fortune fish

The wonderful magic fortune telling fish which is usually a wafer-thin sliver of red cellophane, cut into the rough shape of a fish as drawn by a five year old.

By placing it in the palm of the hand you can discover your true nature by its movements. Typically, these are described as:

moving head: jealousy
moving tail: independence
moving head and tail: in love
curling sides: fickle
turns over: false
motionless: dead
curls up entirely: passionate

because it is a well known fact that your body temperature is a good indication of your emotional and sexual behaviour.

Fortune fish can be bought for pennies in most novelty shops, and are often found in christmas crackers.

"You're dead", she told me.
"What?"
"The fish isn't moving. That means you're dead. The Fortune Teller Miracle Fish^TM knows all!"

How a thin strip of cellophane cut in the shape of a fish could possibly have obtained a state of omniscience is beyond me, but who am I to question the fortune fish? And really, how many dead people actually know that they're dead? Very few, if you accept movies to be a fair representation of the undead experience. Look at The 6th Sense -- Bruce Willis was blithely unaware of his state! Or, on a larger scale, look at the hordes of zombies in the macabre horror film Night of the Living Dead. If someone had read any one of those zombies their fortune, would they have accepted their reading? I doubt it. In fact, they probably would vehemently reject the notion and brutally murder the fortune teller.

I suppose there's nothing left to do now but accept my undead nature.