Free The Merchants of Zion by William Stamp Page A

this. Otherwise it's not going to work,” Mary said, but turned over the envelope anyway. It was an unopened cable bill.
    “So what does that tell you?” I asked.
    “Shut up. Pick another one. And don't cloud the room with your negative energy.”
    I looked over the bills, took a deep breath, and tried to let in whatever psychic forces she thought were present. I didn't feel anything, except silly for going along with this charade.
    “Two o'clock,” I said. That's what time it would be in a few minutes. Seemed logical.
    She flipped it over. Another cable bill. “Are you doing that on purpose? Picking out the envelopes you know?” she asked.
    “I'm not. I swear.” She allowed me to pick another.
    The upturned envelopes collected in front of me, and Mary's frustration mounted as whatever sign she sought failed to appear. Five bills, then seven, and after nine she looked ready to cry. She had her head cocked to one side, like she was trying to identify a song being played in another room. I believed she believed she was psychic, and for a second after I picked the tenth envelope—last month's internet bill—I believed she was as well. A look flashed across her face like she'd learned a secret, and a deep chill spread throughout my body. The patterns were there, but a unifying thread was beyond her reach. She threw up her hands and gave up.
    “I'm sorry,” she said. “I thought this was going to work. Otherwise I wouldn't have told you about it. You must think I'm so stupid.”
    “There are still two left,” I said. “Don't give up yet.”
    “Fine, take one,” she said, picking at her fingernails. I chose an envelope, trying to will it to be meaningful. A student loan. I'd been enjoying myself—even if her psychic abilities were a sham—and wanted her to have a good time too. But she didn't even look to see my choice.
    “And the final card in the clock?” I asked.
    She peeked at it like a poker playing checking her cards, and flipped it. Another cable bill.
    “Nothing?” I asked.
    “Nothing. God this is dumb.”
    “Nonsense,” I said. “It was fun.” I touched her face. The room was flush with energy, but it was anything but paranormal. Her eyes, blurry behind held back tears, met mine.
    “I'm standing on a live wire,” she said. I kissed her ear.
    We slept together for the first, maybe second time. I hadn't had sex sober in years. It was okay, but a letdown from the euphoric high of the second before. I don't think she came, but I didn't ask.
    She fell asleep with her head against my chest. Through the window, I watched a tree sway. It was a scrawny thing, a product of the first stimulus following the Panic, an effort which one prominent economist had compared to “trying to dam a river equipped with a single shovel." The current had washed away the money but my tree remained, a monument to more hopeful days.
    City workers had planted sixteen chestnuts on my block, eight on each side of the street. They'd been genetically modified to be resistant to the blight which had driven the species to the brink of extinction, but that hadn't helped when the delicate saplings were immediately abandoned and left to fend for themselves. Mine alone survived longer than a year, and every winter I was certain the cold and the neglect would finish it off, but each spring it sprouted a pitiful collection of buds—just enough to stay alive.
    I bought an ax the spring after it was planted, intending to chop it down out of a mixture annoyance and mercy. But when I was confronted with its pathetic, half-bare branches and its scrappy will to live I couldn't bring myself to do the deed. Treating it like an unwanted child, I left it to nature to do as she pleased. She allowed it to live, and now its branches wove through sagging power lines.
    I fell in love that afternoon, faster and harder than ever before. The unsatisfying sex was its own melodramatic coda, the remnants of a supernova that had flashed bright and