Lithomancy

You shall not practice divination or soothsaying.

Leviticus 19:26

The story is this: Actuated by an unaccountable impulse, one night I wandered out from the city (to seek the one I loved?) to the summit of a mountain. I traveled not less than 26 miles. As I sat down, fatigued by the walk, I saw a globe of fire falling from the sky. The fire left a stone. I was obliged to very humbly solicit the stone's responses. Sometimes it appeared more, sometimes less. It was a color called tingaribinus. It answered like a shrill pipe and I interpreted the sounds, wrapped it in my skin and carried it off, placed it in my lap and stroked it. If it is washed in spring water and interrogated, a voice like a suckling child's will reply. Rough, hard, black, and heavy, graven everywhere with veins like wrinkles, each question brings out its fatal qualities. The exact ritual is difficult to ascertain, but ask it anything: What constitutes detritus? When is the world not tilting? Remember when we sat on a bench at the seaport and I cradled your head in my lap? The Rabbis offered up a Leviticus prohibition, but I dressed my stone in soft clothing, lit all the lamps in the house, and hummed it a mighty hymn: have mercy on me, for I call to you all protracted day. I confided in the fearful stone: When did the night get so long? Later I discovered if I placed it near my eyes and looked steadily at it, I could perceive it divinely breathing.