The Oracle

• Hayley Harris, Grade 10, St. Clare's School
• Short Story
• 2014

Excellence Award in the 'Write As Rain 2014' competition

When I was only a boy, my mother took me into town to buy me a pair of brand new birthday shoes. They clicked and clacked, so I was pleased. My mother had warned me to stop clacking my shoes, lest some homeless man swipe them as I jumped and then sell them for a pretty penny. I had laughed it off, but found myself inspecting my surroundings a bit more thoughtfully.
This led me to see a crowd. I knew something amusing was going on over there so I pleaded with my mother until she took me to see what the fuss was about. The entertainment turned out to be a girl dressed in rags as dark as her hair and murky eyes.
The blind girl held a battered tin in one hand and clutched a shaking man’s hand in her other. He dropped in a gold coin and she spoke with a voice fit for an old spinster “52 moonless nights, peacefully sleeping.” The man then gasped, releasing the girl and rushing off as if he had just seen a ghost.
My mother seemed to know what was going on as she too clutched the girl’s hand and dropped in a gold coin. “24 moonless nights, painful illness.” The girl spoke, her accent so thick and foreign my mother had to ask her to repeat what she had just said. The girl only scoffed and withdrew her hand. Mother had hurried away in a tuff.
Only two years later, my mother died of tuberculosis leaving me with only my father. There were no more fancy shoes after that. Now I have grown up into a fine man. On the occasion of her 6th birthday I took my own daughter into town to buy her a doll. When she dashed off across the street to observe glittering dolls in a shop window, I found myself next to the same ragged girl I saw with my mother all those years ago. She provided me with a smile of yellowed teeth and offered her own hand. In a moment of charitable spirit, I grasped her hand and dropped a gold coin in the tin, “Car,” she simply says.
“And?” I question. She simply shrugs and repeats, “Car”. This was most confusing indeed. I asked her what she meant by “Car” and she tried explaining to me that she foretold the dates and causes of deaths. Honestly, she expected me to believe that? She didn’t even tell me a proper date either, “Car”.
I scanned for my daughter. She was drooling over a doll in a shop window. I stepped out onto the street. Honestly, what a crazy old ha-…