The fortune-teller's stool was lower than mine. I was eight, incense thick enough to taste, a chart folded into quarters on a table sticky with tea.
"Her road will be far," she said. "But not for school."
My grandmother folded the chart until only the prediction showed. That night I asked if it was true.
"Some of it," she said.
I wanted yes or no, not "some of it." The chart went into a drawer and stayed there. It left something behind: suspicion of any sealed answer I couldn't check underneath. Years later, I called that suspicion data instead of fate.
Our school's analytics club tracked why customers abandoned online shopping carts for a local retailer that sponsored us. Twelve of us, a spreadsheet, a mostly-quiet Slack. When the records needed sorting, I volunteered. The club lead warned me: "Don't trust anything that looks too clean. Clean is usually just someone upstream having a bad week."
I sorted obsessively. The totals stopped matching. My sorting was fine - the problem was further back, at the source: bad data logged by Priya.
Her updates had been arriving past midnight for a week, with apologies she'd never written before. To me, late meant one thing: not pulling her weight. I was being objective - timestamps don't lie. I said as much in a chat she wasn't in, and stopped copying her on updates.
Priya was the one who'd pushed the club to track abandonment reasons, not just counts. I'd agreed with her then. I forgot it once I decided I already knew hers.
Two nights later, she asked for a spare charger. I saw the message and didn't answer.
The next night, her document was open in another tab. I watched the version history: a line typed, reverted to blank, typed again - three or four times, the kind of pattern I'd have flagged in a spreadsheet. It wasn't broken. It was the only honest thing on that screen.
She'd been doing this alone for eleven nights before I said a word to her, and only three days after that before I decided what kind of person she was. A laptop screen, left open by chance, undid a judgment I'd built out of nothing.
I opened her file. We rebuilt what kept disappearing, retyping the same figures until they held. Around 1 AM, she said she'd almost quit twice that month - once over the laptop, once because the numbers she killed herself over never changed a decision anyone made. I had no fix for either.
A week later, I opened the chat where I'd written her off. I typed her name, deleted it, typed it again: "I was wrong about Priya. Her laptop's been failing for weeks. I said something unfair, and I want it corrected on the record." I sent it before I could settle for being kinder privately.
Priya never saw the message. But the next time someone questioned her pace, two people shut it down before I had to. Next quarter, the club finally started tracking abandonment reasons - her idea, a year late.
My grandmother still keeps that chart folded in a drawer. Last winter I asked what the rest said. She unfolded it slowly, the way we'd rebuilt a file that kept losing what was typed into it. Underneath the line about travel was a second, faded line: "She will spend her life asking why the number is what it is, not what it is."
It sounded almost too convenient - a prophecy describing my exact bad habit thirty years early. I don't fully trust it, which may be the most honest response I could give it. I want the numbers. I've just learned to ask what's folded shut inside them before deciding I already know.
"Her road will be far," she said. "But not for school."
My grandmother folded the chart until only the prediction showed. That night I asked if it was true.
"Some of it," she said.
I wanted yes or no, not "some of it." The chart went into a drawer and stayed there. It left something behind: suspicion of any sealed answer I couldn't check underneath. Years later, I called that suspicion data instead of fate.
Our school's analytics club tracked why customers abandoned online shopping carts for a local retailer that sponsored us. Twelve of us, a spreadsheet, a mostly-quiet Slack. When the records needed sorting, I volunteered. The club lead warned me: "Don't trust anything that looks too clean. Clean is usually just someone upstream having a bad week."
I sorted obsessively. The totals stopped matching. My sorting was fine - the problem was further back, at the source: bad data logged by Priya.
Her updates had been arriving past midnight for a week, with apologies she'd never written before. To me, late meant one thing: not pulling her weight. I was being objective - timestamps don't lie. I said as much in a chat she wasn't in, and stopped copying her on updates.
Priya was the one who'd pushed the club to track abandonment reasons, not just counts. I'd agreed with her then. I forgot it once I decided I already knew hers.
Two nights later, she asked for a spare charger. I saw the message and didn't answer.
The next night, her document was open in another tab. I watched the version history: a line typed, reverted to blank, typed again - three or four times, the kind of pattern I'd have flagged in a spreadsheet. It wasn't broken. It was the only honest thing on that screen.
She'd been doing this alone for eleven nights before I said a word to her, and only three days after that before I decided what kind of person she was. A laptop screen, left open by chance, undid a judgment I'd built out of nothing.
I opened her file. We rebuilt what kept disappearing, retyping the same figures until they held. Around 1 AM, she said she'd almost quit twice that month - once over the laptop, once because the numbers she killed herself over never changed a decision anyone made. I had no fix for either.
A week later, I opened the chat where I'd written her off. I typed her name, deleted it, typed it again: "I was wrong about Priya. Her laptop's been failing for weeks. I said something unfair, and I want it corrected on the record." I sent it before I could settle for being kinder privately.
Priya never saw the message. But the next time someone questioned her pace, two people shut it down before I had to. Next quarter, the club finally started tracking abandonment reasons - her idea, a year late.
My grandmother still keeps that chart folded in a drawer. Last winter I asked what the rest said. She unfolded it slowly, the way we'd rebuilt a file that kept losing what was typed into it. Underneath the line about travel was a second, faded line: "She will spend her life asking why the number is what it is, not what it is."
It sounded almost too convenient - a prophecy describing my exact bad habit thirty years early. I don't fully trust it, which may be the most honest response I could give it. I want the numbers. I've just learned to ask what's folded shut inside them before deciding I already know.
