Sitting down for the reading-of challenged my sense of balance. The wobbly table in front of me offered no support for my arthritic hands. And I feared that any movement of the table would knock over the seven wax candles that flickered atop. The high-backed wicker chair where I was to rest seemed to be held together with strings and rags. Still, I sat. Slowly. Carefully.
Marcia entered cat-like, brushed her flowing robes aside and sat in front of me on a stool that I had not seen. Her long white hair covered her eyes, but with her back to the candles I couldn’t have seen them anyway.
Without saying a word she reached forward and took my cold hands in hers. They were warm. The room was warm. The room lit up, transformed, no, I was in a big city, on a busy corner. Was this New York? I looked down at my hands and they were young again. The pain was gone. I looked up at the kiosk and newspapers held a date years into the future.
I reached my right hand up to inspect a magazine from the kiosk. A stab of agony. I was cold. As suddenly as I had left the room, I returned to the age and the pain and the darkness and the flickering candles.
And Marcia.
Slowly she whispered, “I have read-of you. You have seen.”
As she rather floated out of the room the candles extinguished. I slowly stood, in the dark, but I had seen a light.
S. T. Fleming 