Zodiac: Cancer
Cancer, you have not quite mastered the art of scale. All of your cutlery is minuscule. You cannot dice vegetables properly with your pathetically tiny knives.
Your garden is laughable. That rose bush needs pruning – and on top of that, you should really move it elsewhere. Due to your lousy spacial awareness you’re tripping over it all the time, anyway. I see a totally bad thing happening in the stars or whatever unless you re-arrange your garden.
Stop leaving out plates of poorly-diced vegetables for badgers. Badgers hate crabs and crab-related things. You’re a Cancer, aligned with that crab thing in the sky (or something); they can smell it! Don’t treat those badgers kindly, they’re out to get you. Besides, a lot of humans dislike badgers anyway. To put it in layman’s terms: a badger in the human realm is just like a neglected rose bush in your domain – something you’ll just constantly trip over. Re-arrange your garden. Avoid badgers.
Cancer, as an entity whose powers are drawn from the collective belief of humans, you have learned from observation and experience to sympathise with the human condition. Centuries ago, you adopted an orphaned child. This is admirable. You have even come to appreciate a good curry. It is for this reason I will return to the whole ‘tiny cutlery’ thing. How in the hell are you supposed to have your daughter and granddaughter over for dinner when you can’t even dice vegetables? You would be happy to visit Curry Gardens for a greasy order to-go every evening, but it may put off visitors. Ysabell, despite being raised in your extradimensional domain, only wants normality for her daughter, and your granddaughter, Susan. Don’t push them away with take-away. Sort out your cutlery and cook them a proper meal every now and again.
You should really lay off the curry anyway, Cancer. Or maybe ‘spice things up’ and change your order next time you visit Curry Gardens. I know The Duty makes you crave consistency (as I’m sure all Cancers probably do at some point in their existence) but the poor staff of Curry Gardens see Binky outside, sigh, and get to work on your order. Now who wants to associate that beautiful milky creature with monotony? Not you, I’m sure. Think of the kitchen staff who drudgingly make your food. Leave behind you smiling faces gazing at the glowing trail of Binky’s hooves in the sky, and gain a new lease on curry.
Your job, The Duty, is a major balancing force in your life and in the greater universe. Oh Cancer, where would we be without you? Well, we’d all be alive, but that would throw things out of balance. Who would actually get along with their great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great granduncle, anyway? In the past your compassion caused you to bend the rules, you all-powerful scamp, you. It’s fine to break a few unbreakable laws of nature for us brief mortals. Keep doing that. Some of us are sort of nice.
I, uh, can sense in the stars that you are warming to thumbling-sized cutlery, the condition and location of your rose bush, badgers, poorly-diced vegetables, The Usual from Curry Gardens, and “not breaking the fundamental laws of the universe”. Not on my watch, Cancer. As a professional Horoscope Guy I am qualified to boss around a demi-god. The cosmos says so, so there. Shut up.
IN MEMORIAM SIR TERRY PRATCHETT AND OLD DEATH, BILL DOOR, WHO VERY WELL COULD HAVE BEEN A CANCER.
Words: Niamh McShane
Image: Olga Anacka
Zodiac is a project with twelve different writers published over twelve weeks.
Olga is embarking of a project to illustrate idioms or phrases.
THE FORM TO SUBMIT A PHRASE CAN BE FOUND HERE
She wants to hear idioms and phrases from native English speakers and then to respond with art.