Today's Stichomancy for Jack Kevorkian

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rewards and Fairies by Rudyard Kipling:

men whipped off his sack apron and spread it down. They saw Sailor feel for it, and recover. Still the log hung, and the team grunted in despair.

'Hai!' shouted Cattiwow, and brought his dreadful whip twice across Sailor's loins with the crack of a shot-gun. The horse almost screamed as he pulled that extra last ounce which he did not know was in him. The thin end of the log left the dirt and rasped on dry gravel. The butt ground round like a buffalo in his wallow. Quick as an axe-cut, Lewknor snapped on his five horses, and sliding, trampling, jingling, and snorting, they had the whole thing out on the heather.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Tanach:

Ezekiel 26: 14 And I will make thee a bare rock; thou shalt be a place for the spreading of nets, thou shalt be built no more; for I the LORD have spoken, saith the Lord GOD.

Ezekiel 26: 15 Thus saith the Lord GOD to Tyre: Shall not the isles shake at the sound of thy fall, when the wounded groan, when the slaughter is made in the midst of thee?

Ezekiel 26: 16 Then all the princes of the sea shall come down from their thrones, and lay away their robes, and strip off their richly woven garments; they shall clothe themselves with trembling; they shall sit upon the ground, and shall tremble every moment, and be appalled at thee.

Ezekiel 26: 17 And they shall take up a lamentation for thee, and say to thee: how art thou destroyed, that wast peopled from the seas, the renowned city, that wast strong in the sea, thou and thy inhabitants, that caused your terror to be on all that inhabit the earth!

Ezekiel 26: 18 Now shall the isles tremble in the day of thy fall; yea, the isles that are in the sea shall be affrighted at thy going out.

Ezekiel 26: 19 For thus saith the Lord GOD: When I shall make thee a desolate city, like the cities that are not inhabited; when I shall bring up the deep upon thee, and the great waters shall cover thee;

Ezekiel 26: 20 then will I bring thee down with them that descend into the pit, to the people of old time, and will make thee to dwell in the nether parts of the earth, like the places that are desolate of old, with them that go down to the pit, that thou be not inhabited; and I will set glory in the land of the living;

The Tanach

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Tanach:

2_Samuel 7: 25 And now, O LORD God, the word that Thou hast spoken concerning Thy servant, and concerning his house, confirm Thou it for ever, and do as Thou hast spoken.

2_Samuel 7: 26 And let Thy name be magnified for ever, that it may be said: The LORD of hosts is God over Israel; and the house of Thy servant David shall be established before Thee.

2_Samuel 7: 27 For Thou, O LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, hast revealed to Thy servant, saying: I will build thee a house; therefore hath Thy servant taken heart to pray this prayer unto Thee.

2_Samuel 7: 28 And now, O Lord GOD, Thou alone art God, and Thy words are truth, and Thou hast promised this good thing unto Thy servant;

2_Samuel 7: 29 now therefore let it please Thee to bless the house of Thy servant, that it may continue for ever before Thee; for Thou, O Lord GOD, hast spoken it; and through Thy blessing let the house of Thy servant be blessed for ever.'

2_Samuel 8: 1 And after this it came to pass, that David smote the Philistines, and subdued them; and David took Metheg-ammah out of the hand of the Philistines.

2_Samuel 8: 2 And he smote Moab, and measured them with the line, making them to lie down on the ground; and he measured two lines to put to death, and one full line to keep alive. And the Moabites became servants to David, and brought presents.

2_Samuel 8: 3 David smote also Hadadezer the son of Rehob, king of Zobah, as he went to establish his dominion at the river Euphrates.

2_Samuel 8: 4 And David took from him a thousand and seven hundred horsemen, and twenty thousand footmen; and David houghed all the chariot horses, but reserved of them for a hundred chariots.

The Tanach

The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad:

I've had the Sephora for these fifteen years. I am a well-known shipmaster."

He was densely distressed--and perhaps I should have sympathized with him if I had been able to detach my mental vision from the unsuspected sharer of my cabin as though he were my second self. There he was on the other side of the bulkhead, four or five feet from us, no more, as we sat in the saloon. I looked politely at Captain Archbold (if that was his name), but it was the other I saw, in a gray sleeping suit, seated on a low stool, his bare feet close together, his arms folded, and every word said between us falling into the ears of his dark head bowed on his chest.

The Secret Sharer