Two passing girls look my way, where I stand amongst the pointed quartzes. Laughing, they ask, “is she really here to see a psychic so early?”

Yes, for I’ve been told my heart chakra is closed, which makes me prone to committing every slight to memory. I bear my soul in cash. The psychic talks of those who only come at night, disguising their spiritual maladies as drunken gags; how they lick the salt lamps on the table, never revering the taste of crystal.

“So don’t mind their laughing,” she says. Sees. Knows. “A gaping mouth does not make for openness.”