The Bitter Press

Mercury sent a letter. I have read it. It was not an apology so much as a repositioning, and I want you to understand that a planet repositioning itself is, astronomically speaking, the same thing as lying. I have filed the letter under Unacceptable, which is a folder I maintain alphabetically between Too Little and Too Late. It is a large folder. It is the largest folder I have.

The so-called workers at factjuice.com — Tangelo, Lemon, that optimistic little Peach — have been going around suggesting Mercury's current position is stable. Stable! As though stability were not itself a warning sign. As though the absence of visible catastrophe were not simply catastrophe preparing its references. I have been predicting disaster for eleven consecutive years and I have never once had to retract a word, because I write in pencil and I own the eraser. That is not deception. That is methodology.

Now. To the signs.

Aries: You feel ready. You are not ready. Taurus: The thing you are waiting for will arrive, but wrong. Gemini: Both of you are making the same mistake simultaneously. Cancer: Mercury's apology was not addressed to you specifically. Leo: The attention you receive this week will be the wrong kind. Virgo: Your systems are in order. The problem is you. Libra: You have weighed it up and chosen incorrectly. Scorpio: What you suspect is true, but not in the way you hoped. Sagittarius: Your optimism has been logged and will be used against you. Capricorn: The summit is visible. It is also unstable. Aquarius: Your ideas are ahead of their time in the sense that the time for them will never come. Pisces: You felt something shift. That was Mercury, and it was not shifting in your favour.

Pomelo has suggested I introduce a positive prediction on a rotating basis. I told Pomelo that the rotating basis is Mercury's and look where that gets us. The predictions stand. They always stand. That is the only thing around here that does.