He’d met the old woman before, for a consultation only. Perusing the his timeline, she’d highlighted his weaker moments, applauded the indulgences and successes, and emphasize how, in today’s modern world, the faint must be gouged, the strong gorged.

In my mind I had an image her profile with the backdrop of a bookshelf. The higher shelves were tidy, for they were unreachable by her height, the middle shelves had a micro-war of parchments battling for territory, and the lower shelves doubled as a recycling heap. Jeno P. Warlo was a name that had caught my attention, for no particular reason other than the title, which read, “The Days Before the Great Hand Rebellion.”

Today it was still in the same spot, five months later.

My profile traffic had been considerably poor lately. Two recruiters had contacted me, but after a few exchanged emails, it was a case of mistaken identity on their part. I’d operated under the guise that I could decouple social media from my work life, resort to yogi self-actualization whether I am hired to scoop dirt out of holes, or sealing crisp packets with a heat gun.

There are only so many yarns the mind can spin about your dirt-scooping venture, before the identical ones return in an ouroboros mind-munching loop.

My smile was immaculate, my jawline spoke of promotion, hairline under two-centimeters recession. So was everyone else – to not use image augmentation on your photo was like putting play dough at the dinner table and punching it until it became a lasagne.

My work experience was entrancing, my university degree prefix bore at least five letters, the name of my thesis covered at least eight lines of single-spaced text. So did everyone else – to have resorted to the imaginative capabilities of the human mind and not let a text generator loose on a monologue of fabrication, that was like eating the lasagne.

And yet my profile pales relative to some of the celebrity profiles in circulation, of which I’m certain that recruiters are like dust on their glasses. Unnoticed until they aggregate. But what the old woman promised me, what she’d better deliver considering this was a transaction of money for service and I was a customer, was an employment life without burden.

YooWerk asks for three things when you sign up to their platform. First, your birth name, which is cross-checked with government records so cracking open a tex-gen tool is out of the question. The younger generation have a significant advantage here because their parents had access to tex-gen tools at their birth. Next, your social security number, which is not cross-checked with government records and so only a fool would ask their mushy human brain for an answer. Thirdly and finally, your horoscope, which is cross-checked with government records so good luck there, buddy. “Horoscope” for YooWerk includes a non-exhaustive list of the position of the sun in degrees at time of birth, average temperature in the hospital room taken before, during, and one hour after birth, position of the moon in degrees at time of birth, day, month, hour, year, second, and microsecond of first breach of your baby head, position of the eight planets in the solar system relative to the Alpha Centauri system, position of the ninth dwarf planet in the solar system relative to the Alpha Centauri system, the air temperature outside within an hour of your birth time for every year after your birth, and, of course, a 15 megapixel photo scan of your palm.

I asked the old woman who Jeno P. Warlo was. She replied that she was Jeno, Jenona was her full name, and it was a pleasure to meet you. The pleasure, I said, was all mine. Jeno’s store was called “Dark Notes,” but her true profession, the reason I sat before her on a box in a cupboard lit by a candle flame, was not so carelessly advertised.

Jeno asked me to hold out my palm, I obliged. She took it like it was a newborn pup, wiping away the juices of the womb, uncovering the living, breathing lifeform beneath. She then strapped my wrist to the operating table with a leather belt. Each finger was strapped as well, by belts built for lizards.

A white light flicked on, casting away the mystical atmosphere and ushering in the palette of a surgeon’s room. The light was brought over my open palm, hung above it like the floodlight of a fascist regime inspecting its citizens.

I felt more naked than a headline actor who’d forgot to tie up his trousers on opening day. Despite using these two grappling skin claws for shaking, slapping, grabbing, and coughing, only up until this point did it dawn on me that they, more than my eyes and mouth, were me. They connected me to the world, told me how sand flowed, how it didn’t stick around like water, how curtains conformed, or the feeling of grass, the great whiskers of the Earth. To lose access to such pleasures as seizing the brass doorknob of a front door and hoofing it open. The thought crippled me.

Jeno was aware of my sudden rise in stress, she tried to sooth me by caressing my forearm. It felt like it wasn’t my arm any more. And then in the light – I must have been so caught up in my hand monologue I hadn’t seen her preparing – a needle, humming lightly under the agitation of an electric chord. Jeno brought it down onto my palm.