Member-only story

COMPLETE BALLS

All About Mystics

A true story that I made up

Matthew Clapham
All About M
Published in
3 min readJan 11, 2025

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A crystal ball sits on the wet tarmac of a city street
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at our balls (Photo by Jake Willett on Unsplash)

“You’ve been fiddling with your balls again, young Smillew, haven’t you?” said Grandma. “I can always tell when you get that faraway look in your eyes.”

“What look?” Smillew replied, a mixture of guilt, hurt and avarice tattooed across his brow.

“The cartoon one with the dollar signs on animated roller blinds.”

“Oh, that. Yeah, seriously though, this time it’s gonna work, Grandma.”

“So what’s your latest fortune-telling revelation on the road to Billionairesville?”

“Look, I asked my ball to show me 2025 — I figured just a couple of years into the future would be more reliable than Mars colonies and Technogötterdämmerung and all that scifi fantasy stuff.”

“And what does it show you?”

“You want the good news or the bad news first, Grandma?”

“Bad. Always the bad first.”

“Medium implodes. Like ceases to exist entirely.”

“Smillew! What are you saying? Our life’s work! Cocoa save us!”

“But here’s the good news — it’ll make us rich!”

“How so?”

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All About M
All About M

Published in All About M

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Matthew Clapham
Matthew Clapham

Written by Matthew Clapham

Professional translator by day. Writer of silly and serious stuff by night. Also by day, when I get fed up of tedious translations. Founder of Iberospherical.

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