Trick and Treat

Halloween is a melting pot of spooky sixth-sense traditions: witches, ghosts, vampires, mummies (and superheroes). The night when the dead mingle with the living, Halloween is naturally big on fortune telling; after all, who better to explicate the mysteries of the universe than an ancient spirit steeped in the supernatural?

That’s not a rhetorical question — we have an answer: the famous Fortune Telling Fish.

Mysteries of the Fish-Flops Revealed!

Undoubtedly, the marketers at Toysmith Group have undersold their Taiwanese friend by presenting such a limited set of “fortunes” on the wrapper of this magical device. Luckily, just next door to the Mott Street curiosity shop where we procured these squirmy soothsayers, we met a bangled Gypsy who promised to unlock the full potential of your clairvoyant carp’s predictive power.

From a damp corner of her cobwebbed cellar, our neighborhood seer extracted an elaborate set of cards (printed with squid ink) that hold the ancient key to the timeless mysteries of piscine prognostication.

Warning: This is not a toy.

It will scribble augurs or omens on your open palm, twitch and shimmy by the heat of your aura — but beware: minor twists bode big tidings.