ira
I am. Do you want your fortune told?
Ira finds himself wondering if he believes in fortunes; he might have spent more time pondering the nature of them if not for how quickly she adds: You have some blood… on you.
He is first embarrassed and then surprised. Ira, with his hair falling disheveled into his eyes, quickly rubs his cheek into his shoulder. The blood is removed from his face; but he cannot help the curiosity (unsettling though it is) that piques at the oddity of her request. She mentions first the smell, and then the sight; Ira does not know which bothered her more.
“I apologize,” he says, sheepishly, rather than continue wondering. “But yes,” he adds. “I think I would like my fortune told, if it is not too much to ask.” Ira is not looking at her cards, however; no, his eyes are heavy on her face.
In the woods, he thinks, there are certain creatures that always evoke the same response. A primordial trepidation, that reaches beyond rhyme or reason. A snake, no matter how harmless, still slithers. A raven in a winter-bare copse of trees ca-cawing might strike a cord of fear. A vulture circling a bright sky means death in every language. A coyote at night singing is an old-testament kind of terrible.
So too, are her eyes. And the feeling she leaves him with.
@Salome / speaks / notes
