Oracle Gazing

The room was restful and familiar to him, but he couldn’t quite place it. He had been here before, but he couldn’t sort out when or why. The darkness of the room made it difficult to see anything beyond the young woman. She sat in front of him and gave him the lingering feeling he was in a dream.

He spoke cautiously, “I’m Wagner…in case you didn’t…”

“Oh, I know who you are.” She smiled back to him. It wasn’t a completely genuine smile. She seemed frustrated with him. I was a disquieting smile. That’s what he thought.

“You seem so familiar to me, but I just can’t remember…” he said.

“Yes. This is true.” She continued, not answering his question, “Listen, I want to try something new. I know you don’t understand any of this and explaining things to you is like waving to a blind person, but still, I’m going to try something different this time.”

She brought the small, glass orb she was holding up to her mouth and blew gently on it. It filled with brilliant color.

She said, “Here, catch,” and rolled it across the table to him.

Wagner had a feeling of panic as it rolled toward him. It was an intense feeling of trepidation that grew as it rolled to closer. It would fall off the edge of the table without his intervention. He could see it smashing onto the floor, but still, he remained motionless. He had an aversion to touch it.

At the last moment, he caught it and the glass flashed. He fell back into the chair like someone falling into a pool. There was a brief sense of panic before it was replaced with an acceptance of the inevitable.

As consciousness flicked away from him, he saw a fan spinning above him. The ceiling was white, and the fan was made from wood and in the design of a propeller. Although he closed his eyes, he could still see it in his mind’s eye; slowly spinning.

          And it began again.