Gypsy Toilet Prophecy

After upsetting a Gypsy palm-reader, I eat chicken poppers and find myself on the toilet, just as the prophecy foretold!

It wasn’t a terrible kind of hunger, it was just a state of feeling that I could eat if I wanted to. So, after a bright summer day of relaxation in our beloved beach house, I decided to have a snack. The directions on the bag stated “three minutes” to cook the chicken, but after cooking for the allotted time and touching them, I noticed they were still cold. I put them in for another three minutes and took a bite. Still cold. On the bag was a label that read; “Precooked chicken”. So I shrugged and took another bite.

Dying on the toilet would have been disappointing in it own right. To me, however, it had special significance. It was as if my greatest fear was coming true; that I would die young on the toilet, just as the prophecy foretold.

The story of the prophecy goes back to the mid nineties. I was seven years old at the time and we lived in a moderate townhouse not too upscale, five blocks from the center of Washington D.C. It was just the kind of home a that a modern middle class American family would live in. Though we had things the average American family did not - we had a nanny - who came from my mother’s home country of Brazil.

For the most part, I wasn’t a bad kid. Though there were some facets of my character that people noticed. I used to sit four inches from the television screen almost as if I were hypnotized. I remember being wrought with intense emotional discomfort, I rarely showed it. Perhaps my most prominent characteristic though is that I was oblivious to family plans and outings. I had no idea what we were doing and had no care to know. I was a kid who just tagged along.

It is perhaps no surprise then, that on this particular day in 1995, I found myself outside a white concrete dwelling. My nanny disclosed to me that we were going to get our palms read. That the lady - whom I presume now to be a Gypsy - would tell us our future.

I was a rational kid even at the age of seven. I had been fooled too many times by my prankster brother to believe in something like a prophecy discerned by the creases in my hand. So when I got wind of what was going on, I protested. I insisted that my nanny give me the money she was going to give to the palm reader. When she declined to give me the money, I suggested she just give half. Surely she would give half! She’d make money that way! Yet, she defied all logic by insisting I get my hand read. I shrieked, I cried. All within viewing range of the palm reader.

    The Gypsy lady had brown frizzy hair and prominent hazel eyes. She spoke Portuguese and didn’t seem to have much grasp of English; or so I thought. What she witnessed was a tantrum of great proportions. It had all the qualities of a proper tantrum. The tears, the shrieks, the stomping of feet. The tearing away from calming hands. And, of course, the runny mucus dripping down the nose and over the lips. The fit I threw must have given her an impression. I was a problem child, someone deserving of learning a lesson. To her, I was the kind of kid who spoils the fun out of life. The kind of kid who wasn’t good for business. So when Inacia pulled me over to the palm reader and they pried my right hand open, I noticed a devious smirk upon the Gypsy’s face.

After being calmed, I saw the palm reader run her fingers over the lines in my hand, taking great interest in every detail. She gave what seemed to be purposeful explanation in a foreign tongue. Inacia translated the words and she described what the lines in my palm meant. There is a line for most people that goes along the center of the hand. My line split around a callous. She described that because mine split it meant I would die at a young age.

She moved her fingers towards the other lines and began talking at a rapid pace. Inacia laughed and translated what the Gypsy had said; “She says you’re going to spend a lot of time in the bathroom.” And then she continued and I could see Inacia suppressing laughter. The laughter burst out of her repressive hold again and again. Then came a brief silence before the prophecy:

“She says you are going to die young, on the toilet.” Inacia said.  

There’s something profound about being a young child, having ambitions and getting prophecy that is so counter to the plans you have for your life. I came to remember it because she made a convincing science out of it. The way she described the lines on my hand, every crease seemed to tell a story, and she was so consistent. Also, I found her observations were somewhat applicable to my life. I did believe I spent a lot of time in the bathroom; I liked to take long baths. So I internalized this but I was still rational. I was still scientific. It was always in the back of my mind:  “I can’t wait until I’m old so I can prove this prophecy wrong”.

After seven hours on the toilet it seemed I had done just the opposite. The demons in my colon began to stir yet again. It was more than I could bear. Despite microwaving the chicken poppers for three minutes longer than directed, I ingested them cold, and now I was going to die. Age twenty-two. Still young. On the toilet. Just as the Gypsy palm reader predicted.

Reviews

[Samuel Dickens]

I like your sense of humor. I think this may be true--seems I read or heard it, that Elvis got his fatal heart attack while sitting on the pot. Strained too hard, I guess. So from where I'm at, this fellow in the story had reason to worry about the gypsy's warning. A lesson for us all--we should eat more roughage and stay away from microwave chicken.

[ImaginaryMight]

My English professor, when I gave her this, told me that she thought the world "Gypsy" was inappropriate, it was disrespectful. I told her the more disrespectful the better, because of her, every day I live in mortal fear of dying on the toilet. It seems like a trivial repayment for this torture.

[Chris Shaw]

An entertaining read which had a thread of humour running through it. It seems quite a few people die on the toilet. I'd say that is as good a place as any. At least you'd die in privacy. Nice little story here. I enjoyed it.

Chris