the oracle

fiction :D

it was a nasty red eye. and he was either hasidic, or close to it. she couldn’t tell. she had seen his whole group in security, the lot of them traveling together very quiet and private, only speaking when spoken to. but as she got to her seat it was him by the window, and then her in the middle, and then no one. as he watched her slide into her place he smiled, and his mouth was wet, and she knew it would be something.

he was fit and wearing college kid clothes. he had a black eye and a busted lip that were seventy percent healed.

“i noticed you in security,” he said, still smiling at her. “i liked your glasses.”

she smiled at that. nobody liked her glasses. everyone said they were too big for her face. which she took to mean that her face was too small. she liked the glasses because they looked like glasses. and it made her sad to think that some things in this world didn’t suit her, and thus weren’t for her.

it was one of those cheap flights. no beverages. the attendants were angry to be there and went up and down the aisle hawking credit cards.

he suggested that she sleep on him the second the lights dimmed. she hesitated for a moment, like she had been taught to. but there was nothing to resist. so she burrowed into his neck and hoodie. he smelled like snow. ever so gently and slowly his hands were on her stomach and chest.

“a man who loves women touches their stomach first,” a friend had told her.

only she was wearing a bombshell bra, and a thick pad. like a kewpie doll. she thought this, and then giggled. he giggled too, but not because he knew.

“are you from the city?” she finally asked him.

“yes.” he said. “i sell gold there with my family. but really i’m a fighter.” he pulled up a video on his phone that was him punching a guy in the face, over and over and over again, in a boxing ring, into a pink and red mash.

she felt a twinge in her stomach.

“is this real gold?” she asked, holding up her necklace. he took the pendant in his fingers.

“no.” he said, smiling.

the first time she went in a boy’s mind was her little brother’s, and was an accident. she noticed that when he was sleeping, if she put her head against his, she could feel as he felt, and see as he saw.

it worked on all boys and about half of girls. and she had to be in that hazy in between place with them. and it had never worked on someone over forty. she could make the boundaries so loose that she floated in. no difference between here or there. her last boyfriend had often dreamt of evil things. and she would be there then, stuck with him inside of it.

his mind was so open to her that she felt her heart breaking around it. but she only saw a few things that needed fixing. a drawer that should be closed. an old sponge by the sink that needed to be thrown out.

“your family loves you very much,” she cooed after, feeling the center part of their venn diagram.

he nodded, and paused for more.

“you are a good boy. you will have a good life.”

he was in tears.

they slept in shifts the rest of the flight. when they began the descent she felt his body tense.

“don’t worry,” she said. “it’s our secret completely.”

“i wont even look at you.” she told him.

once they landed she got up, and he did, and he acted like he didn’t know her.

but he approached her by the water fountain in baggage claim, holding a pen and paper.

“can you give me your address?” he said. “i want to send you a bracelet.”

five days later a small package arrived in the mail.