Sunset Shuffle - A Fiction (the end of Chapter One)
“You’ll stay here for a few nights,” Alexander said as he brought a small card table in the room from the storage. Vera was tightening the linens on her bed when he came back in. She had spent the minutes he was travelling back and forth dusting and tidying up the small room. Alexander had made three trips back and forth to the storage room. Along with the table, he’d brought in two wooden chairs that didn’t match and the lava lamp. “I couldn’t resist it,” he said while plugging it in.
Alexander put the table near the bed and the two chairs on either side. The lamp sat on the dresser. He sat in a chair and put his knapsack in his lap and opened it. He brought out his Tarot cards. Vera, curious over what might happen next, sat in the other chair. Alexander shuffled the cards several times, philosopher style – side to side, not rifling them like a gambler might. He laid the deck down and told Vera to cut the cards. She did. He drew the cards closer to himself and pulled the top one off.
“The first three cards will tell me where you are now and the situation around you.” The first card was The Moon. The next card, which he placed to the left of the first, was The Tower and the third card he placed to the right of the first. Five of Swords.
Vera felt disturbed at the sight of the three cards. An explosion of colors and surreal sights confused and upset her mental balance, and rang in her eyes like a fire alarm bell when she saw that Five of Swords card with its title of “Defeat” written on the bottom. Its image depicted five swords, each a different blade and hilt design, all pointing to the center and forming the shape of an upside-down five pointed star. The whole thing felt sinister to her. She clutched herself close with dread. “Is that bad?” she asked.
“You tell me,” he said. “How long ago did you lose your home? According to these cards, things feel like a nightmare to you. It has been a major shake-up for you. This Tower really calls my attention, the building collapsing around you and it’s all to do with this five of swords, the Lord of Defeat. You have no choice in the matter it would seem. It’s too late to change that now.”
“Oh,” she bemoaned, “this has to do with me getting evicted last month?”
“Yes. In some way, that event in your life is related to what’s taking place right now.” He spoke as he laid out twelve more cards on the table. Starting at the upper right hand over the first three cards, Alexander placed a card on the table and moved counter-clockwise to each of the other corners – three spirals in all. When he was done, there were fifteen cards in five groups of three like the pattern of five pips on a die.
He explained the five sections to her. “This first section, in the middle, this describes where you are now and what your main concerns are. The lower right hand three cards here tell me the influences on your situation which are not within your control – such as other people or maybe your recent past events. The lower left hand here, this is stuff within your control – maybe events that will be taking place very soon. And the two top segments, these are the future. The area in the upper right is the way things are already headed now, very likely to come true. But this other section, up here on the left, these are events that might also happen if you choose them.”
In the lower right hand area was the Knight of Swords, Seven of Cups and The Devil. “Earlier today, “ Alexander spoke, “my intuition was telling me that you know this man,” his right hand was hovering over the Knight of Swords as he stared deeply into Vera’s eyes, “and this reading tells me that my hunch was correct and this is where you met him.” Alexander’s hand waved over the Seven of Cups but he never removed his gaze from Vera. The motion was like that of a skilled weather caster waving around neighborhoods on a map while staring ahead to the camera. “At a party of some kind. It looks like you’d had too much to drink maybe. And this is where you became somehow chained to this man – bound to him; this Devil is about enslavements.”
“Enslavement!?” she gasped. “God no. But I did go to a party a while back. Yes. Just before the eviction. I was very drunk and I’m sorry I don’t remember meeting anyone. I don’t even remember leaving or how I got home.”
Alexander moved his gaze to the next set of three cards, the “advisement” area he liked to call it. He waved his left hand over the three cards as his eyes seemed to reveal a very profound inner searching. The Magus, Six of Discs, Six of Wands. “This is good stuff,” he began. “It’s an unexpected place this is coming from. You find help and skill in friends and surprising gifts. To tell you the truth, Vera, I hate it when this happens.”
“What?” she interrupted anxiously.
“It looks like I’m the one in your reading who you find help from.” He was tapping the three cards as he told her this with a look of worry on his face.
“So far, that’s the case for sure,” she said.
“The outlook ahead,” he began in an ominous tone, “if things continue the way they’ve been and you don’t avoid this future… it looks bleak.” He motioned his index finger below the three cards in the upper right area of the spread. Nine of Swords, Eight of Wands, Death. Vera held her breath.
“There’s trouble and danger crossing water. Great cruelty. This is scaring me Vera. I’m very worried for your safety.” Alexander was actually understating. Usually when Death came up in a reading it meant changes of a major kind involving a great loss of some sort, a sad change although the promise of a new beginning. But with the Nine of Swords, the Lord of Cruelty, this spelled certain death.
“But you’re here to help me, right?” She tapped the table forcefully with her finger over the other three outcome cards – Nine of Wands, Priestess, and The Star. “This is a better future? You’ll lead me to here?” Her thumping on the table grew more excited, her eyes wide with fear. Alexander looked at the cards and smiled from ear to ear, beaming a glorious grin.
“Most certainly,” he said. “I don’t seem to have a choice.”
(...more to come...)