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Three cookies arrived with our check from Pappa Chow’s Chinese Buffet. Two were partially crumbled, but one sat pristine and whole in its crinkly wrapper. It called to me. My hand darted out and snatched the perfect cookie before Patty and Greg had a chance. They were so busy arguing over the bill that they didn’t even notice.
The cookie snapped in my fingers; it had a satisfying thickness. As per my ritual, I ate every last crumb of the sweet shell before unfolding the slip of paper inside.
You will receive your heart’s desire.
“That’s a good one,” Patty said, looking over my shoulder as we walked outside. “Not stupid advice masquerading as a fortune.” She showed me hers.
A man with true friends has all life’s riches.
“There should be a place to cash in your fortune.” I imagined a clean, modern office building with a woman behind a desk. I handed her my slip of paper, and she gave me a coupon good for one agent and a multibook contract with a big enough advance that I could quit my day job and write full time.
Greg leered. “I’ll cash it in for you, Jenny. I’ll give you your heart’s desire in bed.”
I rolled my eyes. “And then you’d die, because my husband would kill you.”
On the back of my fortune slip were ten numbers–two groups of three followed by a group of four.
“What are these numbers, anyway?” I wondered aloud. I’d always seen them back there, and never really understood what they were for. Fortune cookie serial numbers, so they didn’t duplicate a fortune? Though, considering the number of times I’d seen that fortune about true friends, I doubted it.
“Lottery numbers,” Patty replied. “Maybe if you play them, you’ll get your heart’s desire and win a million bucks.”
“I thought there were only six numbers on a lottery ticket.” Of course, I’d never played the lottery, so what did I know? I peered at the numbers in confusion. That configuration looked so familiar.
“Maybe the others are for the power ball?” Patty shrugged.
When I got back to my desk, I put my purse in the drawer and moved to toss the fortune in the trash, but I couldn’t do it. How often did a girl get her heart’s desire anyway? She shouldn’t throw it away.
And then it hit me where I’d seen that number combination before. If the first three numbers were in parenthesis and there was a dash between the last two sets, it would be a phone number!
I told myself that this was more than my usual insanity, that I was high on rice noodles and shiitake mushrooms, but I picked the phone up anyway. My hands shook as I punched in the numbers. I expected the call to fail, but a moment later, it began to ring.
A calm female voice answered. “Fortune Cookie Hotline. How may I direct your fortune?”
“I’d like my heart’s desire, please?”
There was a pause, and this time when the woman spoke, I heard the smile in her tone. “Oh my dear, how wonderful. I’ll patch you through to the right department, and they’ll set you up. Congratulations.”
A moment later, a man’s voice came on the line. “Department of LifeChanging Fortunes, Mike speaking. Please state your heart’s desire.”
Erin M. Kinch lives and writes in Fort Worth, Texas, where she shares her home with her husband and a rambunctious golden retriever. Her short fiction has appeared in various print and online publications, including “Allegory”, “A Thousand Faces”, “Electric Spec”, and “Sporty Spec: Games of the Fantastic”. For more information about Erin’s stories, visit her blog at www.erinmkinch.com.
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FORTUNE COOKIES • by Erin M. Kinch,
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16 Responses to “FORTUNE COOKIES • by Erin M. Kinch”
Comments
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December 26th, 2008 at 12:39 am
Wonderful, Erin! What a swell setup and payoff. If your heart’s desire is a five, you got it from me.
December 26th, 2008 at 12:51 am
[...] has a perfect little tale as the featured story at Every Day Fiction today. It’s title is Fortune Cookies. Check it out; it will make you smile. BTW, Erin blogs at Living the Fictional [...]
December 26th, 2008 at 5:22 am
Sweet piece.
December 26th, 2008 at 6:51 am
Your heart’s desire, eh? Very good! Reminded me of Queen Jadis in The Magician’s Nephew
Love that book. Love this story.
December 26th, 2008 at 7:18 am
That was just incredibly fun and sweet [no pun intended.] Everyone should have the heart’s desire at least once. Thanks for such a nice story.
December 26th, 2008 at 7:41 am
December 26th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Lovely! I especially liked the smile in the woman’s tone when she realised someone had – at last – called that phoneline. Was she the first, I wonder?
December 26th, 2008 at 9:05 am
Thanks for all the kind words, everyone!
Hasmita — the narrator figured out that the numbers on the back of her fortune were actually a phone number, so she called in and will be given her heart’s desire.
December 26th, 2008 at 9:11 am
I like this story. Sort of eerie feeling at the end. Well written.
December 26th, 2008 at 9:40 am
RAD!
That was awesome. I liked how you made the impossible slip away.
Simply excellent.
December 26th, 2008 at 10:23 am
Enjoyed this, quite surreal, but at the same time the way things should be.
Cheers
Mark
December 26th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Very well done, Erin.
–dj
December 26th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Awesome! I loved it! …too bad I’m not big on Chinese food.
December 28th, 2008 at 8:14 am
Loved the story and there was I thinking something awful would happen.
Jennifer
January 2nd, 2009 at 4:25 am
Erin, sorry I somehow missed this one and would have kicked myself if I had. What a lovely piece. Terrific idea and makes for a great short story.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Next time I get a fortune cookie, I’ll be looking for that number.
Love the story.