wine and looked over at Mike. “My position is that the stars will guide our individual fates, even as we collectively stampede towards the precipice. There is nothing unusual or unique in our collective fates. The trick is to derive from the stars the prospects for the individual. Like Mike. I wish I couple have read his fortune when he was first diagnosed- I might have been able to tell him it was all going to be OK.”

“That would have taken the edge off, that is for sure. You told me a great fortune last Halloween, Sabrina. It was completely accurate.”

“All I did was say that you were going to walk again, and I would see you most nights at Willow when I am working.”

“See,” I responded, taking a sip of satisfying white. “Totally accurate. A good fortune-teller is hard to find,” I said. “You could have told me about the election, though.”

“A seer has to mind her tarot cards. Think what would have happened if all you old white guys knew what was going to happen. I saved you weeks of depression.”

“Do you want me to use your professional web site in the story?” I asked. “What, put it out to all those people who read your nonsense?” She looked quizzical, wrinkling her nose.

“What could go wrong on the internet?” I said, and we laughed. “I will just mention that if anyone needs a personal astrological chart from a great soothsayer they can ask and I will pass along the address.”

“Just filter it. The Web gives me the creeps sometimes.”

“Yeah, but you know you have fans all over, from Mexico to London and in the Far East.”

She gave me one of those enigmatic smiles and drifted off down the bar, then stopped and turned around.

She said: “You are not going to use that picture, are you? You need to warn me.”

“Your smile is always great, and you are warned.”

The Boss came in and we yacked about office crap and decided to make it an early night. “I have the maids coming in the morning and the place is trashed from the install of the fiber optic network. But I am now officially Comcast-free.”

“And I have to be deep in the heart of Waldorf,” said the Boss. “Any predictions for the future?”

“I am going to let the President take care of that tomorrow in the
State of the Union Address. I will defer to him on that, at least for the moment.” We made our farewells to Mike and Jarhead Ray, and grabbed our bags to hit the roads. As the Boss headed out he back door to the garage parking, I walked out the front door and into the street. Temperatures were still in the fifties and the sky was clear, the stars just coming out.

There was not exactly a spring in my step- I still have to watch where my feet are going, but I felt buoyant.

I am Comcast free, hallelujah. I know, I know. I have only succeeded in exchanging one heartless unresponsive monopoly for another, but that seems to be just like what we get in government.  You do not need a fortune-teller to know that you have to turn the rascals out periodically, or they get used to having their hands in your wallet and forget whose it was to begin with.

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com