alkwritesthings-blog - Tumblr blog

[alkwritesthings-blog]

By Alexander Chee

As a part time professional ‘creative writing tutor’, I can say I only ever teach the present tense as one tool among many. I do not urge it on my ‘sensitive and artistic storytellers’, or any of the insensitive ones either. I teach students that verbs are the way they create a relationship for the reader to time, and function a little like the way a horizon line might in a picture. As for using it to dodge the ‘politically dodgy’, well, I can’t imagine teaching anyone that way with a straight face—and so that strikes me as something of a straw man. Or, woman, perhaps. 

[alkwritesthings-blog]

This was originally a prompt from @writing-prompts-s Shout out to @caffeinewitchcraft and all the amazing writers on @writeblr for the courage to put my writing up here

writing-prompt-s

You’re a mystic who runs a shop full of mysterious artifacts and potions and you’re sick of uninformed middle-aged suburban moms asking for energy crystals and herbal weight-loss mixtures while throwing around made-up terms.

She had spent a lot of time trying to get the aesthetic just right in her shop. Owning a small business was no joke, and even less so when you were a real psychic pretending to be a fake one pretending to be a real one. Getting the vibe just right was critical.

The crystals, candles, herbs, scarf hung over one window were all things that made it easier for her to do her own work.

The posters on the walls, the odd goodwill books and knick knacks in the shitty bookshelves, that was for show.

The old-fashioned looking business ledger seemed like a great touch, and even though she worried that the feather taped to the biro was too much, she left it as it was.

The rest of her business could be summarized easily with “just go with it,” so why limit herself when it came to a feather and a pen?

She had spray painted the side of her shop with a few symbols that felt like they could be vaguely occult: the Triforce symbol from Zelda, that pyramid thing with the eye on top, a simple five-pointed star, all black and dripping and the effect was great.

That, with the sign that read “PSYCHIC. For all your Fortune Telling Needs,” she felt like she was pretty set.

Things went fine for a while.

A mother who came in wanting to know the omens for her children.

Pictures of the children, a scruffy dark haired boy, an older girl with piercing eyes, a tiny baby in a bright green shirt, and she set out a piece of burned wood, a chunk of hematite, a little stub of green candle. A few muttered words, holding the picture with one hand and the woman’s hand with the other, she could feel wisps of future as the feeling of gentle fingernails tracing a path down her back, fleeting tastes of bright color in her mouth, brief, brisk images like spouting, gurgling water from a hose. It was hard work that left her dizzy for days and made it hard to concentrate for hours after, but she had spent her life stubbornly hanging onto and figuring out how to interpret these flashes of sensation and darts of movement and feeling and sight.

The baby was fine, the little girl would seek out her passions for art and music and should be encouraged, the boy with the dark hair -- something dark and fleeting, burning her tongue with blackness and splashing the backs of her mind with an oozing, crawling feeling -- she should keep an eye on her scruffy-haired son.

Little abuela who came in every week to talk to her sisters who had passed. “Lo siento, abuelita. No puedo hablar con los muertos.” Yes, of course I can do a palm reading. She dug in the dish on her table for a piece of shiny brown stone with a thread of gold wound throughout, and took the old woman’s hands. Strong will, the smell of corn and the taste of something delicious in her mouth that Elena herself had never tasted and didn’t have a name for. Strong hands, hands that had held children, but never grandchildren. Elena felt something, traced a scar in the side of one of the woman’s hands, trying to focus on that feeling, reaching out, and finally felt a touch of lightness like the feeling of a piece of down-feather landing on your outstretched fingertip, or popping a soap bubble on your finger. She told the woman that one of her daughters was expecting a baby, and wanted to speak with her about naming the baby after one of her sisters. The woman left, much happier than when she had arrived.

There were smaller things, lost things needing to be found (a few black candles lit and ink spilled on rough paper helped focus, helped her trace the ‘maps’ in her mind. All lost things wanted to be returned to where they belonged, after all).

A lost dog that she had to tell the mother with her eyes (and not speak aloud to the woman’s young boy who sat at her table) had been hit by a car, and was dead three streets away from their house.

She had no notion of reading tarot cards or speaking with the dead, and kept people who asked such things out of her shop.

She’d been making a tidy sum of money, and had been slowly growing her reputation. Oh, I heard you knew of Mrs. Martinez’ granddaughter, can you tell me if I’m pregnant? I heard you found Hayden’s mom’s phone, can you find mine?

When a man strode into her shop, his expression full of purpose, she expected another recommendation via word of mouth.

Instead, the man strode right up to her counter and demanded to see her paperwork. He wore slacks, and a suit jacket, more formally dressed than anyone else she’d seen in her shop.

Elena straightened her shoulders and pulled her ledger from beneath the counter. She had a license to run her small business in the same space as she lived (she was the only employee), a form in her name for how taxes would be taken for the work she did, as well as a list of each customer (with a few who had insisted upon aliases, which she had agreed to do), what service they had requested, and how much she had charged them. “I beg your pardon, sir,” she said, struggling to keep her voice even. Elena hated confrontation, but she had all of her paperwork in order. She was in her own shop, and on firm ground here.

He interrupted, barely glancing down at the tidy stack of documents tucked into a pocket of the ledger. “Where is your license to practice magic, silly girl. I’ve felt you from clear across the city since you tracked my boy, and I demand to see your registration!”

Elena felt a chill run down her spine. There were always more powerful psychics. Life was like nature, in that way. You always thought you were the tiger or the bear, but you weren’t. There was always a better psychic than you. But she’d never met anyone else who was one, had done her research on the internet and learned to keep her head down. She had thought this shop was the perfect cover. She glanced up at the man and saw he was glancing around her shop, and that he rolled his eyes at her shelf of random crap she’d found.

She glared at him, straightened again. She might not have been as good of a psychic as him, but she was no silly girl, and he had no right to demand to see anything. “Where’s your registration, sir?” She asked, and although her voice quavered as she asked the question, she kept her shoulders back as he looked at her.

He snorted, and Elena forced herself to keep her mouth from falling open as he rolled his eyes and withdrew a large wallet from one pocket of his suit jacket, and with a practiced flip, opened it. A document the size of an 8.5 by 11 piece of paper, decked with seals, proclaimed Apollo P. Smith to be a Licensed and Registered Wizard of the State, permitted to Conduct Business and Pursue Spellwork as the Law Allowed.

Now it was Elena’s turn to snort at him. “Well Mr. Smith,” she said, all her nervousness vanishing. Her brother was a pro-level bullshitter, and she knew how to handle this type of thing. “I must have let mine lapse. I’m ever so sorry to have interfered with your boy…” She resisted the urge to roll her eyes, but it was only in service to the peak amount of sarcasm and fake-deference she put in her tone and facial expression.

He snapped the wallet back in place, the document folding neatly. “See that you re-certify. Pesky brat has been insufferable since he sensed your presence. I had him convinced I was the only possible magical teacher in the area, and he’s been...trying my patience… since he felt your connection to his mother. Do not interfere in my work again, and I won’t report you to the Board.” The man tucked the wallet back into his suit jacket, and without waiting for a response, stalked out of Elena’s shop.

Elena’s mouth fell open. As she struggled to process what she’d heard, she dug for her phone in the shelf below her counter.

She had a lot to look up, and the first thing she typed into the window was ‘psychic versus magic user.’

It was going to be a long night of reading.

[alkwritesthings-blog]

You’re a mystic who runs a shop full of mysterious artifacts and potions and you’re sick of uninformed middle-aged suburban moms asking for energy crystals and herbal weight-loss mixtures while throwing around made-up terms.

[alkwritesthings-blog]

You are a member of The League of Extraordinary Doctors, a mixture of the nation’s best healers that treat superheroes. Describe your average day on the job.