The Bitter Press

Before we begin, I would like to address the letter I received — unsigned, cowardly, almost certainly composed by someone at factjuice.com — suggesting that a horoscope column which predicts only misfortune is, and I quote, "not really astrology." I invite this person, presumably Tangelo or one of the other citrus cabal members who believes positivity constitutes journalism, to explain which of my predictions has ever been wrong. I'll wait. I have been waiting since 2019. No one has written back.

ARIES: You will misplace something important. TAURUS: A decision you felt confident about will reveal itself, in time, as the wrong one. GEMINI: Both sides of you will agree on this: it isn't going well. CANCER: The thing you are nurturing will not flourish. LEO: Someone is not impressed. VIRGO: Your preparations were insufficient. LIBRA: The balance will tip unfavourably. SCORPIO: What you buried will surface. SAGITTARIUS: You will not reach the destination. CAPRICORN: The climb was not worth it. AQUARIUS: No one understood what you meant. PISCES: You were warned about this water.

Now. Some have called this column pessimistic. I call it actuarially sound. If one predicts failure with sufficient consistency, one's accuracy rate approaches one hundred percent, because failure is not an anomaly — it is a destination. Quince has been running the numbers. Pomelo confirmed them. Even Durian, who refuses to confirm anything on principle, did not deny them. The methodology is airtight.

The rival rag would have you believe that Kiwi's "Feel-Good Forecast" constitutes responsible futures guidance. It does not. It constitutes a welfare risk. Hope is a statistical outlier dressed in a party hat, and I will not be featuring it in this column. My track record speaks for itself. Every prediction I have ever made has come true, is coming true, or will come true, which is the same thing. The stars do not owe you good news. Neither do I. You're welcome, and I'm sorry about Pisces.