The Taite Guide to Superstitions

Mary and Marie lived in small semi-detached houses on the opposite sides of town. They both worked at the salt factory.

Mary woke with a start. Had she dreamed the big crash? Leaving her husband of 15 years, Matt, still fast asleep, she tiptoed towards the bathroom. As she turned on the light she immediately noticed a small sparrow with a broken wing, sitting on the window sill. Matt must have left the window open, typical. On the floor were the remnants of the make-up mirror she had purchased only a week earlier. Damn!

Outside, the next door neighbor’s dog was howling like a wolf. Definitely not a good sign. Getting dressed she put on a t-shirt inside-out, under her blouse, just to be safe. Kissing her husband, she left through the back door, avoiding tripping over the ladder that the workers working on the roof had left on the side of the house by walking under it. It was only when she was strapped into to car that she noticed the lone owl staring at her from the plum tree.

Marie climbed over her husband so that she could get out of bed on the opposite side from the one the previous night. Her husband, Pat, groaned. She quickly went to make breakfast for her two kids before leaving for work. As she removed  the milk from the fridge,  salt  spilled all over her left shoulder. Who leaves salt on top of a fridge? Men!  Lucky it wasn’t ketchup. Picking up a four leaf clover from the front lawn, she got into the car and started reversing it out of the drive. A funny sound from the wheels made her stop and investigate what she had run over. Probably another toy from one of the neighbor’s kids. Why they played on her lawn and not on their own one was beyond her. To her surprise, it wasn’t a toy but a bright shiny horseshoe. How did that get there?

Mary and Marie speed to work from opposite directions. They do this every morning  but so far have never met, even though they work in the same plant. They are nearing the same intersection when Marie’s mobile phone rings. Her younger son Sam can’t find his lunch and  is crying his heart out. Suddenly, out of nowhere a suicidal crow does hari kari on Mary’a windscreen.  It only takes a second for their minds to wander, but in that second nether of them see the other car speeding towards  them. Their fates are now linked. In a couple of seconds the two cars will collide head on and to an innocent  bystander it would seem inevitable.

As in all great stories, it is at this precise moment that a young girl, surely not more than 14, coming from nowhere, crosses the interchange. She is listening to a song by a group named Heaven’s Children on her Ipod and is quite oblivious to the world around her.

” Oh my God!” shouts Marie, throwing her phone aside.

“Oh my God!” echoes Mary, forgetting entirely about the dead crow who had painted her windscreen red.

Both women hit the break simultaneously and jump out of their cars.

“You could have been killed” shouts Mary to the kid who is obviously shaken.

“What’s your name?”  asks Marie not sure whether it”s the kid or herself she’s attempting to calm.

“I’m Katherine Lukk, Maam” says the girl, but all my friends call me Kat.”
“And what’s that around your neck?” asked Mary, staring .

” Oh that’s something my dad gave me. He says it’s a rabbit’s foot, but I don’t really believe in superstitions.