Beer and Death

"Why thank you Mister John Rathier, how nice of you to offer the only girl in this bar a jug of beer", the tone of sarcasm present throughout her entire statement, but so was her smile. Chuckling, she took the beer, and after a repeated head nod signifying her thankfulness for the gesture gulps the entire thing down.

"I am Astera, moved to this place last week actually, don't know if you can tell I am a Fob though," she said, whilst slowly examining the man's face. Trauma, sadness, numbness, the man was walking with those words attached on his face like acne. Still smiling at the guy, she grabs his arm and looks at his palm. "Sooooo, would you rather tell me a little bit about yourself, or should I find out myself" she winked and laughed at herself.

"Well well well, let's see what we have here then!" exclaimed the girl, with curiosity basically written all over her forehead. Holding his palm, she can feel the roughness of his skin as she loops her fingers around it.

"Okies, so I will be reaaaaaally really focused now, here it goes!" she said, and immediately falls into a trance. Her hands no longer holding onto his, she lays there in front him as if a rigid plank on the chair. The sound his breathing, the clinking sound of ice in his drink fading away, her vision now pitch black, she focuses.

A door appears in her vision, she opens the handle and peers through. The sound of the vision beginning to take form. A silent whisper, she takes another step. A semitone mumble, she takes another one. A clear voice, she takes another one. A screech of pain, she stops. Opening her eyes, she now sees around. Blood. Death. Corpses lying limply across the floor, her sole reaction is one of shock. Sound comes back again, and this time it appears to be a toddler crying, when she turns around, she is met with what appeared to be Jonathan but younger, crying over two specific bodies. She walks back and closes the door.

She is back at the bar, with Johnathan staring intently at her, she realized running down her cheeks were tears. She immediately wipes her face and chuckles, clearing her throat one last time before she says "Well Johnathan, how about you order us a couple more drinks and tell me a bit about you. I saw things that left me a lot more interested, and a lot more worried about you. Before you ask me what I saw, I will just tell you this: The past. But until you tell me about it yourself I can't talk about it, blame the palm reading rules".

Astera chuckled at his surprised look at the fact she knew so much, "typical response, I told you palm reading works," she said playfully winking at him and laughing.

But seeing what she had seen, her curiosity was in peak. "So Jonathan mister Yankee doodle army brat, I showed you a bit of my power, how about you show me or tell me a bit about yours," she said while placing her hands together and giving him puppy eyes, she wanted to hear and learn more about him. She had noticed even talking a bit about his dad made the aura of pain around him to emanate, and if she kept drinking beer as she was right now, she would probably end up doing something about it.

"Oh, my, god, that is.....I don't know what to say...." she said, her head now looking down while both her hands were wrapped around the beer mug. "It just sounds like such an amazing ability, I feel so happy for you, while it may seem like such a sad thing, sadness and happiness are just the same things, seen from a different perspective, wouldn't you say?" now looking straight at him, she was smiling at him, yet the tears were slowly streaming down her cheeks.

"Curses and gifts are no different, a curse can be used as a gift and a gift as a curse, people can have different perspectives on a single thing, some see it as a gift and some as a curse, but what should matter is what perspective YOU want to see it from," grabbing a tissue from the middle of the table and wiping her eyes.

"To me, being able to see somebody's time left....is far from a curse, in fact, it's something I wish I had as a child. My mother died when I was about 6-7 years old, if I had been able to see how sicker she was getting every day she had that smile on, I would have...spent so much more time with her, talk with her, play with her, laugh and cry, or simply just look at her smile, life is such a fleeting yet precious thing, to be able to see when one of your loved ones is close to having to say goodbye, that is a precious wake up call about what truly matters, and that is continuing to have happy and sad moments, feel pain and pleasure, spending your life with no regrets."