Fortune-telling

I was born in parts. At least that’s what Mama Lita told me. She said I was crying so much it was as if my fingers came out first, like a crying superhero sliding from all of my mother’s amniotic fluids. The orphanage cook disagreed when she heard us talk about it. She swore it was the other way around; it was as if my chubby leg came before my mouth. People can only imagine what a temperamental baby I was then.

My real mother gave birth to me in the orphanage’s attic. I don’t know where she is now. Mama Lita called my condition ceparare trifaminial, a separation from a family who should have loved me the way she did. I was inflicted with this “disease,” but I was not alone. There are probably a billion kids in the world like me with this breaker of children’s hearts. But I was a happy enough kid, even if I was incomplete. Pinocchio-ish. Un-whole.

At that time, I was in my high school uniform, writing, looping my I’s with my ear and ending the curvy letter S with the help of my teeth. Mama Lita left me alone for an hour to pay the electricity bill. People were passing me by—waiters in orange and yellow waves, sweethearts in glowing red. I was in a fastfood restaurant when I met you.

You had Chinese eyes, sunken cheekbones and almost no hair. The sunlight, stark yellow beams, brightened one side of your face. You had a shadow and you were brown.

I was staring at your corner of the restaurant, nose cold and lips pale from the air conditioner, when you caught me looking. In that brief moment, I realized with a start: We had the same eyes.

My legs fell in front of me, taking little steps in sky blue Nikes towards you. Could it be? I thought. I reached out my elbow. You were golden and I seemed infinitely transparent.

“Your eyes,” my tongue said, my forefinger pointing. “Are you—?”

You looked at me, familiar lashes waking from a trance. “What about my eyes, Kyle?”

My chubby cheeks reddened. “How come you know my name?”

“Because we’re one and the same. I just grew older. I became real. Ninety years ago, I was the Kyle who sat in that chair too.”

When my knees gave out from under me, you touched my neck to hold me up. Your hands were of soft earth; I stared at it, willing each crease to whisper your secrets. You patted my hair. I slowly sat somewhere within your line of vision, but the rich sun escaped through me, and kissed only you.

You told your—my—story.

You said that twenty minutes from now, when we end this conversation, I will walk out that door, clutching a white handkerchief. I would drop it as my toes greet uneven cement, just in time to cry in fright at an oncoming black Volkswagon Beetle. A girl my age would appear out of nowhere, all pink ribbons and smiles, and save my flailing arm. From the pavement, I would look at her and know that until my 25th year of existence, I would become more real a person than I ever would have become.

You paused, and I looked at the big glass windows. Where was Mama Lita? It shouldn’t take too long to pay an electricity bill.

I asked out of curiosity, thoughts of a near-accident, a pink girl, spiralling in my head, “Granted I believe you sir, do I end up liking her? The girl? Will she be nice? Will we end up happily ever after?”

“Not quite Kyle,” you said. “It was more of being so close you were almost one person. It was experiencing braces and dentist trips together, vacations, proms, made-up games. It was a hand to hold when frightened.”

I looked at you as you spoke. The words that were coming out swirled silver before disappearing between us.

You said softly that when she turns 18, I would kiss her under the rain. And she would kiss me back. Then afterwards, on that night, we would talk like we always did, all thoughts caressed, all warmth radiating on our faces.

You smiled as I blinked and squirmed. You added that I had to understand; that you had walked this earth long enough to know that very few are lucky enough to have what you had.

“Why? What happened to her? This girl with pink smiles, did she die?” I asked, worried a little.

“No,” your teeth appeared slightly, vacillating, wrinkling your cheeks and curving your already small eyes. “One day, she just left her house and never came back. She left a note to her parents, warning them to not follow or find her. We didn’t stop her. She knew it would happen. It was fate,” you bowed your head and sighed.

My thumbs twitched, and my forehead folded in fresh furrows. I remembered my mother, how she tiptoed away from what became my home; weak and cowardly, like a pitiful thief of someone’s happiness and entirety.

“I am here at this restaurant because I knew my feet would someday lead me here for us to meet—because it happened to me too. Everything will happen like I said it would. We have no choice.” You asked, reaching for my hand. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t believe you. This thing is not real. You cannot be me. I cannot possibly fall in love with someone who will just say goodbye with a note,” My voice, with a tinge of red, rose a little.

You said “no” with a little bit of flash in your irises. You said you just wanted me to know how my life would turn out, like the fortune tellers or horoscopes, only it was a longer version and it was true. Your words were purple, and my face became blank.

“Stop it,” I said.

Your wrists banged the edge of the table. “What I am saying will happen. See this knee?” You pinched your flesh, and I jumped. I felt it too.

I tried to breathe. I wanted to cry.

“Listen. Nine months after that rainy night, she gave birth to a baby girl. Just holding that baby, all soft skin and simpers, is enough for anyone to want to save the world.”

“What do you want me to do, old man? Where’s your baby now?”

“The baby died a few months later.”

I winced. With grim lips, I mouthed the words, “Stop it.”

And yet you advanced, like an eagle circling a prey, ready to pounce with the promises of the powers of fate. “I didn’t believe it then. Some details change, but they all end with her leaving. Like our mother, right? Like everyone else. Like Mama when she dies two years from now.”

I clutched your wrinkled, brown hand, wanting to slowly tear it to pieces. “Don’t fast forward my life for me. I never asked for this. I’ll never grow up like you.”

“But you will Kyle! And that’s reality. That’s life. There are simply things you cannot understand because you are too young.” You said, your hand and those familiar eyes trying to reach out to me, only to be stopped short.

“Mama Lita always told me that if I were to choose between having to live life once and having the power to relive it, I should choose the first. I did that so long ago. That’s why I never regretted being born like this—into this world of never knowing and always waiting.” My right foot stepped away from your grimness and fatalism. “I pity you.”

I turned on my heel and ran out the door, legs and arms pumping in the harsh yellow wind. My tears were falling. History will not repeat itself, I thought. I heard you shout and saw the movement of the other diners as they craned their necks to watch me run away from you. I curved the bend and to my horror, I tripped a little. And then I stared at the ground, with both wonder and shock, at the black handkerchief lying on the street.