I… got a really weird hobby.

--- And? How’s it today?

Sometimes I come over to a certain girl’s house and…

(The girl gets closer and stares intensely to the boy’s eyes) Is there some luck for me in the close future?

(nervously)---well…I can foresee something, indeed.

(exited) ---Really?!

---Yes, it is a man.

--- A man?

---But…

---But?!

---He’s old.

---What?! Again!

---I’m sorry, Elena.

I read the Spanish deck to foresee the future.

---It is always like that, huh? When I will be meeting a fine young man?

---I’m truly sorry…

---It’s ‘kay. It is not your fault after all. Let’s just accept that I’m unlucky with love for my life’s course.

(Alex makes a pause and gets serious all of a sudden) ---It is all you would like to know about?

(Elena does not seem to care much about his companion. She is indeed calmed. So while tilting to one side.) --- Yup. It is already enough.

I really did say that this is indeed an awkward hobby for two young people, and maybe would be even classified for some as an act of paganism and something only heretics would do. The occult is not for sure part of catholic religion; nevertheless, its consult is quite requested all over the country and practiced by really a bunch of people half of secretly half of accepted. This has been like that for centuries. This syncretism is one of the things this culture has. We lived by unwritten rules about rituals that many people and they do not seem to extremely careful about what it is for instance unseen. Like this everyone can live up to its own balance with this syncretism. That is what I am able to display this kind of activity in front of many skeptical and even have the welcome of the curious. But … I cannot seem to be able to stop it for good. I mean, even if this is weird and marks me like an oddball…I kind of have a knack for it.

---It’s so hot today. Alex, do you want an ice cream?

---It will be nice but…I don’t have enough money.

(Leaning forward Elena inadvertently pats the head of Alex)  --- Let me rephrase it: Let’s go to buy some ice cream, it’s my treat.

---No, no. How can I accept it? Elena…it’s fine.

---There, there…save me the modesty. We’re friends after all.

---Elena…

Yes, as far as everybody’s concern goes, we are acquaintances who happen to meet each other in her house or at her grandma’s every now and then. This is already scandalous around the neighborhood. One young pretty girl and another youngster around her age, hanging out in the girl’s house; this only can lead to misunderstandings about me and her being careless and soon having to raise a baby. Such a common story…I’d sometimes prefer that. 

I mean…our relationship cannot be as further from that make-believe story.  

---I want to buy the ice creams at Mari’s spot. They are always the best.

---But…I’d be better for me to go alone to get them; I mean… I am the one imposing…

(Helena grabs his hand and drags Alex without using much force) ---Let’s go~

---Elena! Don’t pull me!

Do not think too much about our relationship. There is not an exact label to it, nor will we try to figure one. Our lives, for now, seem to be entangled by an unfathomable force who drawn us to someplace in common, that it is indeed, where we first met…To where we are getting closer…

(Helena stops abruptly) ---I cannot seem to understand it, huh? Do you, Alex?

Now, there she is again, looking at the dusk while more than the light is being wolfed by the quivery darkness. How long will this place keep on trapping Elena’s mind? That’s what I always keep on hoping to read in the cards, although, Elena has never wished for it. Elena…she does not seem to understand half of it; that without the proper request, I myself as well… cannot be let free of any of this.

(Alex rather than looking at the dusk neither the vast field, he keeps on looking at Elena)---No…any of it.

That soil is cursed by the very extent of its existence. This field that once grew grains as well had the sin of grown corpses.

---The amaranth festival is next week and even so, this field didn’t give his share.

---It is a given. If they were to again plain the grains by the end of the harvest they would have to find another corpse among the blocks.

--- Yes…as if they were playing hide and seek…

---Helena, stop blaming yourself, seriously…it makes no sense.

---But, we were the same, outside our houses misbehaving of what we were told and yet…he was the one that had the low straw.

---That was not up to you, such a thing was just by pure luck.

---Misfortune.

---Well, yes…but you did nothing wrong.

---I’m the one still alive yet I was to suffer If not but something beyond my most sincere gratitude.

---Hey, there is nothing wrong to be guarded by God…ah…

---There you go, sounding just like my grandmother.

--- Well what-ever! You have been blessed Helena, you always have that unfathomable vibe that I bet…

---I am loved by the dead? You have already told me that.

---That wasn’t…!

(Helena whines as deep as her soul) ---Alex, let’s go.

Helena has a bright and beautiful soul that is immersed in a dark environment. That was my first impression when we first met. Whether it was because I got attracted by her at first sight or because her fortune is always clear and peaceful, I enjoy spending time with her since she visited my mother’s shop. It was kind of weird of her character and her readings while I was laying the cards on the table’s surface. That day when I met Elena and read her fortune with the Spanish cards, two things happened: I experienced reading one of the most relaxing of fortunes and then I, for the first time in my life, I manage to encounter my fortune in someone else’s reading.