I Shot Miss Cleo I don't regret it. It was nearing five in the morning. It was the second week of January, first snow of Winter. I was planning to call in sick to work. After a long time staring at the hulk flakes plummet through the dim light of a street lamp outside my window, I decided to watch some television. What I really wanted to do was phone someone. An ex-lover, friend, relative, old enemy. It would be too cruel, I thought, to wake any of them up, I do have a conscience. I settled for paid programming advertising a Time-Life collection of songs from the Sixties. I think it was called Malt Shop Memories or something just as goofy, whatever the case it was almost enjoyable at five in the morning but what I really wanted to do was call somebody. Then a commercial came on for Miss Cleo's Psychic Hotline. Truth, it said, learn the truth about your life. The truth about anything would be refreshing, I figured, but my own life - now that would be worth hearing. I thought of a specific question to ask her, that's how I thought these things worked. I have since forgotten what the question was. "No, no, no," she said when I called, "Your life is full of imbalance, you have strayed too far "from the spiritual. You are irresponsible, lazy, self indulgent, "unethical, unfeeling, antisocial, deranged, dangerous, a deadbeat, "a degenerate, and you masturbate too much. "Don't be surprised if you spend most of your life in jail. At least "this is what my tarot cards tell me." I was stunned. She hit the nail right on the head, and the hammer was oversized and extra heavy. I was a believer all right, but unlike the claims of the commercial I was not completely satisfied, not satisfied in the least. That I demanded. I have lived in New York City my entire life. I have grown defensive and vengeful. I do not handle insults well, however accurate they may be. So I made it my mission. I called out from work for the next four days and scoured the Internet for information. Psychics, Psychic Hotlines, Miss Cleo, Miss Cleo's Psychic Hotline, I typed into the computer, Seers, Mind Readers, Mystics, Miss Cleo Miss Cleo Miss Cleo. Dumb bitch. I found out that she was actually a Mrs. and her name wasn't Cleo. I found out that she did not have a Jamaican accent. I found out that she had spent time in jail, on several occasions. I found out that there are many other psychic hotlines available that charge much less than $4.99 per minute. And then, finally, the needle in the haystack. I found her true address. The very next day I boarded a Greyhound to her city. Once there, I took a Gypsy Cab to her street address. I rang her doorbell and waited. It was Thursday afternoon, quarter past two, sunny. What little traces of ice were left on the sidewalks and hedges were slowly melting away. A woman came to the door in a fuzzy pink bathrobe and I instantly recognized her as Miss Cleo from the commercials and Internet pictures. Without a word, I shot her square in the face. She dropped like a marionette cut loose from its puppeteer, like driving snow on a windless day with nowhere to go but down until it is caught callously by the hard ground, leaving the tenses present and future for history's immeasurable graveyard. I didn't regret it then and I don't regret it now. She should have seen it coming. Jason D Smith
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