Bitter Oracle - Chapter 2 - My Programed Death

----- WELCOME TO -----

PART 1 - DENIAL

After Chapter 1 - Nobel Shindig, meet our main protagonist.

Sorry, it's a long chapter.

I was trying to decide how to die. It all came down to filling out a form – or not.

It was just a piece of paper on my kitchen’s table. Innocent enough, but I knew better, which was the reason why I hadn’t gone over it yet. It had been sitting there for twelve days now. I shook my head whenever my eyes ventured that way. I had to sneak into the public library to print out an application form from the OES website.

“You’re an idiot,” I mumbled to myself.

But again, I turned away. The logo of the OES, red and blue, blazed just too brightly from a corner of the form.

OES – Oracles Employment Service.

“Shit.”

Come on, I told myself. Come on, Bit, you did the research, you know it’s the only way.

The OES was the right place, the best place for me. After researching it for the past four years, I knew precisely what to expect. A government’s pay, for one. The idea made me wince. The OES would be something of a financial letdown. I worked a modest job, flipping burgers in a fast-food joint, but I made good money on the side using my Second Sight.

Salaries were very attractive in the private sector. It was easy to score small consulting gigs through a handler. I had lived large in the years since high-school, traveling extensively and spending fortunes on fine clothes and finer food. I had now lost my appetite for either, or rather, I needed security more than I lusted after money.

With that pressing need in mind, I made myself sit at the table and touch the tip of a finger to the form. I read the first page,

Surname: …………

First Name: …………

(Alias/Nickname: …………)

Birthdate: …………

Birthplace: …………

Marital Status: …………

Children (Names and ages): …………

Next of kin: …………

Other Position (Y/N): …………

Name the Position: …………

First Sight Experience (Date): …………

The first page seemed alright. I grabbed a pen, put it down again. Of course the first page was alright. It was only the first page, after all. Other, harder questions might very well be lying in wait on the second and third pages. I needed tea to face those other, harder questions.

I set a kettle to boiling on the stove. I was always very careful around rapidly heating water – Oracles and klutzes alike weren’t always aware of what they were doing. I suppose I could have invested in an electrical kettle a long time ago, but the process of boiling tea, a certain whistling song had always helped me unwind. It suited my borderline OCD.

I fixed myself a cup of tea, cleaned up behind me and sat down again, at last. This time, I uncapped my pen with a small sigh.

Surname: Flynn

First Name: Elizabeth

Elizabeth Flynn. The name didn’t seem to fit, I wasn’t used to it anymore. Maybe I had outgrown it. Too short a surname. Too long a first name. I couldn’t quite figure my way around it. I lived an informal life, almost off the grid. Neither my job nor my shabby apartment required much in the way of paperwork.

(Alias/Nickname: …………)

I hesitated. I wasn’t sure I wanted to get on such a personal basis with the government. But what the hell…If everything went according to plan, I was going to be part of the government.

(Alias/Nickname: Bitter)

Yes, Bitter. Why the hell not? Though it had to be ironical because I was all sweet ‘n light. Most people called me Bit, however, because of my rather diminutive stature.

I sailed over Birthdate and Birthplace. I felt much older, but I was only twenty-four and, for some reason I couldn’t really identify, I had never left my hometown.

Marital Status: Single

And perfectly happy with that.

Children (Names and ages): …………

I crossed out that one, muttering under my breath, “Thank God for that.”

Next of kin: ………….

That line gave me pause. I had no next of kin.

Well, technically, my parents were both alive somewhere, but I had no idea where. It had been over a decade since the last time I had seen my father. I didn’t miss him. My mother had all but shoved me out of the door the moment she could. My brother Danny had already been gone. I didn’t think he was dead – I would probably have heard, but fifteen-years-old Daniel Flynn had already been very far gone into a drug-induced haze. It was doubtful that he would be of any use as my next of kin.

I almost wrote down a friend’s name and contact info. I had a few of those. I was closest to Colleen and Sakes, two of my colleagues from Carmen’s Burgers. Both were always available for a talk, a laugh, a drink or a night on the town. Neither deserved to be burdened with this OES bullshit.

I simply crossed out the line.

Other Position (Y/N): Yes

Name the Position: Crew member

I added Carmen’s name and address in parentheses. I could imagine how that would look. Yes, “crew member” was a euphemism for feeding people shit, then cleaning up after them, but I wasn’t ashamed of my job in the restaurant. Sales, scrubbed tiling and fried chicken nuggets were things I understood, I could touch and count. They were real, sane.

It wouldn’t matter to the OES anymore once they read the next line.

First Sight Experience (Date): October, the 11th ****

Just shy of my twelfth birthday. There was no point in ranting or whining about it…The well-meaning “Oh, my God, twelve and Scrying…” always annoyed me.

Those sanctimonious idiots imagined the pitfalls of poverty and addiction, but it had been nothing like that. It had been right after Summer break, the first party of the year. So proud of getting invited by the cool kids in school…How many times have I dreamed of going back in time? As a child eager to please, I hadn’t dared tell that one girl to scram – that one girl who wanted to Scry.

The timid, fastidious kid I had been had gone into immediate Trance. They tell you it can be like that – the information campaigns, the health and safety advisers. They tell you that once can be enough. It was for me. It took me hard and fast, and I Scryed true from the first.

People’s reactions to Scrying ranged from disdain to outright disgust to romanticizing Oracles. The Second Sight disturbed and fascinated: seeing the future, the past and a lot of secrets. But being an Oracle wasn’t romantic.

It was falling in Trances at all the worst moments, maybe convulsing, eyes rolling in their sockets. It was drooling like an invalid, pissing or shitting yourself in public. It was screaming obscenities and not remembering it afterward. It was degrading, and it was awful and, every time I came to, entirely alone, with those grim, horribly true images in my mind, I wished I hadn’t listened to a snotty bitch when I was eleven.

I was dying, no dignity, no poesy in that.

I took a sip out of my tea, banishing those thoughts as I did three to four times a day. Sakes would say that wishes were shit, life was it. And overall, life was good. I was satisfied with my job, I liked my colleagues, I had friends who loved me, I made a few decent meals a day. If I really wanted something, I did a few consulting jobs and I bought it. Easy, uncomplicated and good enough, right?

But even a slow descent was a descent and I refused to wait passively for the crash that would end me. I turned the page. The first question gutted me, it was so close to my thoughts,

State of decline: …………

I should have expected that. They needed to know, of course.

State of decline: A vision every three days

It was the line I had drawn for myself when I graduated high-school. I could have applied for a scholarship and given university a try. I hadn’t seen the point. It takes a minimum of three years to complete a bachelor degree, then another two for a master degree. At eighteen, I hadn’t certain been I would survive until my 20th birthday, let alone the 23rd one. I hadn’t wanted to waste the last years of my life cramming for exam after exam.

That I was past twenty-four and only just making arrangements surprised me.

Scrying accuracy: …………

I smiled a little to myself. The Second Sight was going to be the death of me, but I was oddly proud of it.

Scrying accuracy: High

I could have upped that to “Very high”. There was a reason why I could always pick up a gig at a moment’s notice. “Very high” wouldn’t have been bragging, but it might have looked like it at first reading. I stuck to “High”. I would no doubt get an opportunity to show them exactly how accurate I was.

Highest degree: HAQ

High-school Academic Qualification.

Blood-type: A+

That one was easy.

Medical condition(s): …………

I crossed that out. I was going to die healthy as a horse.

Smoker (Y/N): No

Alcohol consumption (estimate): No

Drug consumption (Please, be honest): No

Damn, those people pissed me off.

There was a rampant belief in the population that Scryers were all addicts. It simply wasn’t true. Being an Oracle was more like having emphysema or tuberculosis. It was an illness, not an addiction. Maybe you got it through a fault of your own, but addicts made repeated mistakes. Scryers could never quit. Drunks and junkies needed only to decide to get clean – to the bitter end.

And most of us weren’t interested in drugs or alcohol. Why shoot up or smoke weed when you could just as easily get high Scrying?

I turned to the third page.

Send Pages 1 and 2 to:

Followed the OES headquarters’ address in the Business District.

Make sure you have filled the forms entirely and enclose a photocopy of your identification papers.

I stared at the page in dismay. This was it? No more questions? There was a blank space at the bottom of the page where I could sign, and nothing else. I was angry now.

Those people…So, I was an accurate Scryer and that was enough for them? Nobody cared who Bitter Flynn was or what I could do!

“Oh, hell,” I mumbled to myself. “Fuck them.”

I started crumpling the paper. I was glaring at the black lines of blocky letters. I went completely still when one of them started opening. It faded in and out, a gateway blinking in and out of existence as it slowly aligned.

I started breathing hard, deliberately hyperventilating until my heartrate picked up. When it took a mite too long, I pinched my arm hard enough to bruise. The threat of a Trance passed. It felt like only a couple of minutes had gone by. I touched my cup of tea. It was cold. More than a couple of minutes, then.

I sighed, smoothed out the wrinkled page.

The OES didn’t care about me, and I didn’t really care for them. It wasn’t personal, however, it was strictly business. They wanted to purchase my services and I needed their infrastructures and assistance. It was a matter of time now before I slipped into a permanent Trance. Someone would have to look after my unconscious body for months – years, possibly, until it finally died off.

“Be reasonable, Bit.”

The sound of my whispering reassurances to myself failed to comfort me. I still put my pen to the page, ready to sign.

I stopped again.

The OES logo was giving me the evil eye again.

“Shit.”

I got up and deliberately turned away from the application form. I could think it through, couldn’t I? What would a few days matter? Or weeks?

To see our main protagonist act like a selfish brat, read Chapter 3.