Yellow helmet

It’s the same thing. It’s always the same thing, over and over, and over, and over again. Be it the streets of Paris, Barcelona, Bangkok, or Toronto, it is always the same thing: You’re destined for great things.

Sometimes they even pronounce it in the same voice, with the same dark face, with the same burning eyes, holding my hand, my cards, the ball in front of me, the smoke between their fingers in the same tender, big way. Like their words are obviously true, like there could be nothing else but those words, like I will, indeed, do great things.

Like it isn’t all a prelude to what follows next because the very next thing is always death. And it’s also always the same: the way their face falters and falls, the way their arms shiver, the way their cards fall, the smoke wavers, the tea sticks to the cup.

I am destined for great things.

I pull the death card, drink the death tea, say the death word, do the death gesture, have the death lines on my palms; I am death.

Maybe, that’s as great as they get.

At this point, I feel the way any golden child must be feeling: I’ve been brought up on these premonitions, I am half-expected to already have fulfilled them, I am always self-doubting and double-questioning my actions. Will this bring fame or death? Will it do anything at all? Will one day, maybe, by some wild luck and off chance, these stakes change?

At this point, I am unsure if I’d rather be famous and die, or be nothing at all. If I’d rather have my hand held by someone on a square in Baku, or next to a marketplace in Mumbai, and have them tell me how I’ll have three kids, and a spouse, and a big house, and never fall sick once. I guess it’s not a thought I can share with many people because “it sounds as if I’m saying, I’d rather die.” That’s a quote, my sister said it. I’m not entirely sure if she has a say in this because she hears about a wife, a dog, and a yellow motorcycle helmet. I’m not entirely sure why she would ever need a yellow motorcycle helmet but I am looking forward to living long enough to find out.

Maybe, that’s the great thing I’ll achieve: living long enough to see how Appletine acquires a yellow motorcycle helmet. Maybe, I’m the one to present her with this helmet. Maybe, I’m the one to die in this helmet, and she just needs it so that I can die wearing it. In a way, I would prefer this to be the case because it would make her fate totally pointless and useless: not only does she get to have a yellow motorcycle helmet for a destiny, but it doesn’t even protect her from a crash.

A lot of things are like that. Psychics, in my opinion, are like that, too.

You get one to look you in the eyes, feel your heartbeat and smell your shampoo, and all you get out of it is something vague, not specific at all, and with no timestamp to it. I could do better myself, I suppose, but I try not to pick up any new hobbies, or skills, or things to do for the fear of accidentally being too good at them, creating something great, and immediately passing away. That would be a waste of time I’ve got left; I do not, however, know what wouldn’t be.

It’s a messy life. Another con of listening to a psychic: you get stuck up on whatever they’ve promised you. I might very well already consider myself a Saint, for I will one day be great and dead, so I might just start acting that way. Appletine doesn’t approve. She, too, thinks it’s a waste of life, but I’m just saying that that was exactly my point.

“You’re destined for great things,” whispers a girl I brought home for the night, and all I can do is nod, and smile, and continue kissing her, and then I think it’s a good idea to add, “And a great death, yeah,” but it isn’t a good idea, because until the end of the night we’re sitting half-naked discussing her twin-brother who passed away from ovarian cancer, or some shit, a couple of months ago, and a possibility of an afterlife. Or maybe it’s her mother.

I’m not paying attention because I’ve learned to stop paying attention the moment someone says the word “great”. Those conversations never actually end up being great.

One could say, I’m not a good person. And that would probably be true. However, the thing is, I am destined to become a great person, so temporary goodness shouldn’t matter, and it doesn’t to me. It does to the girl with ovaries. It also matters to Appletine. She says it would matter to our parents, too, but she doesn’t know it because these two are a long way ahead of me on this road to greatness—hell, they are well past that point.

I had a bet with one of my friends before we stopped talking about who of us—me or my sister—would get to see our parents first. She, in an accident on a yellow motorcycle, or me with my greatness. He shrugged. Apparently, it’s not the topic to be making jokes on, which is fine because I don’t have to be a good person yet—eventually destiny will pull me into the light.

Isn’t it what the Bible says?

“Jacqueline,” Appletine says one day, “Did you find a job?”

“Why, you about to kick me out?” I ask. She’s not really good at saying “no” to me, so I’m not worried about ending up on the street. However, Pearson—at least, I think that’s her name; Appletine calls her Pear, and Pear calls her Apple, and they think they are being cute; her new girlfriend, whom I totally don’t think to be a good person—wants me out. I know that because I overheard them talking about it a couple of nights ago.

“No, but…”

“But Pear,” I just might be mimicking her high voice, “Told you to?”

I’m kicked out of the house the same evening. That should definitely point me towards my greatness because the streets aren’t the greatest of places when all you got is a psychic’s word and a big ego. I don’t think I have a big ego, Appletine does. Pearson, most likely, does, too. It’s even possible that Pearson told Appletine that I have a big ego but I don’t see how that would be apparent to her. It shouldn’t matter, and it doesn’t. I’m not here to please anyone—I’m here to do great things and then die. She’s here to die. I told it to her a couple of times, but neither of them appreciated the sentiment. At the end of the day, I see why Appletine wouldn’t: she’s getting a helmet. Pearson’s only getting Appletine, and that might not be for long.

What is it about being a good person that everyone likes so much? Why be good when you can be great? I think the girl with ovaries—or another girl, or that boy whose grandmother sells cats—told me something along the lines of, “The best is the enemy of good enough,” but it sure doesn’t apply to me. No one seems to think I’m even remotely good enough, so being the best would definitely not hurt. Being the greatest could hurt a little bit because, allegedly, I am to die soon after but all of that doesn’t matter.

Greatness treats all illnesses, isn’t that another saying?

There’s that yellow motorbike—it’s not quite cool enough to be a motorcycle—on the street, and it immediately makes me think of Appletine. And even though we haven’t talked since she married Pearson, and even before that, I still snap a picture and send it over. I probably should’ve pulled over before “overing” anything else because the moment the pic is out for delivery, I am out, too—the motorbike was moving, and we moved into each other.

One could say, I didn’t pull over but I definitely ran something else over.

The driver’s hurt, which is totally fine. They give them my heart.

Somehow I expected death to come after greatness but I guess it doesn’t matter. Their family gives Appletine a gift at the funeral, for saving the life of their beloved child, sibling, spouse. Is that the spouse I was destined? I remember that I wasn’t, in fact, destined a spouse.

The bike’s helmet is in the wrapping paper.

It’s yellow but I win the bet.