Fortune

Keep your eyes to the ground. Don't look at the light. The light is Fortune, and Fortune is a Rabid Cow.

Think of the South Park episode about the cows worshipping the huge cow clock. The cows who threw themselves over the edge in a mass suicide. This is what happens when you look at the light.

Stick to the task at hand and do it daily. If you do one thing the same way, every day, all will be fine. Just don't forget!

Fortune can change things in the blink of an eye. Policemen can plant heroin in your closet when you are totally innocent. Policemen can also save you from a crazed gunman in the mall who has a bullet with your name written on it, in indelible ink. Either way, just keep your eyes to the ground.

Look at the earth. That's where you're from. Don't let them tell you you're from the air. Don't listen when they say you're from the fire. . . . OK, those who tell you you're from the water may be right. But what good is it to know that? You have lungs, goddammit, not gills.

Fortune can change things in the blink of an eye. Teachers can like you and your way through school is clear and fluid. Teachers can dislike you because of one momentary look in your eye, and your school days can be full of hate and strife. (You never get out of school. You're in school right this minute. Sorry.) Never mind; just keep your eyes to the ground.

Think of Barry White's head. Think of a man's head as a light bulb turned upside down with a voice that can throw white girls into a trance of sex. Think of the cows going over the cliff, with that lost look in their eyes.

How do these things turn out this way? How can a man with an upside down light bulb head get a voice that turns girls to Jell-O when you can't get laid with a hundred dollar bill in a Las Vegas whorehouse? How can a cartoon cow's look as it dies -- an over the shoulder look, just before falling to a cartoon death -- mean so much to a grownup?

It's just Fortune. And Fortune is a Rabid Cow.

Keep your eyes to the ground.

For"tune (?; 135), n. [F. fortune, L. fortuna; akin to fors, fortis, chance, prob. fr. ferre to bear, bring. See Bear to support, and cf. Fortuitous.]

1.

The arrival of something in a sudden or unexpected manner; chance; accident; luck; hap; also, the personified or deified power regarded as determining human success, apportioning happiness and unhappiness, and distributing arbitrarily or fortuitously the lots of life.

'T is more by fortune, lady, than by merit. Shak.

O Fortune, Fortune, all men call thee fickle. Shak.

2.

That which befalls or is to befall one; lot in life, or event in any particular undertaking; fate; destiny; as, to tell one's fortune.

You, who men's fortunes in their faces read. Cowley.

3.

That which comes as the result of an undertaking or of a course of action; good or ill success; especially, favorable issue; happy event; success; prosperity as reached partly by chance and partly by effort.

Our equal crimes shall equal fortune give. Dryden.

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Shak.

His father dying, he was driven to seek his fortune. Swift.

4.

Wealth; large possessions; large estate; riches; as, a gentleman of fortune.

Syn. -- Chance; accident; luck; fate.

Fortune book, a book supposed to reveal future events to those who consult it.

Crashaw.

- Fortune hunter, one who seeks to acquire wealth by marriage. -- Fortune teller, one who professes to tell future events in the life of another. -- Fortune telling, the practice or art of professing to reveal future events in the life of another.

© Webster 1913.

For"tune, v. t. [OF. fortuner, L. fortunare. See Fortune, n.]

1.

To make fortunate; to give either good or bad fortune to.

Chaucer.

2.

To provide with a fortune.

Richardson.

3.

To presage; to tell the fortune of.

Dryden.

© Webster 1913.

For"tune, v. i.

To fall out; to happen.

It fortuned the same night that a Christian, serving a Turk in the camp, secretely gave the watchmen warning. Knolles.

© Webster 1913.