Stick wakes with a splitting headache and yawns wildly. Contemplating the ceiling fan for some fractions of a second he decides to call himself ‘It' today, a sexless, whirlpool-like consciousness. ‘It' then lethargically tosses around on the narrow bed, only to discover, grudgingly, that he's sleeping among scattered tarot cards, survivors of previous night's attempts at fortune-telling. Thwarted efforts in trying to tear the opaque veil off Fate's ugly face had driven Stick into some tantrum-throwing, which resulted in, among other things, an already-dog-eared and faded set of tarot cards becoming ink-stained and torn beyond repair. One card, however, seems to fare surprisingly well—The Fool, resting snugly beside Stick's pillow, stands unscathed, clean, grinning widely, a sight that's almost sinister in the feeble morning light. Stick shudders and in the same flash of a second recalls the impending deadline of the novel, which his agent and sometimes even the publisher have started calling up and inquiring about more frequently than pleasant. The stack of paper Stick prepared for the novel months ago now sleeps on his broad desk in the vast emptiness of his workroom, yellowed through autumn and winter, yet to enjoy the gentle scratch of a pen point and soothing flow of indigo ink. Except last night, in the severe attack of Nausea and self-loathing, Stick had smashed his pewter ink bottle. He stared gaping, as if stunned, as the indigoness, now free of confines, flied towards the paper stack and gave it a light kiss on the side, speckling each and every page with idiosyncratic streaks and dots, almost as telling as crack patterns on a turtle shell.
Alright, I am going to start with The Fool. Before Stick consciously realizes his almost subconscious resolution, he's already striding into the deserted, stale workroom, and starts scribbling away frenziedly in a broken pencil. Somehow, the impermanency and ease of change of pencil marks gives Stick tremendous comfort, unthought of and quite unthinkable in his fountain pen days. He writes—
April 1st,
[The Fool—Upright: New beginnings, new adventures, new opportunities, unlimited possibilities, pleasure, passion, thoughtlessness, rashness. Reverse: A bad decision, indecision, apathy, hesitation, a faulty choice.]
“Mother, I think I'll go to the literature camp myself.”
A girl in a checkered denim dress lowered her eyes and said aloud, as if more to herself than to her slightly startled mother. It was a clear day in mid-spring, the platform, reeling in gasoline smell, was quickly emptying, the dusty red train noisily engulfing passengers, the air making its presence felt by its unsettling stillness.
The girl fingered the creases in her faded blue dress and said once more, this time with a solemnity and determination that was almost irrefutable. She didn't turn around to behold the melancholic, knowing smile in her mother's eyes; she knew. Without another word she reached out for her light suitcase, now with a black dove sitting on it, Sphinx-like, fixing her with an unfathomable stare, cooing silently. She felt momentarily dizzy, blackness closing in all at once. She shook her head, and it was daylight again. The black little creature had departed, leaving an almost dried, heart shaped puddle of poop on the suitcase. Instinctively the girl reached in her pocket for a Kleenex—“Don't.” the mother broke her silence suddenly, her voice low and comforting, her manner queenly. The girl looked up into those steady, dark eyes, and saw both premonition and determined amusement. In that fleeting eye-contact mother and daughter conversed a thousand thoughts, and the girl boarded the train, alone.
Diary, April the first, departure from northpoint station.
Alice,
We both saw the premonition in mom's eyes just now and I can hardly tell what the Future has in stock for me. You, my future self, would be wiser of course, but I won't be daunted to jot down my ignorance now, or maybe it's just my usual rash thoughtlessness that constantly threaten to humiliate me before you. Either way, I'll say this: I am happy that I am embarking on this new adventure, though I am hardly seeing beyond where I stand in time and space Now, the bright penetrating light of the torch that's my Insight now rendered quite powerless as the straight passageways it shone down no longer are, replaced instead by crooked, narrow alleys, meandering in an insentient maze called Fate, all a resolute choice of mine. New openings, new possibilities, adventures, these are what energize me, and I really hope that you still hold these dear in your heart, no matter how far you have advanced on the Time axis.
