The Palmist's Thursday

The conference room smelled of stale coffee and desperation. Sarah sat behind the folding table, her third corporate gig that week. 'Palm readings for team building,' the flyer had promised. What it meant was: pretend to tell strangers their futures while they pretended their careers weren't slowly killing them inside.

The next employee sat down—mid-thirties, suit that had seen better days, eyes like he hadn't slept since the last administration. He extended his right hand, palm up. Sarah took it, reflexively scanning the lines she'd stopped believing in years ago.

'You bear a heavy burden,' she said automatically, then winced at her own cliché. But his fingers twitched.

'My mother,' he said. 'Stage four. I'm the only one left who can handle it.'

Sarah stopped performing. She traced the life line, the head line, all the arbitrary geography that people poured meaning into like water into dry earth. 'I'm sorry.'

'It's fine.' He laughed, a hollow sound. 'Most days I feel like a zombie anyway. Showing up, going through motions, eating dinner at the hospital cafeteria.' His palm was warm against hers, disturbingly alive. 'Do you ever feel like that? Like you're walking around but nobody's home?'

Sarah thought of her daughter, now fifteen months, and the nights she stared at the ceiling at 3 AM, the love and exhaustion warring in her chest. She thought of the rent, the spreadsheets, the endless hustle of gig work.

'Every Thursday,' she said quietly.

He nodded. 'Yeah.' He pulled his hand back gently. 'You know what? That's the most honest thing anyone's said to me in months.'

He stood, leaving a twenty-dollar bill on the table. 'Thanks.'

Sarah watched him walk away, another ghost in the machine, and wondered which of them was actually reading whose future.