Every morning Ioana read her horoscope the way other people check the weather. Most days it said something harmless: wear blue, call your mother, avoid big decisions before lunch. But on the grey, drizzly morning of the trip, the little app on her phone said something far more specific. Today, a bold leap into water will bring you closer to marriage.
Her friends laughed so hard they nearly dropped their umbrellas. They were standing in the middle of a pretty alpine village, all wet cobblestones, wooden balconies and a tidy stone staircase climbing up the hill. And right there in the square, as if the stars had booked it in advance, was a round old fountain, full to the brim with cold mountain water.
“It’s a sign,” said Mara, who had been waiting three years for her own boyfriend to propose. “If you don’t do it, I will.” Ioana looked at the fountain. She looked at the sky, which was still spitting rain. She looked at the strangers under their umbrellas, who were trying very hard not to look at her. Then she handed her bag to Mara and started to run.
What happened next was captured from three angles, because her friends are nothing if not prepared. A short sprint, a determined hop onto the rim, and one gloriously ungraceful leap into the water. The splash was impressive. The scream was even better. Somewhere behind the camera a stranger in a dark jacket simply froze, unsure whether to help or applaud.
Here is the secret Ioana only admitted later, wrapped in two borrowed towels in a café across the square: the horoscope never mentioned a fountain. It said “a bold leap into water”, and she had been planning to interpret that as a swim in the hotel pool. It was Mara who edited the screenshot before sending it to the group chat, adding the word fountain with a little star emoji.
Did it work? The jury is still out. Nobody proposed that afternoon, although a waiter did bring her a free hot chocolate and called her “brave”, which she counts as a promising start. The real winner was the clip itself, which turned a wet and boring afternoon into a story the whole group will tell at every future wedding, whoever ends up getting married first.
So the next time your horoscope tells you to take a leap, maybe read the original message twice. And check who sent you the screenshot.
