One reads the future in fish bones and eggshells; another swears by cards or crystals or by shapes writ on tortoise shells; the old gypsy woman scries with her dead eye. My favorite, who reveals what the stars foretell, once read my rising sign by the shape of my palm. To read the future is no small matter. I always keep rice in a leather pouch and extract a pinch between index, middle finger and thumb: I cast the grains across a marble table and count each one as another year I must live.