by Bitch Sensei
In the protective cloak of night, I drink in my contempt. Soothing the wounds of failure and obscurity, I toil for pennies under the watchful banner of my competitors. A handwritten sign seems to glow with its curling declaration, “FORTUNES - ONLY 10¢,” and the old psychic across the way taunts me with relentless joyful chatter. Her patrons wind and coil around tables and tents – around my table and tent – like they did yesterday and the day before, serpentlike, predatory, probing eager eyes that, fixed on a supposed future, refuse to spare a glance for the delicately handcrafted wares mere inches from their grasp. They bustle through the market aisles, wares and tinctures and preserves spilling from their hungry arms, coughing at the dust that rises from the street.
The masses are eager for opiates, not for utility or craft. I glare at the smoothed edges of my handcrafted cutlery and bowls and painters’ tools with brushed wood handles, all featuring my signature designation. And the crowning jewel of my booth: my carved wood menagerie of animal statuettes, from the size of my thumb to a tabletop giant depending on their relative size; rabbits, cats, elk, bears, each member of the forest cast to image in a joyful display of life in wood. All frivolous wares compared to that practical art of fortune-telling. I scoff to myself and shudder from the pang of bitterness that slithers down my throat and warms me like scotch. The wretched psychic’s tent, embellished with a deep violet stripe, hosts glistening orbs, garish jewelry, oracle scrolls, and – yes – carved wood statuettes in the shape of “animal spirits.” Though her croneish claws could never imitate the precision and detail that I achieve with my work, her way of imbuing them with some sense of spirit snatches the attention of all passersby. I consider scratching out the word “handcrafted” on my sign and replacing it with “magic.”
It is with this, my lifelong ailment of failure, the animal urge to act ruthlessly on pride, that my days are filled. A stack of futile outgoing queries, a body bloating from idleness, a dusty collection of handmade kitchen knives, long untouched. Their longing for use is a call I could not refuse, for to fail is to starve, and to starve is to drown in that pool of obscurity in which I tread. The muddy dark of that pool, foul as it may be, is home to me. The dirt clings to my skin, a permanent stain of which no scalding bath could rid me; it has soiled my very essence, and for that there must be restitution.
In the dead of night, contempt fades not but relocates to a safer fold of my brain, enclosed by fleshy mundane thought. What catching display might I try with my statuettes for these idle pigs that care not for the beauty and craft of these wares? What sigil may I paint on my banners that could corrupt and hypnotize crowds in the way of that so-called psychic? What dreaded snake oil might I brew to intoxicate those doltish pedestrians whose pockets jingle with every step?
The dark of early morning brings with it a cool heaviness that fills the air like a thick mist. Lanterns push their light against the fog and struggle against that insistent black, the overwhelming power of the dark. I arrive at the market long before sunrise with bitter breath and a quiet pounding in my skull. The stone street echoes the call of each footstep. I open my gray canvas tent and lay my wares across the tables in the most appealing arrangement; my carved figures, my precious menagerie, imbued with such detail and whimsy, take on a life of their own as I assemble the creatures into a lively scene. They dance with one another in a delightful display, sparked to life by their creator, their wretched snarls and playful bounds, elegant; a true translation from wood to form, from death to life.
I am disturbed from my work to hear the quiet babbling of the psychic. What brings her here at such an hour? Our eyes meet, and I notice for the first time her right eye is reddish and cloudy, adding a lilting uncanniness to the weight of her stare. Of course. The all-seeing eye. One of the three malevolent Moirai. Her look pierced through me like an accusation. Did her steps not echo from the stone like mine? How long had she been watching me work on my menagerie?
I raise a cordial hand to her and, to my dismay, she approaches.
“My dear!” Her voice is shrill and friendly. “A young woman shouldn’t be out alone before sunrise. The veil of the dark can hide sinister things, you know.”
“I might suggest the same to you,” I suggest in a forced jovial tone. She seems to leer at me and I realize now she sees me not as competition, but as a child, a friendly inferior in the shape of a distant relative; someone to patronize and pity or, God forbid, offer mentorship. Imagine! An old crone, a snake oil saleswoman claiming to see the future, trying to aid a seasoned craftswoman in the art of salesmanship. I tamp down the rage that rises in the hollow of my chest in response.
“Now, young lady, I was curious to see your figures! Patrons of my booth said I was not the only one who featured hand-carved creatures. Ah!” She fingers the angular wooden crane, admiring the sculpted detail along the crest of its long beak. She yammers along, saying nothing and everything, leaning down to inspect and chatter to my wares. In the cloud of her preoccupation, I draw a kitchen knife from my table and creep up beside her, quietly, with relaxed and inoffensive movements, nodding politely at her senile babbling.
“...truly, your attention to detail is remarkable, when you look in the eyes–”
Her futile compliment is cut short by a desperate gurgle; her all-seeing eyes, now fixed on the fresh red that painted the back of my tent in a hasty violent splatter, observe the image of her death as a shadow cast in red. She falls to the ground and I chuckle to myself at the thought of some quip that I could toss at her crumpled form, the psychic that saw nothing, the unskilled hack. Ho, ho! Not so clairvoyant now, are we? Satisfied by my work, I survey the sleepy gray market for signs of life. A pigeon seems to consider the signature banding of the guilty knife. It looks into my eyes and I flinch at its recognition. A tense and oppressive moment, then the silent witness loses curiosity and struts forward, bringing creeping daylight up toward the sky with it.
The realization of time and its passing sent me into a frenzy to hide the body of the psychic. I first plunged my prized paintbrush, so much more valuable than any of her cursed readings, into her blooming scarlet neck to transform the suspicious splatter on the canvas to a beautiful red stripe, not unlike the one of deep purple that called from her tent just across the way.
For someone to find the psychic dead on the street, alone somewhere, her cursed bloody eye gazing into the beyond, was a predictable outcome, whose inevitability I simply nudged along with my poisonous envy. I envision myself crudely dragging her through alleys and side streets in the fresh creeping daylight and shudder at its obscenity. In my haste, I roll her body under the center table of my display, pull a deep red sheet from the psychic’s things, and drape it over her accusatory eye, discretely containing the object of my wrath just like that blood-soaked stripe. I reset my wooden menagerie — it had been disturbed in the scuffle — in a process that ought not be hurried, but I hurry nonetheless. In a final foolish move of spite, I gather the figures from the psychic’s own animal menagerie into a sack and swing it at the cursed ground until they are shattered.
Her mysterious absence from the market that morning seemed to worry no one, and in fact I saw the attention to my table increase for it. I humbly accepted praise for my craftsmanship, my eye for detail, the beautiful red stripe that made my tent clamor for the patrons’ attention.
“Such beautiful work!” Thank you. “Such attention to detail!” Yes, I see you have an eye for handcrafted wares. You understand. You didn’t before, and for that I forgive you. Thank you.
“Do you perform readings?” A woman holding the hand of a young boy asked. That bitter feeling crept up my throat once more.
“Readings?” I ask carefully.
“The sculptor told me there is a striped tent with animal carvings owned by a psychic, a warm woman with bright eyes, beloved for her insights. Surely he was speaking of you and this booth?” I struggle to suppress the scoff building in my angry throat and consider her suggestion. To affirm her query and say, yes, I am that woman, could offer me a new angle; I could delight my already-dazzled patrons at no extra cost or effort but for a glance at a palm and the brief concoction of myth or delusion. Such a quaint and embarrassing pursuit, for which I could never stand. The wretched blade of that-which-could-be pierced through me, nearly rendering me helpless.
“Ah yes. The psychic.” I begin, clutching at the corner of my center table, leaning over my wooden menagerie. “A reading! Of what, your palm, the skies, your tattered clothes? To know is to see things for what they are, to foresee is to commit robbery.” My voice is rising. I leer down at the woman’s ruffled eyebrow and see she does not yet understand. “Snake oil,” I declare, “is no longer for sale at this market. I’ve seen to that. Where is the craft in sweet nothings? Where is the value in mere suggestion that snatches coins from the pockets of the innocent by feeding them delusion?” I prattle on with the dark clouds of night still swirling in my head, intoxicating fumes of violence from the night before driving me to mania. The woman squirms with unease but the child seems to lean in with sordid curiosity.
“I have seen to it that you good people are never insulted with such a sham ever again! That dreaded woman, that con artist with that disgusting eye, will never step foot in this market again. She peddles a delusion to those more foolish than she; her wares will never reach the sophistication that you see before you here, and for her absence you should thank me.” I pant with effort. The fear and disappointment in the woman’s face sparks within me a most burning and righteous rage. That cursed psychic, beloved by whom? For what? With a furious roar, I tear my tent down towards the woman and her boy, find myself piercing, cutting, slashing indiscriminately, bleating and roaring about quality, grifts, and failure, until that bold declarative stripe on my canvas expands to an all-consuming red.
See you next week for part three.