chapter 8

While she waited, she began to see the future using her tarot cards.

For the most part, the future looked bright for those employees she did impromptu readings for. But, when she did one for the TV station as a whole. She kept coming up with the Death card.

Is Death coming for this TV station? Ebony wondered to herself. Does that mean the station is going to close down? Or something else?

"Ebony Chantel?" the secretary then announced. "You're next."

"O-okay," Ebony stopped what she was doing and slowly walked into the producer's office.

But, the image of the multiple Death cards played into her mind. None of the other people she did readings for did not have Death cards, so why did the station itself keep having them?

The producer was a gruff older man wearing a rumpled suit and 3 day growth of beard with balding, graying hair. He sat behind a desk stacked with files and papers and in front of montage of awards and photos hanging on the wall.

"Oh, Miss Chantel," the producer stood up and offered his hand. "Fred Collins, producer of the segment I'm interviewing psychics for. Pleased to meet you."

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Collins," Ebony replied as she sat down after shaking hands.

Collins sat down and looked at the application form that Ebony had supplied earlier. "Says here your mother and grandmother were psychics as well."

"It's in my family it seems," Ebony added. "But, only the girls of the family seem to have it."

"Didn't your mom die of extreme obesity recently?"

"Yes. That's also in the family...at least for the women in it."

"But, you're reasonably slim now."

"I try to keep my weight down if I can."

"Well, try to keep yourself in good shape if we hire you," Collins grumbled. "The audience doesn't like to see fat girls on tv unless they're a comedienne or a cook of some kind...or so marketing says."

"I'll try," Ebony nodded in agreement.

"I see Corvette put in a good word for you," Collins added. "What's your relationship with her?"

"We went to school together," Ebony explained. "I saved her life once when we were kids."

"I see," Collins replied. "Well, you're very pretty and young. While the job will involve giving out fortunes for whomever calls the station during your programme, but that makes for poor tv after awhile. What do you have to offer to keep the audiences entertained?"

Ebony went silent for a few moments. What do I say or do? If I use my powers to move things around, I'll start getting fatter...but I can try to keep thin...but eventually, I'll become like my mom. Good thing, this dress I'm wearing is stretchy and can hide some of the flab.

Meanwhile, in the waiting area, Fate was playing its own game in the form of a pathetic-looking homeless man with wearing rags for clothes who stormed into building babbling incoherently and waving a butcher knife around at anyone or anything nearby.

Unfortunately, he was heading towards where Ebony was being interviewed.

Babbling nonsense about the tv station reading his mind, everyone who was still in the office waiting room immediately ran out of the room upon his arrival. The homeless man simply just continued on to the nearest door which Ebony and Collins continued their interview.

"What is going on out here?" Collins opened the door.

"Kenneth! What is the frequency?!" the homeless man replied as he thrust his knife at Collins.

Luckily, the homeless man was bad at fencing as he was with dealing with reality. He missed Collins with his knife...

...but ended up in the office with Ebony with the momentum.

Ebony screamed with surprise and horror by his presence.

The homeless man turned to Ebony, who saw the knife in his hand, and she wondered what she could do to stop from getting killed by him. She could use her powers to knock him out, but doing so would turn her into a blimp really fast and it would make her a bigger target for that knife he was carrying.

Luckily, the homeless man didn't seem to understand that he had the advantage of the situation. A more sane person would have held Ebony hostage until his demands were met, if not killed her outright, but he seemed confused by what to do next.

Then, Ebony made a decision...better to be a blimp then dead.

Using her powers, she pulled out the knife out of the homeless man's hand. It flew into the nearest wall and stuck there.

The homeless man just stood there wondering what happened, when Ebony then used her powers to push the homeless man back out of the door and into a waiting punch from Collins. He went down like he was shot.

"That finishes that," Collins shook the pain out of his hand, before he turned to Ebony. "I think I found my psychic."

"He hired you on the spot?" Judy asked.

"Yep," Ebony replied. "I don't think he saw me use my powers. But, if he did, he didn't tell anyone. Luckily, I didn't get too big because of what I did make him wonder what happened to me."

Ebony looked at a reflection of herself in a nearby store window. She noticed her hips had grew about an inch or two which made the skirt of her dress ride up a little higher up her legs, but nothing which anyone who knew her to start to wonder how did she get so fat, so fast.

But that would change when Ebony least suspected.