Omens.
How you love them.
I can manipulate virtually any substance, phenomena or media and you will find it a sign. Yet who gets all the credit for them? Not I. No, god gets most of it. The universe is coming in for a bigger share these days, but how many times does a person see a bird fly by and think it’s aimed at him by the Devil?
The truth is that we have bets- ongoing, a constant competition to see who can come up with the best signs. It used to be about numbers, how many of you believed they saw the Virgin in their well or latte on any given day, for example. But these days it’s about creativity, food has always been too easy, ditto weather effects, astronomical phenomena and birds. I tell you they’re spies, not omens. Some of them might be me, in fact, but never as an omen.
My minions win privileges with these contests, you can imagine the submissions. I had to prohibit anything involving phones, the possibilities belong to mathematics and have nothing to do with art. In fact, there are bets on whether or when you will dispense with omens entirely, and drop superstition from your vocabulary. I have a pretty good idea, but there’s no need for them to know that. I stay out of the betting pools, since I am the judge.
You have a clear understanding of the universe and its interest in you, as manifested by comets. Kings rule only under the influence of the heavens, higher beings are deeply concerned for them and their every decision. Comets time their appearances to support their favourites, like the old gods. All battles are decided by the strength of importunities. The nature of the stars and gods involved.
Sometimes they are decided by me, personally, for one reason or another, but I’m more in the line of starting wars, not participating in them. Soldiers being what they are, it isn’t difficult to motivate them, just throw a handful of signs at them. Forty days of rain, an almost completely red cow, an asteroid that swerves slightly, a new microscopic anything that multiplies rapidly, you have always been happy to blame nasty illnesses on me. Despite what you think I had nothing to do with leprosy or the spread of the plagues, we might make the bug but you know it's your hygiene that gets you in trouble. And your rampant overbreeding, any proper herd would have started eating each other by now. How overcrowded do you want to be? Up close and personal from the looks of it. Nasty business, one of the reasons I spend most of my time in the past.
Mancy. How many types do you have? Not enough, I could produce a new one in an instant and find a flock. Skullimancy, the divining of a man’s nature and future by his resemblance to my good minion Skulli. Count your eyelashes, then look it up. Feed a stray cat, plant a seed that’s oval, kiss a fool, roll over in your sleep, bite only the nails on your left hand, peel every fruit you eat, throw the garbage out on cloudy days, look them all up, learn about yourself, and your place in the beautifully ordered universe. Read your cereal every day, take pictures of your pile of laundry and study it, look carefully at your own thumbs, it could save your life. Never step on cracks, unless you want to persecute someone, then be sure and step on all of them, while whispering their name. Remember, the world can be divided between those who cut their meat to eat it and those who bite it off. Those who wear skirts and those who don’t. Did you lay something on your altar today? Never leave these things to chance. Find the tarot deck made for you, there will be one, trust me. Burn the suggested meanings and find your own, read them only by firelight so I can come to you and make sure you do it correctly.
Can the wisdom of fifty thousand years be doubted? Omens are critical to your survival, never neglect them. If you want them to appear in your favour, you will have to light a candle and suck up somehow.
“Einaudi: Elegy For The Arctic” by The Legendary Ludovico Einaudi This might just be an omen.