When his son married they had a date chosen. The slip was red, eight centimetres by twenty-four, brush-written, the date in the middle and one line of small characters in the bottom left corner: those born under the Horse must not attend.
The Horse in the family was an uncle on his wife's side. They did not invite him. He swore at them down the phone and then let it go.
Something did happen at the wedding. A leg went out from under the main table and the dishes came off it. Nobody was hurt.
Four years later they moved the ancestral graves, and had a date chosen again. Same practitioner, same red slip, the same line in the bottom left corner: those born under the Horse must not attend.
The uncle had died the year before.
He went to ask about it. The practitioner said the prohibition on the slip is calculated from the chart of the household making the request, not from the guest list. Whoever is the principal, it is their opposition that is named.
He went home and put the two slips side by side on the table.
Both times the principal was him. He is a Horse. Both times he had stood at the front.