The Oracle's Paradox

The palm reader had been wrong. Or right. It depended on how you interpreted 'great change coming.'

Mark stood on the padel court, sweat stinging his eyes, racket loose in his grip. Across the net, Richard served — his boss, his rival, the man currently sleeping with Mark's estranged wife. The ball hit the wire fence with a sound like something breaking.

'Your love line forks,' the old woman had said three months ago, tracing the crease in his hand. 'Two paths. One leads to happiness, the other to... something else.'

Something else. That about covered it.

Mark's phone buzzed in his pocket. Sarah, wanting to discuss the cat. Their cat, technically, though she'd kept the apartment. He'd wanted the dog — a golden retriever mix named Cable who'd wandered into their wedding reception and never left. Now Cable lived with Richard, who probably called him something dignified like 'Max' or 'Buster.'

'Your head line curves toward your imagination,' the palm reader had continued. 'You see things that aren't there.'

He'd imagined Richard and Sarah at dinner parties. Imagined them laughing at his expense. Imagined Cable sleeping on Richard's side of the bed while the cat — whose name was actually Padme, after Star Wars, though everyone thought it was 'palm' because Sarah kept saying 'Palm, get down from there' — imagined Cable sleeping on Richard's side of the bed.

Richard's return serve sailed past him.

'You're distracted,' Richard said, not unkindly. 'Everything okay at home?'

Mark stared at his palm. The lines were still there, unchanged. The fork in his love line. The curve toward imagination.

'Fine,' he said. 'Just thinking about cable management.'

Richard laughed. 'Work never ends, does it?'

No, Mark thought. It didn't. But at least he'd chosen his path. The one that led to something else.

And wasn't that its own kind of prophecy fulfilled?