The Oracle in the Alley by JD Magowan

My friends talked me into going to a fortune teller with them, I did not want to go, but I know they are only trying to make me forget about Elijah, and what happened to him last week.

But I really don’t believe in fortune-tellers or oracles. I know Elijah died and he will never be in my life again, so what’s the point? I asked myself. I know I have been down since the wreck and the girls are trying to make me feel better so reluctantly, I agreed to come along.

     Laura, my best friend turned down an alley and we slowly drove on looking for the Oracle’s parlor, we passed the backdoor to a nightclub, we passed a tattoo parlor, and still, we have not come to the fortune teller. My other friend who came with us, Shelly said nervously, 

“Laura, are you certain we are going the right way, it is very dark back here? “

“Yes, the GPS said that we turn down this alley and the Oracle’s Parlor will be near the end of the street, just before the dead end,” Laura replied. As we drove towards the dead-end sign ahead of us.  Laura stopped and we all looked around but did not see any sign or shop.  We saw a man, most likely a vagrant, who rose from behind a dumpster and walked toward our car. I rolled down the window with both Shel and Laura telling me to roll it back up, but I did not heed their warning.  The man was about thirty-five with a scruffy beard and his dark hair was tousled about, his clothes were torn and a bit unclean, but he smiled as he walked up to the car and said, “I wonder what you girls are doing here in this dark alley, could you be looking for the Oracle?” he asked.

     “Yes sir, we thought the oracle’s parlor was near the end of the alley here, but we do not see it, do you know where it is? I asked politely. 

     “I could point it out to you but are you ready for your lives to change?” he replied.

     “I guess we will find out, couldn’t get much worse, for me,” I spoke. He smiled again kindly and pointed up the fire escape to a dimly lit OPEN sign on a window, “There, you can park here, I will make sure no one bothers your car, and I will pull the fire escape down for you, if you are sure, you really want to know your futures?”

 I glanced at my friends, and they were both nodding yes, so I told him that we did want to go up and thanked him for agreeing to watch out for Laura’s jeep.  I offered to tip him, but he said,

     “You are a kind heart, I am sorry for your bad week, I do not need money, but thank you.” At this point we all got out of the car, Laura locked it and we trekked over to the fire escape where the man jumped up and grabbed it and pulled it down for us, we all smiled and whispered to each other on the way up to the window with the OPEN sign. We discussed how weird this whole event was and we agreed that Laura would go first, then Shelly, and again against my better judgment I agreed to be the last to learn my fortune.

     We knocked on the window and to our surprise a man looking very similar to the man in the alley opened the larger window and said, are you here for the Oracle, we said yes, and he helped us crawl through the bigger window, into his apartment, or parlor or whatever you might call it.

     On the right side of the room was a beautiful, large mirror with an ornate gold frame, it was above a library table made of rich wood, most likely cherry. On the table was a very old book with the word, Spells on the front, a skull that looked surprisingly real, a glass sand timer (like the one in The Wizard of Oz), and many white candles of various sizes. 

To the left side of the room, there was a beautiful armoire, again probably cherry wood with gold handles and knobs.  In the center of the room was a round table, draped with a beautiful Somalian-type fabric that looked like it was made by the best Alindi weavers. The other walls were draped with similar fabrics and the lights were candles and subdued on top of the armoire.  On the table was the expected crystal ball, and a deck of tarot cards. The room was cool, clean, and organized.  The chair for the oracle was a Victorian-style high-backed lounge chair of dark purple velvet and the chair for the client was a smaller version of the Oracle’s chair. The room smelled good, like a mixture of grapefruit and sea salt.

     The man who greeted us gathered some information from us, only our names and what information we were seeking, Laura said she wanted to know if there was any money coming in her future. Shelly said she wanted to know if she was going to get accepted to the law school she had applied to and then he smiled and looked at me. I could not get over how much he looked like the bum downstairs, except his hair was neatly styled, and he had a trimmed beard that framed his handsome face, his eyes were emerald green, and he of course was well dressed, clean, and well-spoken.  He studied my eyes for a moment waiting for me to tell him what I wanted to know.  I could not think of why I came, he then smiled a beautiful smile and softly said, “It is ok, you can tell the oracle yourself.” Then he took Laura by the hand and helped her to the seat at the table.  He escorted Shelly and me to a very different waiting room. It looked like a living area from a fancy hotel, right down to the seventy-inch television, and expensive stereo equipment.  There were magazines on the table and a tarot deck that we were allowed to examine while we waited.

  Soon Laura came out and told us she was going to come into extra money, not wealth, but extra cash in 13 minutes after we leave. We all smiled as Shelly went into the other room for her turn. Laura said that the man who met us was the oracle and that he was very kind and soft-spoken and that the event was not frightening in any way. I was glad she shared that last part as I was starting to wish I had not come along with them I could feel my sadness and anxiety levels rising.   I nearly screamed when out of nowhere a very large cat jumped up into my lap and let out a loud MEOW. It was rubbing his big head on my hands, so I started to pet it and to my surprise, my sadness started to lift and so did the anxious feeling. Laura was looking at the tarot cards and I was petting the cat when Shelly came out with a smile like a Cheshire cat across her pretty face, she shared that the oracle assured her she would hear from the college about her acceptance to law school within the next 13 days. The Oracle reached for my hand, and I followed him into the reading room, handing the cat to Shelly.

     Once in the reading room, I looked over into those beautiful green eyes of the oracle and he said, “Tell me what you are concerned about, I see fear, pain, and a question in your eyes.”

I stammered, and then I said, “I am afraid and do have pain in my heart and I worry…” I could not finish my sentence, tears were welling up in my eyes, they were on the verge of falling on my cheeks when the Oracle spoke to me again. “I see that you have lost a significant love recently and that you are wondering if you will ever see him again, his name, wait, oh yes, Elijah, yes?”  I nodded, thinking the girls must have told him about Elijah’s death.  I gathered my strength and asked, “Yes, I would like to know if I will see him again, but more importantly if he is safe, and not afraid, and can he remember me?” The Oracle said to me, “Gaysa, death is a curtain between their world and ours, he is only a breath away from you, and yes, he remembers, he sees you, and he still loves you.  He is not in any pain, safe that in his heart from missing you.”  “Will we ever see each other again, “I quietly ask. 

     “You will hear from him in the next 13 hours, he will send you a message, it may be longer for you to be together, but that too will come to pass.” The Oracle spoke. 

After our sessions, we paid the Oracle and went down the ladder on the fire escape to find our friend waiting to catch us and help us to our car. We were all talking at once as we drove away about the evening's strange events when we decided to go to a Mexican place to eat dinner.

     After parking we walked down the street to the restaurant, Laura said, “Look that could be a wallet over there” …she walked over and said, “Oh my God you guys are not going to believe this, this wallet has no name in it, no ID of any kind but it has thirteen one-thousand-dollar bills inside.

Shelly said, “No way, they stopped printing those bills in 1946, I bet they are worth a fortune!”

I said, “Okie Dokie then, Laura is buying us dinner.” Laughing we went inside to order.

     Laura and Shelly sat down on one side of the booth, I sat across from them, as the waiter came to the table and asked the girls if they wanted to order a drink and they said yes and placed their orders. Then the waiter looked at me and said, “I already know what you want, I will bring it.”  I thought how he could know what I drink, this must be a way to sell some new drink or something. The waiter returned with margaritas for my friends and as he sat down my drink he said, “a vodka Margarita for you, correct?” I smiled and asked, “Great but how did you know I do not like tequila?”  He replied nodding his head towards the bar behind him and stated, “The man at the bar with the long blond hair said that was what you would want, and he bought it for you too.”  The three of us sharply turned our heads towards the bar in unison, looking for the blonde man. We all knew that Elijah was blonde, his hair was just long enough to touch his collar and he always order a Vodka Rita for me. But there was no one there. “Where, what man,” I said with an urgency in my voice. The waiter replied that he must have left. My heart sank, but in a moment, I realized it had to be a coincidence. It did not stop my tears from flowing, and we drank our drinks in silence.

     After a good meal, we began to talk about the coincidence, and how they felt bad for me. I assured them that I was fine. We laughed about the whole experience at the Oracle’s and how weird it all was. The drive seemed short, and I got out of the car and told them not to worry, I was fine (a lie). As soon as I got into my apartment I fell into my sofa and wept for Elijah. It is so hard, knowing he was driving his motorcycle in the rain to come to see me when he swerved to miss an old lady who stopped without notice in front of him. Another car clipped his bike and flipped him out into the traffic. When I saw him at the hospital, he was barely alive, broken, bruised, his face swollen, tubes connected to his swollen lips, and gashes on his arms and legs. My heart broke, but it really broke when they asked me to leave his room. His older brother wanted a few minutes alone with Elijah, so I stepped away into the hall. While his brother Patrick was there, I saw a group of nurses and doctors rush into his room with a crash cart, they did not stay long. Patrick came out first and walked up to me and said, “I am so sorry Gaysa, he has died.” I fell to my knees, but before I hit the floor, Patrick’s strong arms caught me and pulled me into a hug.

     I guess I lost consciousness, I awoke in Patrick’s apartment, in his bed no less, he was in the living room talking to his parents (I assume) on his cell phone. I pretended to be asleep so I could listen. 

Patrick said, “Yes Dad, he looked pretty beaten up from the accident, he was not going to make it, so I did what you told me, I hated it with his girl there. Oh, no she was out of the room, but Dad, she is really hurting, are you sure we cannot tell her. No, of course, I don’t want to put our whole community at risk. I had them send his body to Uncle Connor’s place. Are you sure, Dad, no funeral, that is not going to sit well with his friends? Ok, Dad, tell Mother I love her, and I will see you all tomorrow.”

     8 AM, shown on my alarm clock, I got up thinking so much about learning more in 13 hours. I walked over to open the drapes and I looked across the street to our favorite coffee shop it looked like Elijah sitting at the outdoor table where we used to sit. I threw on my clothes right over my pajamas, and with flip flops on my feet, hair uncombed, and no makeup I ran to the elevator. When I came out of the elevator, I could still see the blonde man sitting at our table. But as I started to leave the building I looked again, and the man was gone.  So with eyes full of tears and sadness in my heart, I reversed my course and went back to my apartment. As I entered the apartment, I smelled bacon, I walked into my kitchen, expecting to see my mother or Dad, but there at the stove stood, Elijah? 

“How? I ran to him, he put down the cooking utensils and met me in a great hug, his beautiful lips met mine, the heat of his mouth was so hot, he looked so alive, and he smiled. I could feel his rock-hard chest against my breasts as he pulled away from me a little and said, “God, I have missed you, baby!” He turned off the stove and picked me up into his arms and took me to our bed.

After a few moments of wild kissing and pawing at each other, he ran his lips down my neck and kissed me so gently. I took a deep breath and said, “Elijah you’re alive, the oracle was right!”

     “About that, Gaysa, I must talk to you. You probably are not going to like what I have to say, I should’ve told you sooner, you know before my accident.” I listened attentively while touching his face, and his hair. Elijah continued, “Gaysa baby, I am alive, and I am not exactly alive. This is the second time I have, well you know, died.”

     “Oh stop! You are alive, you are here with me, what are you trying to tell me that you are a Vampire?” I said with a bit of snark in my voice.

     “Exactly,” Elijah says, as he places my hand on his chest over his heart, wait, there was no heartbeat. “So, the question now-Gaysa is do you still want me? Now that you know. I will leave if you wish it so.” 

      “Elijah, you are my world, I love you with all that I am, I don’t care what you are, if you love me, and we are together! But will it hurt when you turn me?” I spoke.  Elijah took me in his arms, kissing me and whispering in my ear, “I came back for you, it won’t hurt but it is forever, so I want you to be sure, you will never age, never need anything, and I will always be here for you. There is much to learn, but my family can teach you. It is nothing like the movies.” He said as he nuzzled my neck with his hands in my hair. 

      “I am ready, kiss me and turn me, and we shall never be apart again, I love you, Elijah, I was miserable without you.”  At that moment I felt him pull me to standing, his passion clearly showing with the rise in his jeans, he put his head down to meet my lips, moving down my neck and he sank his teeth deep my neck, there was a little pain but that suddenly changed to a euphoric bliss, as I melted into his arms, He placed me on the bed and crawled in beside me and we will always be happy and in love. Even though I know my world be different now, I am not afraid.