Ghosts In My Hands by Jack Cummins

As I'm walking through the indoor market, a woman, who is wearing a sari, approaches me.
'Come this way. I will help you,' she says, directing me to a stall amidst the food and clothes stalls and cafes.
I follow the woman and we go behind a maroon curtain, towards a bearded man, who is wearing a white robe. There are many strange statues and incense is burning.

The bearded man asks me my date of birth, enquiring if I have any problems and, I tell him that I am not sure. I wouldn't know where to begin telling him about my misery. He asks to see my hands and examines the palms carefully. The many lines and markings which I don't understand, especially the double lifeline with a strange fork ending. The man tells me that he will give me a reading for ten dollars and I agree to this price.

After a while, he says, 'You have a problem with ghosts. Has anyone died in the house where you live?'
'I have heard that a man who used to live in my room died on the staircase a few years ago,' I tell him, recalling the story I have heard about the ex-rock musician, who became an alcoholic and collapsed with a fatal heart attack. Oscar's wife found his body. On the day of the death, the light bulb on the staircase went out and, Oscar got an electric shock changing the bulb. Later that week, Oscar dreamt that a dead man threw a wet towel into the couple's bedroom, and when he woke up, he really found a towel there. The house was blessed before any new tenant moved in.

The man says, 'I will help you for five hundred dollars.'
'I can't pay you that much,' I reply.
'Money comes, money goes', he says in a soothing tone of voice.
'I haven't got that much on me,' and I don't want to part with that amount of money, as I have hardly any savings.
'I can help you for half that price, or you can just give me as much as you have with you for today.'
'I've got a hundred', I say, because his idea of the ghost in the house worries me, as my life has been a spiral course of failed romances and broken dreams since I moved there.

He hands me what appears to be a bundle of twigs, wrapped in paper and says,
'Keep this in your room for at least three days and, then, go to a river and throw it in. It must be thrown into the water. Then, come back and see me in a week's time and I will help you further.'

I take the bundle of twigs and give him the money. The woman wearing the sari leads me out from behind the curtain and I walk back through the market, in a trance of confusion and with no money left in my pocket. I really don't know what to think now. Do I believe in ghosts? I really don't know what they are: disembodied entities of people who once existed, or disturbed memories as traces etched in the environment? I am inclined towards the second explanation, but I just wish to be rid of any ghosts which haunt my life. Somehow, I don't think that I will go back to the market stall in a week's time, as I really don't have any more money to spare.