- A.G.
A Psychic Encounter
“I see a health problem around your abdomen, you have tried to treat it naturopathically, but it will not work. You will have to take a more conventional medical approach and use surgery”.
The tarot card reader, who was not reading cards after all, continued on other matters pertaining to my future while observing me as if I was a book containing my life’s chapters open for her to read.
Studio Voyance was offering psychic tarot card and palm readings, the simple square white poster attached to the rails outside announced. My eyes, traveling randomly on the pedestrianized eatery area of Rue St-Denis, caught this sign from Resto Vego, a café across the street, where I was sitting during my conference break and stored it visually at the back of my mind.
I did also notice that it was above Patrick’s Pub, fortune telling and alcohol make good business partners. The street was colorful, bursting with a summery festive atmosphere that seemed to have permeated the whole city of Montréal, one that made travelers wanting to chase their dreams in psychic reading rooms.
I was excited by the imminent reunion with a good friend who had been traveling for several months across north America. In one of these synchronicity moments life is full about, we both happened to be in Montréal right at the same time and we were in celebration mode.
When we were finally reunited the following day, I took her to the vegan café that had become my local and as we kept talking, catching up on months of old news, I caught in the corner of my eye Studio Voyance’s advertisement across the road. I jokingly pointed at it and suggested we should commemorate our impromptu reunion with a visit to the physic woman.
“Why don’t we maximize on our luck and see what the future has in store for us?” I suggested lightheartedly.
My friend finished her chocolate cake rather quickly and then declared, in her usual manner when she means business, “right, let’s go across then, shall we?” and walked out of the cafe purposefully.
“Ahhh, ok…” was all I could say, rushing after her amused by her determination and surprised too as she had not seemed to pay much attention to my suggestion earlier on.
“What reading shall we do”, she asked when we got there and after reading the options available.
“I thought we can just go for the cheapie one” I suggested, the $10 one that afforded the answer to one burning question.
The $60 was the only other but pricier option to a full reading. I was mindful of our budget and perhaps a tad skeptical of the quality of fun one can get out of a physic reading advertised in a rather unsophisticated way.
We walked up an external flight of metal stairs –typical feature of Montreal’s architecture - and through an open door that led to a big room full of light coming through a tall window that brought in the early afternoon sun, divided by a white canvas curtain into a reception area and an “inner sanctum” that had a big round table and two chairs. Little decorative fairies were floating around.
The psychic, a youngish, blondish, plumpish, good naturedly looking woman, wearing a long skirt, came out to welcome us asking what she can do for us. My friend asked for a full reading. She never hesitates once she has made up her mind. I chickened out offering to go second in hope that hearing her reading could give me reassuring clues of why investing more that $10 would be worthy it.
I sat in one of the sofas, covered in a white throw, in the reception area, my jet-lagged ears sharply tuned to the psychic’s voice and soon after I had to make an effort to quieten my gasps of surprise. This woman meant business, I thought. She was too close to the truth with my friend’s life circumstances. By the end of her reading I was swayed, perhaps the $60 full psychic reading could be revelatory. What could she say about me, I wondered?
I was hooked! I returned, just before I left Montréal, for a $10 question session to which she did not waste any time. She gave me one single answer that solved a mystery that had been haunting me for years, like that! In one $10’s worth of sentence.
As it turned out, her prediction about the mysterious serious operation, I had no plans or need for at that stage, did come true 1 year and a half later. I am now looking back at my travel notes, wondering what else can I start ticking off from that long list of things she said will come to happen.
I have yet to meet the ginger hair man and those are hard to come by, I am sure I have not missed him out!
*Visuals provided by the author
