Superstition

A prompt from elsewhere. Superstition.

The calendar says it’s November 2000. I’ve done it. I’ve turned in the final papers for my masters degree. I am also in the third month of my job. In the next week I will receive 300 boxes of art books that I am expected to turn into a library some day for the company. In the next week we will also move the entire company to a different building in a different city. In the next month I will spend weekdays at work and weekends with my siblings, caring for our dad who will die a few days before Christmas. For five, ten, fifteen and twenty years I will struggle to eventually find my place in the company, and in the work I do. I will grudgingly love it and later will enthusiastically and nerdily love it and be known for it. I will suffer less, but take on the suffering of my mom. We will all suffer together, and the work that I do will turn into a refuge, even while getting more difficult and complex. How either suffering will end is a bit of a mystery.

But it started here. At a naugahyde-covered door that serves as my desk. In a little brick former post office that serves as our house. Somewhere under all that paper is a Magic 8 Ball. I’d consult it a dozen times a day, hoping that signs would point to yes. Yes, you will some day live pretty much pain-free. Yes, you will get an A in Cataloging. Yes, If you keep going to school you will graduate and get a job that will allow you to pay your bills. Even after the heat wave that melted the Magic 8 Ball, it had *just* enough liquid inside to provide answers. The poor mishapen oracle went the way of all things when we moved to our first real home, but I just may need to buy a new one to help me navigate the current uncertain times.