The Goldfish Prophecy

The carnival lights blurred together like someone had smeared neon paint across my vision. I shouldn't have come alone, but Maya was stuck at family dinner and Jackson was being Jackson—probably posting stories about how "deep" the sunset looked from his rooftop.

"Step right up! Win a prize for the lady!"

I wasn't trying to impress anyone, but the guy running the goldfish booth had that look in his eyes like he'd been standing there since 1987 waiting for someone to actually care. So I handed over three dollars and tossed a ping pong ball into a tiny glass bowl.

The fish was barely there—a flash of **orange** in water that looked like it hadn't been changed since the Bush administration.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" I asked.

"Keep it alive," the guy said. "That's the hard part."

The plastic bag swung from my fingers as I wandered toward the fortune teller's tent, mostly because it was the only place with actual walls and I needed to figure out how to get a fish home on the bus without looking completely unhinged.

The sign read: MADAME ZORA—PALM READER—$5

Whatever. I was already carrying a doomed aquatic creature in a bag. How much weirder could tonight get?

Inside, the tent smelled like sage and desperation. Madame Zora looked like everyone's grandmother who'd accidentally joined a cult in the 70s and never left. She grabbed my hand before I could sit down.

"You're going to lose something precious," she said, tracing lines across my **palm**. "But you'll find something better."

I almost laughed. The most precious thing I had was currently swimming in circles in a clear plastic bag, wondering why its new owner was getting a fortune reading instead of figuring out public transit with a **goldfish**.

"That's it? That's the prophecy?"

"The universe speaks in symbols," she said, like that explained anything.

I walked out feeling like I'd been scammed, but at least I had a story Maya would find hilarious. I was halfway to the bus stop when the bag ripped.

The fish flopped onto the pavement and I just stood there, watching it gasp. I wasn't attached to it—couldn't even remember if I'd named it yet—but suddenly I was crying over something I'd known for twenty minutes.

A girl with dyed orange hair skated past, did a double-take, and stopped.

"You need help with that?"

We spent the next fifteen minutes finding a fountain in the park where my fish could swim until I figured out the bus situation. Her name was Riley. She talked about her biology class and how she was technically not supposed to be out this late but whatever.

"So, palm reading?" Riley asked, sitting beside me on the fountain edge. "Did she tell you you'd meet a weird girl at a fountain?"

"She said I'd lose something but find something better."

Riley grinned. "Well, your fish is still alive. And now you have my number. That's not too bad, right?"

My phone buzzed. Maya: "dinner's done. where r u??"

I texted back: "you wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Some prophecies take time. Some happen in twenty minutes beside a fountain with a girl who just saved a fish and maybe your Friday night.