Floating Wax

The fortuneteller eyes read the wax floating in his silver bowl like someone would intently read a book, effortlessly but with great care not to skip a single detail. The tiny spots of wax swam across the surface of the water huddling together on sides before dispersing and creating other patterns. I could make out the fortuneteller counting the dots under his breath, then noting their significance before counting again. When he finished peering into the bowl he looked up and began to tell me my future.

The fortuneteller’s house was down a dirt road surrounding by farms on both sides, down a single driveway that lead to two small buildings. He worked next to his house in an open building with a clean tiled floor at the base of a shrine of a large Buddha. The Buddha was entirely gold except for its eyes, large black pupils on the whites of the eyes, and though unrealistic, they still peered at you peacefully and content. To the right of the Buddha were three older white statues of monks sitting cross-legged with pointy ears and long beards. Amongst the Buddha and the three monks were dozens of smaller statues, candles, flowers, and pictures of famous monks. Two tall spires on each side of the Buddha, one gold and one silver, were adorned with thin metal leaves. The wind blew violently that morning; the fragile leaves held on tightly as they flitted and shook in the heavy breeze, making ever-slightest clinks against the spires.

I wasn’t sure what to expect what a fortuneteller would look like. My only idea is an image of an old woman wearing a turban and big dangly earrings, with a big nose, a large protruding wart on it. She would be sitting on large pillows behind a crystal ball in a heavy cloth tent, that she set up only temporarily, traveling around with the circus. The man I met instead looked like a monk more than anything else. His hair was very short, and since it was a day before the full moon, I assumed he kept the monk’s ritual of shaving his head according to the lunar calendar. He walked confidently but humbly and sat on the floor with his knees bent, his left leg to the side behind him, and his right leg bent in front of him, his right foot resting against his left knee. He dressed completely in white, loose fitting pants and shirt with a large folded cloth draped over his left shoulder, down across his body. He wore a single, large gold ring on his left ring finger, and though he only works in seeing the future his hands were large and strong as a craftsman’s. His face appeared constructed of the curves of many perfect circles; his head, ears, nose, cheek bones all rounding his face together handsomely. His eyes moved slowly, as did the rest of his body; he even blinked slowly as if he perceived time differently altogether.

The man counted out nine small orange candles and placed them onto a small plate and sprinkled small flowers atop them. He bowed as he handed me the plate and instructed me to slip 100 Baht under the candles. He spoke softly but confidently with a calming voice. He then told me to hold the plate high and pray about my future and all of my concerns for it. The strong winds shook the candles in place, and blew some of the tiny flowers off the plate. I tried to concentrate about my goals for the future, my travels, my writing and handed the candles back to him.

In front of the fortuneteller was a small stool upon which sat a silver bowl—dull but intricately decorated—standing on a small base. Next to bowl was a lighter. He picked up the lighter and, shielding the wind off with his hand, lit two candles side by side. It was impressive to see him do this so easily given the intensity of the gusts of wind crossing through the room. He held his hand cupping the flame so that, despite the breeze, the candles’ flames were large and unthreatened. He held them over the bowl and began to drip wax down into the water inside. He concentrated as he did this, but he did it with ease, unaffected by his surroundings, in his own reality.

Dancing across the surface, the circles of wax played out my future in a mirror of water. I did not say anything to him before we began. He asked me no questions, I offered no information. The fortuneteller slowly took his eyes off the bowl and looked up at me. You travel often but you’ve now been here for a while, he said. Soon you will travel again though, to someplace far, far away from here. This is good for you, he explained, you need to travel before you will settle down.

He was right, but none of this was surprising. I had come to his home with a couple Thai friends and he been seen speaking Thai with them. It was obvious I had been in Isaan long enough to make good friends, and had been in Thailand even longer, long enough to pick up the language. Seeing my camera it was easy to assume I travel often; it being a piece of equipment inappropriate for the countryside, the opposite of bringing a pitchfork into the city.

But more than shocking me with predictions, I think he gained my trust just by telling me what I wanted to hear, that traveling was important to me, that I must do it for a while before I am able to settle down with a career. For anyone it’s nice to hear encouragement, reinforcing your goals.

He looked back at the wax, still moving in the water. Your experiences abroad will be very important, he continued, you’ll need them before you move back home, sometime next year. 2007 will be a very good year for you, he said, you should go through it confidently and without worry. It will be a year of much growth, without hardship.

One thing you must be careful about though, he warned, is your stomach. Be careful what you eat. Again, his advice was not shocking, being careful about foreign foods is always a good idea when abroad. Don’t drink the water, right? But what interested me about his comment was that earlier in the morning I had been suffering from horrific diarrhea that nearly made me cancel my plan to come out. My stomach was still volatile. I wondered if he had noticed this somehow in the way I was sitting or if in some strange way the morning’s sickness was integrated into my future. Whatever it was, I still at this very moment am aching from stomach pains and frequent trips to the bathroom. The ailment, he explained, is the result of your previous life. He told me that I should make a habit of giving food and medicine to those in need as a way to help ease my own stomach problems. That is the best way to make merit to reverse whatever had happened in my previous life.

Continuing to read the wax’s movement, he told me that early next year I will find my work, a job that will pay decently but more importantly, that I will like very much. Only then, with traveling complete and my career in motion will I settle down with a woman and marry. In classic Thai fashion, Pee Nok intervened to ask, will she be pretty? The fortuneteller took the question without reaction, looked into the bowl for the answer, then looked back up at me and said, yes, she’ll be very beautiful.

A long and healthy life, he predicted. Then he told me, I see the end of your life, and you are in a large, famous building. There are many people around you. This was the strangest prediction he made. Why was he able to so specifically see a moment later in my life and what was the significance of it? I believe he meant it as being in that building meant I had earned my way there, that my life had been one of much success. I might be wrong.

It is hard for me to say to what degree I truly believe what I was told. If he is correct about everything, that’s cool with me. Since I liked what he said, I left feeling more content and excited for the future instead of feeling skeptical or critical of his visions of it. What’s frustrating is that my Thai wasn’t good enough to understand every word and though Pee Nok was helping to translate as well, I was unable to catch all the details. His predictions worn vague by the language barrier I was only able to see a large picture and unable to be critical of anything specific he said. I went only with a curiosity about the ancient beliefs that apparently healed Pee Nok’s back. I did not go with any problems I needed advice with, wanting to know the future so I could prepare myself for it. Instead I came to see who the fortuneteller was, to see him work his craft just as much as I came to hear anything about myself.

Impressed more by the man than by anything he read about my life, it was impressionable experience. If nothing else, the fortuneteller’s intuition was incredibly strong and he was able to read the small details that go unnoticed by the other people. I think he confidently looks into people’s eyes and reads their pain, sorrow, worry, excitement, embarrassment, shame. He notices nervous ticks and twitches, the smallest habits of our hands, or our eyelids. He understands the hidden language of posture, of eye movements, of the smallest pursing of the lips. I believe it is this heightened intuition that gives him a base to look into his silver bowl and know what to read from the drips of wax.

And now, having had my future peered into through a small pool of water, I walk ahead into 2007 with a renewed confidence and a more focused reality. Since I was given little more than happy news for the future I hope that in the least it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, living 2007 without worry, believing or wanting to believe that the man looked into my eyes and saw a seriousness, a conviction, a passion that he found undeniably headed towards success.

Still, I feel slightly haunted by this image of my last days, looking from above down into some famous, stone building with a large group of people milling about. Then I see myself standing in the middle of the room, decades from now, having lived through all the predictions, the mysteries of my future having all been revealed.