Horoscopia

A Story by Owen J Kato

In a future where Astrology has taken over the world and controls who dates who, a man tries to find true love.

Horoscopia

By Owen Kato

Tarsen Reys was looking for the one.

And normally this would prove to be a daunting task in this day and age but with the enforced aid of the Astrology Ministerium things were a little easier for Tarsen. He had choices yes, but these choices were skewed. Tarsen, being a Cancer, had his romantic links shortlisted to: Pieces, Taurus, Virgo, Scorpio and another Cancer.

It was a day like any other when Tarsen’s alarm went off and so he got up and went into the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee and stared out to the moon. The terraforming outside had gone well over the years. Then he did what he needed to do every morning after needing to put on his pot of coffee and went near his door and looked at what a machine on the wall had spat out. It was a sheet of paper and in plain block letters it read:

Good morning Tarsen Reys born on June 21^st 2089, your issued daily horoscope is as follows:

Today is a good day to get things in order and live a little on the wild side. A colleague will ask you do something. Your night will be full of joy. You may meet a new long-term friend. Keep an eye open for trouble.

Tarsen gave it another read over carefully, shrugged and got dressed for work.

At work things were busy but not busy enough for time to be collectively wasted in the holocopy room.

“Going to that gala tonight?”

“What’s that?” said Tarsen Reys.

“That gala,” said Billy. His co-worker.

“No, I’d rather stay home and save my money.”

“Don’t know how you’re going to meet a girl staying home all the time.”

Tarsen shrugged.

“Say, let’s flip a coin, tails you go.”

Tarsen shrugged again.

Billy flipped a coin. It landed tails.

“You go.”

Tarsen was getting ready and he had to do these things like button collared shirt all the way and then had to choose a tie and tie around his neck. He picked a navy blue tie and got on with it.

The gala proved fancier than Tarsen had guessed. His company was making decent profits lately and put on the gala to make more profits. It was held in the Black building and the ball room he was in looked over all the moon, the non-terraformed bits.

“How’s the titanium mining business?” said Groven, a colleague of Tarsen’s.

“Boss wants me to sell more to Earth.”

“Boss always wants everybody to sell more to Earth,” beaked off Groven. “How’s the wine?

“Decent.”

Groven asked another question, “How’s finding a wife in this messed up present?”

“Indecent.”

“What’s that mean?”

Tarsen walked off to be alone.

Being alone was pretty easy for Tarsen. He could do what he wanted, eat what he wanted, watch what he wanted; all these things he could do that he wanted but he wasn’t happy.

Billy came up to him, “Having fun?” he said.

“I should have stayed at home,” said Tarsen Reys.

“Fate told you come, so you came.” Billy patted him on the back and went and talked to some girl that was decently pretty.

Tarsen walked through a glob of people dancing to music only half them knew and over to the balcony that overlooked the non-terraformed part of the moon. He swished his wine around to feel clichédly important and took a sip.

“F*****g Mars over there eh!” said a female voice.

Tarsen Reys spat out his wine and it went on the long golden curtains of the expensive looking room.

“Don’t worry about it,” said the voice.

Tarsen Reys turned to a young woman with very black hair and very blue eyes and a very crimson dress.

“Hi my name is Airee,” said the young woman. She wasn’t very wide. She was very narrow and had boney shoulders.

“How do you say that again?”

The young woman let out a sigh, “Air"like what you need to breathe, and then EEEEEEEEEEEE!”

“Tarsen Reys.” He held out a hand.

The young woman hugged him. He was confused.

“What is it that you are doing here Tarsen Reys?”

Tarsen smiled. “The Exclave of Horoscopia told me to come here essentially. It told me it was a good day to get things in order, and to live on the wild side, and that a colleague would tell me to do something, so I am here. And it told me I would meet a long-term friend.”

“You call this living on the wild side?” teased Airee.

Tarsen Reys shrugged, “I am a Cancer.”

“Oh a crabby one that doesn’t get out much.”

“Shut up,” joked Tarsen.

“No.”

“Okay.”

“Well I am full of fire, look there!”

Tarsen Reys couldn’t see where there was. Airee edged close to him, rubbing up against him. Her dress was soft, her skin was softer.

“What am I looking at?” asked Tarsen.

“Mars.”

“Oh.”

“Aries.”

“You like to fight.”

Airee nodded.

Tarsen turned to her. He thought her incautiously beautiful. “Your dress is ridiculously short,” he said.

“Or I am ridiculously tall.”

Airee was 5’6.

“So watcha gonna do with the rest of your night?” she asked Tarsen.

“Finish this wine and go home,” he said.

Airee smiled. “How about we go glass for glass?”

“Huh?” Tarsen looked at her confusedly.

“I drink one and you have to drink one, and so forth.” Airee held up a glass.

Tarsen did not look into it.

“Live on the wild side, it’s what Horoscopia would want!”

“What did they tell you to do this morning?” asked Tarsen Reys.

“I dunno, I recycle them before I look at them.”

“That’s against the Canon, The Exclave!”

“What about canons?”

“The Law, it’s against the edict,” clarified Tarsen.

“Don’t be an edict. Let’s go glass for glass. I’ll let you objectify me if I can objective you.”

Tarsen Reys had semi-long hair boring brown, plain brown eyes and high cheek bones. He wasn’t in shape or out of shape. He just was. “Why would you objectify me?” he asked.

“Why I never would Tarsen Reys, what kind of person do you take me for?”

“An Aries,” answered Tarsen Reys.

Airee smiled quite brightly.

The two got a table and a large glass of wine"no, that’s not right"the two got a table and Airee, when the bartender wasn’t looking, stole a bottle of wine and hid it under the table. “Glass for glass,” she said smiling.

“If we just bought the bottle the money would go to the Moon Builder’s charity,” said Tarsen.

“The moon’s already built, plus I donated a hefty sum already. Plus it’s not the doing bad that makes anyone feel good, it’s the not getting caught part…”

“…the getting away with it.”

“See now you’re coming out of your shell a little.” Airee smiled big.

Tarsen Reys was drunk. Drunk enough to dance. Drunk enough to ask if he could put his hand on Airee’s hip. Drunk enough to rub Airee’s legs underneath the table when they both sat with two other people which whom they had a long conversation with yet did not recall the names of.

Then Tarsen Reys got drunker and he was drunk enough to believe in love.

The red dress over Airee’s body needed to come off and Tarsen Reys felt he needed to be there when it did.

Airee was all smiles and laughter and free. They danced a little, rubbed up against each other a lot. Tarsen, in his navy suit, and Airee, in her red dress danced and drank and laughed the night away.

After five or six or seven bottles of wine the two decided to walk out the gala together and walk to Airee’s apartment ten terraformed blocks down. It was Airee’s idea. First Tarsen left the gala and hid in an alleyway not saying goodbye to anyone because he wasn’t about goodbyes. Then Airee said goodbye to everyone and went and met him. In the alleyway they kissed a bunch and decided it best to have some fast sex. It was fast. Tarsen hadn’t had sex in a while let alone any fast sex. Then they walked back to Airee’s high-rise apartment and had faster sex. In the middle of the night Tarsen woke to Airee on top of him and they had slow sex.

Over the course of the next few months the two, apparently, fell in love. Airee made Tarsen go out more and Tarsen made Airee stay in more so they went out about half the time. They had sex on the daily, sometimes slow other times not as slow. Tarsen stopped reading his daily horoscopes and didn’t tell Horoscopia he had moved in with Airee. They kept things very secret except when they made love loudly.

One day when they were making love loudly and a knock came at the door real fierce.

“Hide!” whispered Airee playfully. She had not much on. Then she put a red robe on.

There were words at the door. They weren’t very good ones and Tarsen knew who it was.

A uniformed man walked into the bedroom. Tarsen was hiding in the closet. The man looked under the bed. Tarsen giggled because it was like hide and seek. Then the man opened the closet. “Are you Tarsen Reys?”

“Yes sir,” said Tarsen Reys.

“You are under arrest for failure to conduct yourself accordingly to Daily Horoscope and breaching the Canon set forth by the Astrology Ministerium.”

“What did I do wrong?” Tarsen knew though. He knew. He was just being funny in an unfunny time.

The man pointed to Airee, cuffed and down on all fours, “Her,” he said.

“Many times; both fast and slow,” joked Airee, who was trying to smile at the moment but was hit by a female guard.

Tarsen Reys was then hit by another female guard and went down to his knees because what else was there really to do.

“Any last words to your false lover?” said the man in uniform.

Airee smiled, “It was fun.”

Tarsen smiled back and said nothing.

They dragged Airee away after she started kicking and screaming an awful lot; you know that fighting for freedom type of stuff, and Tarsen calmly walked out the apartment and went to jail.

Tarsen Reys was in a room with a bright white light over his head and a man came in in a black suit with the pin of a scorpion on it. The man sat down across the table from Tarsen. “So you have options,” said the man.

“I thought it’s han"“

“No, no, she admitted it was all her doing. She’s an Aries"an aggressive b***h of a b***h. Full of fire. You’re a water sign. You go with the flow. She made you love her.”

“She didn’t make me"“

“No, she did. She said so herself,” said the Scorpio.

“Okay,” said Tarsen Reys.

“I checked the lunar cams, who could resist a fancy red dress when you’re drunk at the fundraising gala? And she got you drunk at the gala I heard from a source named Billy Zitheen.”

“Good old Billy,” said Tarsen.

“Either way, she’ll be hung.”

“I should be hung too then.”

“No you have options. It wasn’t your fault you fell in love.”

Tarsen Reys was confused.

“You can either be hung, electrocuted or live on under Horoscopia’s probation. The latter meaning no more dating anyone that isn’t a Taurus, Cancer, Pieces, Virgo or someone like me,” he tapped on his Scorpio pin.

“What do you recommend?”

“Living probably.”

Tarsen Reys walked out the Horoscopia Police station feeling quite dead.

Airee was hung alive.

A couple months passed. Tarsen Reys woke, put on a pot of coffee and checked his Daily Horoscope, it read:

Today will be a majestic day. New things will happen. Life is endearing. Someone will take a chance on you. Be wary of things that don’t seem right. You will meet an uncertain someone.

“The f**k does that even mean,” said Tarsen Reys.

He sipped his coffee, put on his tie and got on with it.

Later that day Tarsen met a nice Pieces named Tria while grabbing for the last cantaloupe in the grocery store. She was cool, blond, beautiful, loving, overly emotional and good. They dated for a couple months.

It didn’t work out.

The End