Pyramid Schemes and Palm Lines
The pyramid scheme had been Carla's mother's idea. "Multi-level marketing," she'd called it, selling essential oils and dreams to suburban housewives trapped in their own pyramids of debt and desperation. Now, Carla was running, heart pounding against her ribs, down Palm Beach Boulevard at midnight, clutching a grocery bag filled with wilted spinach and the severed head of a sphinx statue.
She'd stolen it from the MLM convention center. The sphinx—a tacky gold-plated mascot for some new crypto scam—had been watching her all evening with painted eyes that seemed to know everything: how she'd maxed three credit cards, how she'd seduced the regional director just to access the VIP lounge, how this whole operation was crumbling like rotten stone.
The spinach was for her father, dying of something medical bills couldn't fix. He'd requested it specifically—his last meal, if you could call it that. Carla had considered stealing the sphinx for herself, maybe pawning it, but something about its painted smile had unsettled her. It knew.
Her palm had started itching three days ago. Not a medical itch—something deeper, like fate scratching at her skin. She'd visited a palm reader in a strip mall, a woman with nicotine-stained fingers who'd traced the lines on Carla's hand and whispered, "You're going to lose everything."
Carla had laughed. She'd already lost everything.
The sphinx head grew heavier with each step. Behind her, she could hear running footsteps—not pursuit, just the echo of her own mistakes chasing her through the dark.
"They always catch up," her mother used to say, counting her downline recruits like rosary beads. "The past. It's faster than you think."
Carla slowed near her father's apartment complex. The spinach bag had torn slightly, leaves bleeding onto her dress. She looked at her palm in the streetlamp glow—the lifeline was still there, but everything else seemed blurred, uncertain.
The sphinx smiled up at her, gold paint flaking, knowing exactly how much this night would cost her.