Day 23 of my 2023 drabble-a-day challenge! Here is today’s drabble…

The Fortune Teller

"Will I meet him?"

I half-closed my eyes. "Not today. Not tomorrow. But in the next couple of weeks. An older man, someone with a taste for travel."

"At last." She flushed, delight crinkling her eyes as she stared into her tea-cup.

I smiled enigmatically, and she paid, and went dancing down the hallway.

She checked the boxes, the ones that left her personal data open to everyone. All those habits, and secret desires, and searches, all streaming off her phone and into our data models.

It's all in the small print. But somehow everyone prefers to blame the tea-leaves.

Despite my best efforts, the verb that has stuck for the act of creating a drabble is “to dribble”. As in: oh dear, it’s eleven o’clock already, I really must go and dribble a drabble.

Unfortunately, I also sing this to the tune of Snuzzle a Wuzzle, which was a jingle from a 1980s advert for a brand of weird hybrid cuddly animals (like “Eleroo” - part elephant, part kangaroo). 80s kids stuff was quite strange.

Even worse, I can’t even find the Snuzzle a Wuzzle jingle I remember. I can find other jingles for Wuzzles… but not that one.

Go on, admit it. You’re curious now. Here you go…