Unfortune

SUZANNE LANGLOIS

No one noticed at first, when the fortune tellers all took down their signs.

When the people did notice, most assumed the witches had been priced out of their dingy rented rooms

and would soon be replaced by exclusive boutiques or coffee shops— something of use.

Then the one on the corner of Middle and Main stepped out from her doorway wild-eyed on a Tuesday morning

and smashed her orbuculum on the cobblestone. People hurried by avoiding glass fragments and eye contact

until a nervous tourist noticed smoke rising from the spot where the crystal ball shattered

and shouted it’s a bomb, it’s a bomb. She looked at the woman and said yes, it will be a bomb, but not yet

and walked back into her shop, dropping a curtain across her window. No one ever saw her leave again.

The one on Pearl Street stood staring out her window like a manikin her face blank as plastic.

She looked like she was watching a horror movie on a screen no one else could see.

The tarot reader laid out her cards over and over, cursing like it was a game of solitaire she kept losing.

The cross-eyed witch in the alley whom everyone agreed was both insane and as real as a witch can be

dumped her potions on the pavement, wringing her hands so hard they looked like two ferrets fighting.

On the last day, the horoscopes all said the same thing:

Go, look at the stars one last time

they have already turned their bright faces away from us— no one wants to watch a thing like this.