Untitled short story, circa 2007

[Published last Feb 2009 on http://www.promdifiction.com]

I. The Jack of Spades

I have a confession to make.

I visited the station the other day, oblivious to the rest of the world, pushing past the crowds during rush hour, thinking of so many other things, the image of you interspersed with random conversations around me, trying to discern a pattern, a workable theory I could mull over, while I steadied myself, braced against the steel post not meant for more than two people.

A workable theory involves assumptions, basically untestable, and utterly dependent on the future. I ask myself often why I know the things I know now were it not for human instinct to refine the past, sanitize it, make it palatable, make it something totally alien to the needs of the present, an experience as still and as dead as the pictures gathering dust in my drawer.

In a long-abandoned box are a sheaf of papers containing letters excerpts of what would be the story of my life, hiding behind the persona of an ardent lover, trying to separate the writer from the subject, the truth from an attempt at disguising reality, the way one would dismiss a talking cat and admit the existence of domestic violence. Pure nonsense. Pure BS.

And that’s how my day meandered on along its timeless, meaningless pace. I got off at my destination and walked on, unmindful of the appointments I had to keep. I decided not to keep any appointments today, and I would take the journey I’d always dreamed about. I quoted T.S. Eliot in my head, wondering how I became that patient etherized on the table, taking each moment as it comes, being neither too happy or sad, just plain existing.

II. The Queen of Clubs

I have neither riches nor power, and so I bear the loneliest of pursuits – the fate of the clovers, dependent on luck, imprisoned by the occasional whims of fate. Because fate is unkind, we learn to be resilient. We know how to endure.

I ply my trade as one who can divine the past, guess at the future, and perhaps, control the present. It is certainly a lonely gift, one that alienates friends and one that forebodes an unhappy future for the one who sees.

Because I am not quite old and have a full figure, because I am a wanderer who came to settle in this place, because people don’t want their fortunes told on a daily basis, I’ve had to barter my body for food on the table as well. My seeing eye has little to do with the men who occasionally come to visit, on the pretext of a card reading. They do to me what they cannot do to their wives, to the promising women they court, to those who spurn their affections. They come crying on my shoulder after a bitter spat, drunken after losing money because of a badly played game, angry because their wives are unfaithful… I mop up their bloody cuts and bruises, cook for them, and I spread cards for them after they ask me to spread my legs. They amuse themselves by pretending they are still interested in their future.

This is how my days pass. I occasionally peddle my body but not my eyes. I endure the whispers behind my back, the snubs by the women who sell me fish and whose husbands fork over some money so I can continue peddling my wares. No one looks me in the eye, and no one wants to speak to me.

Ah, but I endure. I am a queen.

III. The Jack of Clubs

I made my decision purely on sleight of hand, purely on games of chance.

I took the bus back to my hometown, carrying a couple of ATMs and credit cards that would be useless here. I presented myself to a distant relative and asked to stay for a few days, and may I not be disturbed, I requested.

I was home coincidentally in time for the town fiesta, which is more of a bizarre Mardi Gras really, than any community affair celebrating the town’s patron saint. I’m not one to visit fortune tellers, but passing by this quiet booth in this provincial town, I had an irresistible urge to guess at the future. It was the one thing I never associated with the city – the mystery and the fear of the unknown, already foretold and waiting to happen.

She told me to pick out three cards. With businesslike precision, she spread the deck in front of me, fifty-two identical versions of an ornate blue.

I drew out a card and turned it over. It was the Queen of Spades.

“You tempt sorrow,” she smiled ironically, baring an uneven set of teeth.

I drew out another and she took it from me, studied it for a few seconds and shook her head. It was the Jack of Spades.

“She loves another,” she said to me.

Crestfallen as I was, I said nothing to contradict her.

With a trembling hand, I drew out the last card.

“Ah, but love still smiles upon you. Not with her, but in another place,” she smiled.

It was the Queen of Hearts.

IV. The Queen of Clubs

I have a confession to make.

The night we met at the fiesta, I told my first lie.

I spotted you from afar, obviously a city bred man-child deliriously lost in the humdrum of this provincial town. When your wandering gaze met mine, I stared back, almost willing you to come over. When you approached, I almost convinced myself that I told my own fortune well. It was endearing, really, watching you gather up the courage.

Of course, it had something to do with the cards.

I could sense your urgency. The longing to make sense of your private madness. You could not abide by the intervention of angels, and now you come to tempt your earthly fate. When you drew out the first card, I wanted to say something comforting, but I could not. When you drew out the second card, your despairing gaze was so palpable I did what I did.

I cheated you, and tempted my own fate. By drawing out the Queen of Hearts, I intervened in your destiny by making it my own. I said nothing to contradict your thoughts, as plain to me as the cards I read. That also meant losing my own God-given gift.

The days became more bearable. Fate became your addiction, and you started visiting me at home, looking to me to make sense of your chaos. I tried to win you over with my music, with my rough charms and my cooking.

You did not care for my other means of income, you wanted to know about my past. Here comes my second lie. I was not completely truthful to you. I have had three lovers – outside of the men of this village.

One spoke to me of his childhood. He told me I was hardened and cynical from birth. I did not want to offend him and merely agreed. He was in many ways a spoiled, senseless child. I envied his days of melting into the sea. We discovered each other’s bodies as though playing nursery games, but he was tainted beyond recognition.

One wanted me because I seemed learned in my craft. We rarely spoke, and only met in urgency. I have mastered the art, you see, of delineating intimacy in all its guises. If I ever thought of him, it was only because I wanted to possess him again and again.

One tried to seduce me with ideas. He mastered the art by mere intellect. For each craving I secretly nurtured, he would feed me with pellets of conversation. When the time came, he disappointed me. He could not marry his ideas with his passion.

They all used me, of course. But I used them, too. In a sense, it was always a mutual arrangement.


V. The Jack of Clubs Speaks to His Faithless Queen

In this place, I like to think that I don’t need you. One day flows into the next, and I hardly give you a second thought.

I come here because it consoles me. Breathing the city means breathing you. The day-to-day bewilderment, the randomness of the billboards along the highways that rise to meet the stars, the daily struggle for a seat in the train, a window of five minutes to avoid a deduction for tardiness, the glamorous Dionysian parties on weekend that I read about in magazines – I cannot abide by such cosmopolitan madness.

I wish you were here with me. It takes five hours to get here by bus, and what a luxurious sleep with you resting against my shoulder. I would win you over with my stories, with my knowledge of this faraway place, and tell you everything I’ve read in the travel books. You would listen to me, you would find my talk a little interesting, and maybe, finally, we could talk about our childhoods. We would imagine we spent the first afternoons of our lives together climbing trees and chasing after spiders and butterflies. The present would be an extension of our idyllic past.

And when we’re both tired and flushed from the excitement of our shared memories, we would slowly nod off – but you would fall asleep before I do. I would time my breathing with the rise and fall of your chest.

You would not need to love another.

VI. Queen of Hearts in Disguise

I have a confession to make.

I want to tell you why I cannot look you in the eye. I studiously fasten my gaze on inanimate objects in front of me, trying not to arouse your suspicion when I glance at your profile. Memory is elusive, you see, and while I want to remember the shirt that you’re wearing or how your eyes light up when you tell me about something that means to you, I cannot form a clear enough image in my mind.

I wish I could trace the contours of your face with my fingers. I would start from your forehead to the tip of your nose, down to your lips. Then I would tilt your chin upwards and make you face me. Do you understand? Your face will leave imprints on my hands so that I can recall your face one day when my memory fails me. When I think of you, I only see shadows and shapes, mediated by how I want to remember you. Sometimes I imagine that your gaze is fixed upon me, and that you have better eyes. You will remember me that way, just by looking at me. But I can only remember you in Braille.

I wish I could explain to you that when my smile is too bright while my gaze drifts away, I am upset with you. I have no reason, really, to demand your undivided attention. But imagine this, imagine you are a child again and it is your first time to deliver a speech before a crowd that might as well number a hundred strong, and your chest is puffed up, your hands are shaking and when you open your mouth to speak, your voice squeaks. The audience looks at you politely, they try to listen to you at first, but after the first few sentences they have already judged you and lost interest. That is how I feel when I talk to you. You have the ability to respond to my tentative words and questions without needing to think, you needn’t listen to my futile attempts at meaningful conversation. My voice disappears into the general din, and you have lost interest.

Your only interest is in the cards. In your Queen of Sorrows.

VII. The Jack of Clubs Speaks to His Queen

I am leaving this place now.

I am coming back to the city to find you.

VIII. A Queen No Longer

I have lost my gift. The future is now madness.

I have lost you. You did not even deem it fit to secure a proper parting.

I wrote you my confession, but I thought I need not give it, since the cards told me you would decide to stay.

The cards have learned to deceive me now, the way I deceived them.

To the men who found my gift alluring, I’ve become as dull and shapeless as their lives. They have nothing to do with me now. Since the day I learned to cheat you, I have become the master of deception. I wander this town aimlessly now, shuffling my now useless pack of cards, challenging children with a few coins to a gambling game. I play cards with them, and then I take their money.

I am writing you this letter by an abandoned dirt path that leads to a forgotten stream. It is quiet here, where I am, the early morning sounds and the quiet of late evening mark my days. I wake up as usual, take long walks to the town market, and walk quietly among people whose language I cannot speak. But I ply my trade here, I have nowhere to go. They refuse to speak to me. Signs and guttural sounds and pantomimes sustain me – a few vigorous gesticulations and I can pick out the fish I want to take home.

If I let my mind drift long enough, I can pretend I don’t need you.

At night, I lie awake in the improvised hammock I made, watching the stars. The comforting sound of rustling leaves and crickets and the swishing sounds of the breeze allow me some measure of peace.