The day is ridiculously sunny as I approach my studio to work. My best – and only, if I’m being honest – friend Oliver is already waiting for me to get to the door with the keys to the place when I arrive, as he does every day. Looking at his smiley face all happy and dorky makes me want to punch him sometimes, especially when I’ve had a terrible night. Instead, I just sigh and hand him the keys, adjusting my sunglasses to my face, as it is so freaking bright so early in the morning.

- Well, good morning Viktor – he says in the happiest way he can possibly find, looking at me as a little puppy who’s waiting to be pet.

I really, really want to punch him.

Instead, for the sake of our friendship and all the years I’ve known him by, I just growl in return.

- What’ve we got for today? – I ask while heading to the kitchen to make some coffee, which I’m in desperate need of.

- Got up from the wrong side of bed today, did ya? – He shouts from the other room. I choose, in my best interest, to ignore him – Fine, fine, you’ve got an appointment in a couple of minutes. Mrs. Marks, I believe.

I walk around the kitchen, having difficulty finding all the things I need to make a decent cup of coffee. Seriously, my day seems to be heading down a darker and darker road by the minute. As I walk back into the other half of the studio, what I see is a very strong, yellowish light. It comes from Oliver, obviously. With his 165cm, his bright ginger hair and a bone structure that surely seems to hurt him depending on how his body is positioned, Oliver emanates this very pure, friendly light. His aura is very delicate and, in a way, very good to be around to.

This is my area of business, by the way. I am what folks like to call a seer. I can see people’s auras and somewhat interact with them, and that gives me knowledge about people’s lives, their past, present and future. It is not something I can control very well, so mostly I’m just touched by hundreds of auras every day and get to know hundreds of lives and people.

It is a fun kind of business, if you ask me. I mean, it could be better, as sometimes I have to deal with some particularly nasty little auras that come across my way, but mostly I get to know a bunch of stories, travel through time in a sense and think about everything that is still about to come for everyone.

Well, everyone except for me.

I can never see things about my own aura, which means I don’t know anything about my own future. I don’t know what the colour of my light is, and I’ll probably never know anything about what lies ahead of me. That is truly scary, and so this is also one of the reasons why I do what I do.

People come to me in great despair, sorrow and pain, and with what I know and the things I can tell them about their futures, they get to make amends with their own lives and carry on, with a little less of a burden than when they came to me. That itself feels really good.

When an aura comes to me, it kind of wraps itself around my hands or something, and suddenly, as if it was another person touching me, I can feel its warmth and then its feelings.

Mostly it’s a very deep experience, like drifting in an immense ocean, waiting for something to happen. Sometimes there are really heavy storms, tearing everything in the way, throwing me ashore again, making me dizzy and sick, and in others, nothing really happens other than floating smoothly through warm comfy water.

It takes up a lot of my energy, and so I can only consult to two or three people each day. That is enough for me to pay my bills and survive, so I’m ok with it. Oliver is in it for the fun, I guess. He says he wants to help me, but I’m pretty sure he likes to see people coming in agony and leaving in peace.

When we were kids, I could always tell things no one else could, and I knew things no one else knew about people, so it came naturally that he would eventually believe and trust my ability. There was a moment I saw it as a curse and somewhat something to hide, but Oliver and my grandmother Jezebel guided me back into my purpose.

Jezebel has always been the one that not only knew of what I could do, but also encouraged me to keep on seeing whatever it was that I could see and helping whomever it was that I could help, without thinking of their origins or their pasts. Even though some people in my family couldn’t even look me straight in the eyes, grandma has always been kind to me. Her aura has always shone in a very light and gentle tone of blue, like a summer sky without clouds.

It was Oliver who suggested we opened the studio for my work, and little by little we managed to do it. Now, we get by one day at a time, taking in as many clients as I can consult to and making ends meet with every paycheck.

I once asked him if he would ever want to know anything about his own life, since of course, by spending so much time with him, it would’ve been impossible for me not to know everything that is to know about his past, present and future. Being the kind and gentle creature I’ve always known him to be, Oliver just smiled at me and said that whatever has to be, will be no matter what, and that there was nothing I could tell him that would change anything about the way he felt about me.

I smiled back and that was it. He never brought it up again, not even once, and I respected it. It’s one of my rules not only to respect my clients’ and friends’ wishes about the knowledge they want to have about their auras, but also to be the judge of what they can handle.

Sometimes, it does no one good to know about their or their relative’s death or sickness, so I don’t always say everything. That would just be cruel, and it’s not something I ever want to be while being paid to help ease someone’s pain.

Oliver is staring at me, with a curious look in his eyes. I realised some years ago that it is extremely hard to be angry with him for too long, so now I’m mostly feeling sleepy rather than irritated.

- What? – I ask before sipping into the cup at my hand.

- Will you tell me? – He says in a curious tone. Without saying anything, I inquire him in silence as to what exactly he wants to know – What did you dream about?

You see, Oliver and I have always shared a deep bond, and so whenever I was sick, Oliver would sneeze, whenever I was tired, Oliver would yawn, and whenever I would have a nightmare, Oliver would know, no matter how much I tried to hide it from him. I was sort of annoying, I won’t deny it. I had to take a long breath before saying anything.

- The forest, the river – I said at last, struggling with the last few words – the light.

Oliver seem somewhat surprised.

- It’s been many years since that one – his words had a small tone of worry in them – any thoughts as to why you would dream of such a thing after so long?

I just denied it silently, finishing my cup of coffee and heading back to the kitchen for another one.

- It was just as the last times – the coffee on the pot was still warm as I poured it into my cup – I couldn’t sleep at all after it. It’s been almost 10 years.

- Yeah, I remember – Oliver said in a monotone. We still lived very close to one another when I had the same dream over and over almost every day so long ago – Do you think you can get through the day?

- Of course I can, you moron – I said with a smile on my lips – I’m tired, not dead. Not yet anyway.

I heard him laugh discreetly in the studio and then proceed.

- Ok then, stupid – he said in a funny way – I was just checking. Don’t want to carry anyone to the ER today, ok?

- Yeah, yeah… Thank you, mom – I laughed.

I was just about to sit in the sofa once again when the doorbell rang, resonating through the room. Oliver looked at me while getting up and heading to the door.

- Mrs. Marks – he said walking away from me and I took a deep breath and prayed that he wouldn’t have to carry me anywhere after all.