Oracle

I trace the lifeline across her weathered **palm**, the crease shallow and uncertain. She's fifty-something, with silver-streaked **hair** pulled back in a loose bun that suggests she's given up on pretending. Outside, a **dog** barks at passing cars—a rhythmic warning no one heeds.

"You're going to meet someone," I lie, because that's what they all want to hear. That's what I've been telling strangers for twenty years. That's what I told myself before I stopped believing anything at all.

She nods, eyes glossy with hope I keep shoveling like coal into a furnace that's been dead for years. My mother taught me this—the art of fabrication wrapped in mysticism. She said people don't come for truth; they come for permission to hope.

I watch her leave, then turn the sign to CLOSED. My reflection in the glass looks like a **zombie**—hollow eyes, skin that's forgotten what sunlight feels like. I am thirty-eight and I have never loved anyone, not really. I have only ever been the person others tell their secrets to, never the one someone keeps a secret for.

The dog is still barking. I step outside, and it's a stray—matted fur, one ear that won't stand up. It approaches cautiously, and I crouch, extending my palm. It sniffs, licks my hand, and sits.

We walk to my apartment together, the animal surprisingly calm after weeks on its own. I feed it, wash it, name it Oracle, and it sleeps beside me. For the first time in years, the empty room feels less like a tomb and more like something I haven't figured out how to name yet.

The next morning, Oracle presses his cold nose into my palm before dawn, whining. Not at the door—at me. I sit up, heart hammering, as he nudges my leg, then my arm. He's trying to tell me something, but I don't know what.

That's when I smell it—gas.

I scramble up, Oracle already at the door, whining low in his throat. The kitchen—someone left the stove on, or maybe I did, in the fog of another empty evening. Flames lick at the curtains, and I grab Oracle, stumbling out into the cool dawn air.

We watch from the sidewalk as everything burns—my crystal ball, my tarot decks, my mother's silk scarves, the sign that promised futures I never believed in. Oracle leans against my leg, and I realize he never barked at the fire. He barked to warn me before it started.

I could call it coincidence. I could tell myself it's just a dog's instinct.

But instead, I press my palm to his forehead and really look for the first time—his eyes are ancient and knowing.

"I see you," I whisper.

Oracle wags his tail once.

What do I do now? Where do I go? I stand in the predawn light with a dog who sees too much, watching my life turn to smoke. The possibilities feel different now. Not lies. Not tricks. Something sharp and real in my chest that isn't fear.

Oracle noses my hand, and for the first time in twenty years, I don't know what happens next. I only know that whatever it is, it will be true.