said she was going to make whatever arrangements she could make to better her financial
position, then she quit her full time job to become a full time psychic reader and teacher. This
decision included advertising Saturday morning gatherings as classes in The Way To Live.
Admission would be free, but she would pass the hat while I became the inbound customer
service representative, after the fact.
Reluctantly, I was impressed by how far she was willing to go to research her work, but
after calculating the minimum number of readings she would need to live it again crossed my
mind that she might have lost hers.
Bonnie rerouted a call from a client later that same day, and I was pleasantly surprised to
discover that I could flatten concepts and integrate aspects of diverse premises to satisfy most of
her questions. I say most because my answers invariably gave rise to new questions, and I had to
explain that I was Bonnie’s writing partner, not a psychic. After a second call forced the same
issue, I phoned Bonnie to tell her to pass on this information to her clients. The next evening, I
learned that she had done both in practice and neither by design.
She had told Rochelle Fletcher-Smythe that I was researching the practical applications of
mystical disciplines for a screenplay, and in this capacity, I was knowledgeable about cause and
effect beyond what was commonly apparent. She had also said I was attuned to the abstract, that
I could align earthly and ethereal clues to see around corners and that I had been doing this since
long before I met Bonnie. So said Mrs. Fletcher-Smythe.
As a result of Bonnie’s non-disclaimer, call-me-Rochelle-darling wanted new answers to
replace the ones she didn’t like, which eventually forced me to be curt when I referred her back
to Bonnie for that kind of information. With a wonderfully executed quiver in her voice,
Rochelle-darling said Bonnie had warned her that I was eager to display my intellectual prowess,
but I was reluctant to acknowledge my metaphysical gifts, then Rochelle pleaded for help;
important people were coming over, and she couldn't wait for Bonnie to come home to answer a
few simple questions. She would pay full fare for my reading. Money was no object.
I couldn’t accept the money, but I had made a promise, so I asked Rochelle what she had
specifically been told that puzzled her. Instantly tearless, she gave me a detailed version of one
aspect of her reading, adding a blow by blow account of her feelings should I somehow fail to
realize she had been verbally assaulted. She didn't understand how the time she got out of bed
mattered in the grand scheme of things.
I understood that Bonnie’s reading had focused on the downward spiral of arrogance, and
that “Rocky” to her close friends was asking for an off-the-shelf fix, preferably something her
butler could do. I also thought that Bonnie’s persona of choice, Saa-ra, (Sara to Rocky) might
have been too subtle in laying out the process of revealing the core of any problem to ourselves,
subtly being the stuff of threats to a frightened person.
Peeved that Bonnie was probably having dinner with Josh, I aligned the bug of Rocky’s
laziness with the windscreen of behavioural momentum to tell her that she needed to get her shit
together at dawn and stick to a productive plan until sundown. Rocky could rest but not loaf. She
had to put away the things she touched in a state ready for reuse and otherwise not litter or tisk at
either her hired help or the general inefficiency of the world that existed beneath hers for the sole
purpose of supporting it. When the day was done, she could read and relax but have no social
