A lot of memories and thoughts ran through Lexi’s head, “What am I going to do? What does all this mean? How can I escape this fate that the cards so apparently want me to take on? This is not fair, life has never really been too kind to me and given me a shot. I cannot believe this is happening. What do I do next?”

Clouds blew in over head, which pushed up a horribly cold gust of wind. Lexi shivered and felt even more cold and alone than she ever had before. There was no one she could turn to for help or advice. No one that would believe her at this point anyways. Lexi pushed back from the posted that was securely affixed on the window and continued walking. She got as far as the Library, the one last place to call a peaceful sanctuary, before she decided to turn around and head back home.

This time, she took the path that passed by a the fountain that held a statue of one of the school’s founders. Aaron Fieldsmith. He had been a big believer in the value of higher education and how it should be accessible to everyone, not just to people that could afford it with money from their pockets or bank accounts. The bronze statue showed him standing proudly tall, watching over the school that he helped to create and make sure that the money used to build the courses and curriculum could sustain and support the values of learning for all. Lexi’s school was considered a party school to most of the undergraduate population, as it was well known that the school’s administration would bring almost any kid who wanted to better themselves with learning into the college. Which created a real big diversity of personality types on her campus. Lexi was never a real big fan of parties or using the time she spent on campus to screw around or play. After all, it was her money that paid for the things so she wanted to make sure that she got the most out of the school and used that knowledge to help her secure a possible future in a field that she knew all too well might not even provid her with anything stable.

A few coins, mostly pennies glinted in the basin below the statue. The campus landscapers had emptied out the basin a few days ago, preventing water damage to the fountain and to the statue that sat above it. Lexi found it strange that no matter how wet or dry the basin was, that people still wanted to cast their dreams, in the form of the coins, down deeply before the campus founder’s spirit. An urban legend said that the students who cast coins filled with hidden whispers of their dreams or wishes for success down into the well and waters beneath the statue on the day before the first day of their freshman classes, would find more success moving ahead in college and in their life than those who did not believe in the power of learning and staying with tradition. Even Lexi herself, upon setting her first foot on campus only hours before her first classes tossed her dreams into the basin in the form of a bright and shiny coin that also shared her birth year on it. She may have not believed in superstition but she also felt that doing any ritual to help her achieve her dreams was worthwhile in doing.

Lexi paused by the basin and wondered just what happened to the coins that carried the dreams of all the students who threw money into the coins. She knew that it had been two years since she had first stood by the statue and she knew that the composition and coins that laid in the basin changed. She looked deep down into the well at the glinting coins, hoping that she would recognize and find her dreams still buried deep down somewhere in the well. On a whim, she thrust her hands deep into the pockets of her jacket searching for a coin or two to toss back down into the well. However, her pockets were bare, save for a few pieces of lint. Lexi sighed as the wave of depression washed back over her as the realization of poverty hit her.

“What is going on?” she asked herself again, as she pressed against the growing gusts of wind blowing in from the East. The world grew darker around her as the incoming storm grew harder. “What can I do to change the outcome of this horrible dream. Or is it, I mean maybe I am just really tired and that everything that has been going on is just a figment of my overly stressed out and lack of sleep mind? My mother always did tell me that I had an highly overactive and reactive imagination. So maybe this is all really some weird hallucination that I have somehow dreamt up and just need to go home, drink more tea, and maybe rest a bit more. I do not have to go back to work for a few more days. Thanks to Shane, I got a bit of a vacation.”

As she continued to walk, her thoughts drifted over Shane and his mother, Meghan, whom had treated Lexi more like a daughter than her own maternal mother did. She wished that she had lived closer to Meghan and could have been there for their family during this time. The very thought that Meghan was going to end her successful career as a psychologist for the college she had gone to understudy at was hard for her to swallow. Meghan had been such an awesome role model and Lexi knew that the school would be losing a valuable contribution to their staff once she left.

“Meghan could talk anyone out of a real bad spot, and I wish I could call her up right now and tell her everything that is in my head. About how sorry I am for having been the one to cause Shane to hang himself, about how my trying to even study the tarot deck has done more harm to me than anything. Naomi has sworn by all this but I will be that even she would run and turn away from me now. There is no way in hell that anyone would want to know this horror. Hell, I wish that I did not have to deal with this. I wish that I could get away from it all and have my life return to normal.”

Finally Lexi arrived back at the twin oaks that lined the entrance of her apartment complex. They seemed unfriendly and more twisted than they ever appeared to her before. Their brown wood seemed darker and twisted in the darkening sky. She twisted her head to peer down at the spot where she burned the cards once more before slowly ascending the steps back to her apartment. The boys across the hall were once again outside the apartment, and were poised to whistle at her, but when they saw the blank stare appear across Lexi’s face, their mouths shut and a strange silence hushed over the three friends. Two of the boys had jackets on and they were zippered up closed. The third, non-smoking boy had a opened blue and yellow flannel that was worn over a green t-shirt that had several white bleach stains on it. The flannel blew silently as the breeze that entered the hallway caught ahold of it. Instead, they stayed silent and two of the boys continued to smoke their pungent and foul smelling cigarettes. Lexi heard the sound of burning tobacco and crisply burning paper as each boy slowly moved the cigarette up to their mouth and sucked through the filter contained in the bottom of each cancer stick. The air around her grew smokey as they exhaled towards her.

They watched her slide the key to her apartment into the keyhole and heard the door unlock with an almost inaudible click. She turned and looked over her shoulder once more before going inside to the haven. The boys stood motionless and gave her no sign of emotion. She shut the door behind herself, giving them back the space of the hallway to carry out their business. She slid the bolt back in place and heard the silent click as it locked her safely inside. She also placed the old-fashioned chain lock into the door’s cradle as well, just in case. She was not sure why she felt compelled to do so but she felt like she had to.

Lexi wandered over listlessly to her bed and sat down. Her depression started getting the better of her and she sat staring around at all the objects that filled her room. None of them seem to matter anymore and she was too tired to even read any of the books on how symbolism connected single people to the greater cultures spread all over the globe. Her eyes felt tired and dead and she blinked them a few times as she turned her head slowly to face the apartment.

“I am so tired,” she said to the room, “so very tired. And I need some decent sleep. I am tired of having horrible dreams about women with holes for eyes and tribal peoples wanting to cook my flesh so that they can continue to survive. None of that does me a lick of good.” She started rubbing her fingers over the smooth and cool bedspread, as if it were her security blanket and that doing so would make everything all better. Still, she was alone and had no one to confide into or could tell her what to do.

She turned to face her bathroom as an idea hit her. “Hmm, I wonder if I have any of those meds left over. I am almost positive that Dylan did not take them with him when he left two weeks ago. And if he did leave them, them so be it”

Lexi pulled her heavy body up off the futon and moved over to the bathroom. The mirror in the room also hid an old style medicine cabinet. Lexi rarely used the cabinet, preferring to house most of her make-up or toiletries in a carry all box that she had used throughout high school and her undergraduates years. Some habits were hard to break and she knew that she would drag that box with her everywhere as long as it held together.

She touched the small magnetic corner of the mirror and was startled as it sent a small electric shock through her fingers.

“Ouch,” she said throwing the door to the medicine cabinet open. “Damn it, I got to be more careful.”

Her gut had been right, for there was a shelf of at least a half a dozen bottles of medicines, vitamins and other various sundries sitting on in the cabinet. “Dylan had forgotten to take most of his medicines, I guess he forgot them,” she said, a small smile moving over her lips. Her eyes gazed over a bottle of shaving cream, with it’s blue cap and shiny metal base slowly growing rusted from having been in the shelf with humidity untouched for several months. She moved her eyes from the bottom of that bottle to the top of the plastic blue bottle that was his Degree deodorant. Lexi thought about all the good times that she and he had and how she found the slight smell of that deodorant comforting when she would lay her head on his chest before going to bed at night. Of course, one whiff of the scent now would send her into tears. Finally, hiding tucked behind the two taller bottles of shaving creme and cologne she found what she was looking for.

The small brown bottle with a white cap had the name Dylan Thomas written on it. Next to it was a pharmaceutical number of 54363. Dylan often had sleeping issues himself and needed a boost to sleep, and somehow convinced his doctor to get him some Ambien CR to help him sleep. She reached out and carefully maneuvered the bottle from behind the others. It shook only slightly revealing maybe half a dozen pills inside the bottle. Lexi rolled the bottle in her hands and read the prescription notes. USE ONLY WITH WATER AND AT BEDTIME. TAKE 2 PILLS AT BEDTIME TO HELP WITH INSOMNIA. DO NOT TAKE IF YOU ARE GOING TO DRIVE OR OPERATE HEAVY MACHINERY. In case of an overdose, please call your doctor immediately. FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE READ THE INFORMATION THAT CAME WITH THIS BOTTLE, read the label.

She did not see any expiration dates written on the bottle, which meant that the small ovular pills still contained their potency. She shut the medicine cabinet and saw the ghastly reflection of her face back on the mirror. She hoped that by taking these pills she would finally get the sleep she deserved and needed to continue to function and keep a stable, normal life-style. Lexi moved back into the main room and grabbed a dirty glass that sat on the counter top. She set the pills down on the counter and rinsed the glass out with some water and then filled the glass halfway full with water.

Lexi opened the bottle of pills and shook a few out into her hand. She slapped her hand over her mouth and quickly popped the pills back down her throat. She washed them down with the water and poured out the remaining water down the sink. Then grabbing her favorite teddy bear, whose fur was soft and silky like a kitten that she wished she could have, she laid down on the bed, trying to avoid the stack of tarot cards that were still down at the foot of the bed. She snuggled her body up as tightly into a ball as she could and then closed her eyes.

Soon after, she was fast asleep, her body rhythmically rising and falling to her breath. Lexi did not dream during the drug induced sleep.

What felt like hours going by Lexi finally woke up, the strange feeling of warmth that only being outside under the bright hot sun could bring. Lexi sat up and found herself laying in the middle of a dusty cross-roads, instead of being safe and secure in her bed. The teddy bear that helped see her to sleep was no where to be found. Lexi pushed the hair that covered her face back and looked around her. She was in the middle of nowhere. No telephone polls sat in the ground, and no cars were seen traveling to and from the crossroads where she now sat. She was alone. With the hot, high mid-day sun bearing down on her.

Lexi stood up, puzzled and afraid. “Hello,” she called out. “Hello, is any body out there? Can you hear me?” Her voice echoed across the desert wasteland as a few trees and brown shrubs gently swayed in the small breeze. It sounded strange as the air and the sky carried it far and away from where she was standing. But no one returned her call. She definitely was alone.

“This is great,” she said, “now what? I have no idea where I am or how to get back home. I wonder where I am?”

Lexi stared off into the distance, as the heat waves formed lines towards the landscape that was growing up into hills and mountainsides capped with frost and snow. She saw no movement other than the light breeze. She whipped around to look at the other set of roadways which stretched out long and wide out into the barren wastelands. Again, nothing as far as the eye could reach. She was stuck and alone, with no idea where she was and no way of getting her back home. She ran her hand through her hair again and stared up into the sky. There were no signs or street signs to be found anywhere. She wondered if places like this still existed in America, and according to where she was standing, she assumed that there were a few remaining places that did exist.

High above her was the sun, beating down its warm rays, feeding Lexi’s skin with its energy. A few clouds moved across her field of vision in a slow and lazy pattern. Neither gave her any indication of what direction they were moving in. It seemed like they felt as stuck as she did, standing in the dusty roadway.

Suddenly the bright glint of something laying in the roadway caught her eye and the light of the sun. Wondering what it was, she slowly moved over to it, her boots kicking up small puffs of dust as she walked. She bent down and looked at the glowing item. It was a white tarot card, the last from The Windchaser Tarot. Lexi brushed the dirt and dust from the image and saw a giant wheel drawn on it. It had twelve spokes, each depicting a season or an object in them. The wheel was set high up in the clouds and a red ribbon banner floated over it. She picked the card out of the dust and held it close in her hands and then hugged it to her chest. She turned around to look at the four paths that sprawled out long before her and wondered which direction she was going to head down.

Lexi tried to be as silent as she could as she crept up upon the woman. But she accidentally stepped on a small, dead and grey twig that had been set on the ground behind the old woman. The sound reverberated throughout the stale air and Lexi held both her position and her breath.

“It is you,” the old woman said, slowly as she tried to regain her footing to face Lexi, “you did this. It was you who let the evil out of the cards.”

Lexi took a step forward, and reached out her hands. She wanted to help the old woman but something inside her held her back from offering any solid help, “There was no evil. The cards are just pieces of paper that I foolishly purchased at the store. Burning them was the only way I knew how to get rid of them.”

The old woman hissed, “You are so very foolish girl. You do not know anything about the forces of reading tarot or these cards. Naive is what you are.” She whipped around as she stood, towering only slightly over Lexi. She raised a small, thin and arthritic hand and pointed her index finger out at her. “What you did here, was to make sure that you and your soul are both going to hell.”

Blood rushed to Lexi’s face and she held her mouth closed. Anger was never her strong suit and she hated confrontation with a passion. All throughout her life, growing up with her mom, she was pointed at and told that she would never amount to anything, that she was a good for nothing looser. Everything she did in her life since then, was to fight back and prove through actions of being a straight A honors student, putting herself through both undergraduate and graduate school, was not what could be called a loser.

“I am NOT a wrong! Who are you to tell me that I am going to hell for burning just a stupid pack of cards,” she retorted but stopped suddenly when the old woman faced her. Her skin, was old and wrinkled and grey, but the most disturbing feature was the lack of eyes. Her eye sockets were sunken in as if she never had a pair of eyes to see with.

“I can smell the fear on you, girl,” the woman said reaching out for Lexi, “you believed in what the cards could offer and tried to have them give you a better life. Those cards cannot be swayed one way or the other, they do as they please and crush the life out of anyone who crosses them. They stole my life away and it is a matter of time before you are next… you are next…”

The old woman floated over to Lexi, who was now stumbling back and trying to gain some distance away from her without taking her eyes off. Blood and puss started seeping out from the woman’s eye sockets and her voice started emitting a strange and horrible high pitched squeak in some unknown and dangerous language.

Lexi threw her hands up over her eyes and screamed.

She threw the covers off her, but startled as they sounded like a pile of cards hitting the floor. Carefully Lexi opened her eyes and found herself back in her apartment, laying fully dressed as she had gone outside the night before. What she saw next, startled her beyond belief.

She had no recollection of putting any covers back over her now warmed body, instead she was covered head to toe in cards. Tarot cards. Pictures from The Windchaser Tarot deck, the very deck that she had burned to ash last night outside in the cold, under the light of a full and partially red full moon, were now laying on top of her, as if they had never been touched by the warmth of the flames from the lighter that was now poking her left side in her jeans pocket.

“What the… FUCK!” her mind screamed as the hand drawn, pencil and bright, water-colored portraits with their symbolism met her gaze. “But, I burned you all last night. I watched you all get destroyed. How can this be. I freed myself of you.”

Lexi pushed the long cards off her body as if they were multiple spiders crawling up her arms and legs in an attempt to get at her throat. “I destroyed you. You were gone.”

They sat tosseled in a small pool of cardboard, teetering at the foot of her bed. Tears of frustration started forming at the edges of Lexi’s eyes. She brushed her hands through her hair as she started rocking back and forth. “What do yu want with me? I destroyed you. I was free from you. I did not want you anymore. I was free from you.”

Small, wispy strands of her long brown hair started falling out in between her fingers. Lexi stood up and pushed the last of the cards over to the pile. She felt trapped and stuck and pushed up into a dead end from which there was no escape. She started sobbing as she entered the bathroom to rinse cold water over her face.

“This has to be some horrible dream. It all has to be,” she told the tired, haggard mirror image self that was reflecting back at her. She lingered as she stared in the mirror for a bit more and then saw her reflection jump as the shrill electronic sound of her cell phone went off on the table.

She rushed over to grab it, cleared her throat of all the phlegm inside it and then, answered it silently,m “Hello. This is Lexi.”

“Oh my god, you are there,” came Claudia’s voice on the other end, “Doode. You had us worried sick last night Lexi. We looked everywhere and even stopped by your apartment after we noticed you took off. What the hell happened? I thought you wanted to hang out and dance with us but instead you bolted and did not even bother to tell anyone? What the hell…”

“Fuck you, Claudia,” Lexi said under her breath, “you took me into a fucking fetish night, after all the shit that happened to me? And you do that? You KNOW how I feel about public sex shows. You KNEW did you not? Or were you just thinking about yourself again, hoping that I would go along in the ride with you?”

“Well, yes and know. I know how much you hate that shit, but you have got to believe me when I say that I had no idea that The Velvet Kink was doing a burlesque and fetish night last night. Oh my god, I can not believe you are so pissed at me sitll. You know what, I called to make sure you were okay and you obviously are. And now, I am going to hang up and get on with my life as I do not need someone who I once thought was my friend yelling at me like they are a second mother. Thanks for nothing Lexi, and you know what, do not bother calling me back. Who needs friends like you.”

Dead air filled the receiver as Claudia hung up. Lexi closed the lid of her cell phone and threw it on the futon in frustration. “ARRRRRRGH,” she yelled to the silent room as she jumped up and down. She felt betrayed and used by her friends and now they were mad and pissed at her.

“I just cannot fucking win, can I not?” she questioned to the ceiling, which had a small brown spot over the stove from years of improper ventilation. Tears started swelling back up around the corners of her eyes and she stood around in her apartment not knowing what to do. She wanted to call out to Naomi, to find out what was going on but she dared not involve her friend. “What if she is next on the list of targets this evil thing has in store?” she mused. “I do not want to totally alienate all my friends and end up living a life totally alone, with five hundred cats. Oh dear god, what am I going to do?”

Seconds turned to minutes as Lexi continued to stare into the vast nothingness that was her ceiling and apartment. She felt as if everything around her was beginning to unravel. Her life had taken some weird turn ever since Dylan left her and she picked up that cursed tarot deck.

“If only he had been with me on that day that I went to the Aquarian Dreams store with Naomi, I am almost certain he would have talked me out of buying that thing. Dylan never did believe in things of that nature,” she thought to herself as she started laughing.

She grabbed her jacket and keys and stooped to tie her shoes. she moved towards her front door and paused to look at the pool of cards that continued to sit benignly. Then she pushed out into the world and walked down the steps into the warm day. She moved towards the back of the parking lot where she had just stood only hours ago. Soot and blackened cement appeared at the very spot where she had torched the cards on the ground. A small laugh that would have disturbed anyone standing near her, escaped her mouth.

Her eyes glazed over and she turned and began walking up the road, no where in particular. As she passed one of the two giant Oak trees that guarded the entrance of her apartment complex she paused to see two butterflies hovering around the trees. They danced in and out of the branches paying her or the world no attention. Lexi thought about the happy little scene and how similar it appeared on the three of cups tarot card. She shook her head and pressed on. Up ahead the sounds of youthful laughter filled the air. She spotted a girl, that could not have been more than twenty-one years of age, throwing leaves into the air at a boy who stood only a few inches from her. Her hair glowed almost bright red in the sunny daylight and her lips were painted red like the color of a fine red Zinfindel. He sneezed and laughed back as he raced over in a valiant attempt to push her into the growing pile of leaves behind them. His blue coat flew open and Lexi saw the heather grey sweater that he had worn.

She pressed on and continued her walk-about. The road curved ahead and she brushed by one of the small glass and black metal bus stop covers that her city had paid for. A mural had been painted into the back panels of glass in this one. Lexi thought about how the Fieldsmith University’s art department won out on the grant that allowed several of their most talented painters to show of their creative artistry to paint scenes in fifteen of the town’s bus stops. She had come upon one of them. The scene depicted a long winding dirt path road that lead up and back from green, tall and rolling hills down into a valley that had a cobalt blue river running alongside the road. On top of the nearest bluff, stood a figure who was dressed in brown flowing robes. A darker, brown leather belt closed the robe around the slim waist of the figure. A tiny pouch dangled to the back of the belt. The figure wore a matching reddish brown hat with a long purple, green and blue peacock feather tucked into one side. A mess of tousled blonde hair blew against some unseen wind. The figure held a walking stick, that had been carved with runic symbols in it, a small clear globe of crystal sat atop the stick, held down with strings of beads. A second walking stick, plain without ornate decorations sat next to the figure, stuck deep down in the dirt of the ground. The figure faced away from Lexi and seemed to be looking deep down into the valley below, perhaps trying to decide which way to go or perhaps waiting for someone who was to crawl up from the long path.

Again, Lexi recognized the scene to be one from The Windchaser Tarot deck. She knew that this card meant. It was a powerful card that meant take courageous action in getting what was desired. She knew that the figure on the card had a decision to make on whether or not to wait or go and that the decision would influence the next path of the person’s life. Soon after she passed from the bus station, she wandered into the campus.

A group of people where standing around Brewer Hall. Two girls were huddled next to the dark grey building. One had a cigarette in her hand and she was sucking the tobacco down deep into her lungs. A worried look crossed over her face and she turned to the other girl who was standing around nervously, shifting the weight from an overburdened backpack between her two feet.

“So, what am I going to do? What will I tell my parents, Sally?” the girl holding the cigarette said to her friend. “My parents are already mad at me for having changed my major yet again. For the second time. I have already gone for Chemistry, to Environmental studies and now I want to take something more artistic, like maybe creative writing or even maybe anthropology. This science stuff is hard and I am not sure that I want to devote my entire life to sitting around in a laboratory studying things. But they do not understand, my parents. Hell, dad was hoping that I would follow in his footsteps and be a OB-GYN. I guess they need more female doctors or something. But yuck, who wants to see other parts for a living. I do not know what I am going to do and when they get the notice that I am yet again changing majors, they are going to stop funding college. What should I do?”

Lexi watched as Sally shifted her weight again for the third time and shrugged. “You have got to stick by what you believe in. Go follow what you want rather than what your parents want,” the girl retorted back. Lexi shook her head and continued heading deeper onto the campus grounds. She stayed on the main campus walkway, and continued to wander past building after building of classrooms that were in session, teaching the next generation of world leaders, teachers and doctors.

Small puffs of breath floated out from her mouth as the day grew shorter, Lexi stumbled past the bookstore. Her eyes wandered into the store as they started window shopping and looking at all the new books that contained lots of new knowledge. Sitting silently ready to be read. The racks had been painted green, to match one of the school’s primary colors. Signs describing each major college inside the University hung from the ceiling with fish wire. “English”, “Math” “Science, Social” “Science, Literary” read each card. The books that she used for class, however did not get the prestigious honor of having a hanging book shelf, no, instead she had a small and tiny two shelves located in the far right corner of the bookstore. There, labeled in gold were the bright letters of Anthropology. “Such a small domain for such an important school of thought”, Lexi thought. “There should be more books sitting in those shelves than what this University offers.” Her body moved along the glass at a slow meandering pace. She watched her body walk until it came across a shadow of a poster that was all too familiar to her but at the same time seemingly new.

Drawn on a white background was a tall, stone tower sitting off in the dead center distance of the poster. A long road lead up to the tower and roses littered the ground to the left and right sides of the poster. A figure, clad in brown stained jeans and a red plaid flannel shirt with two gun holster, slumped to the right side of the poster. A stem of hay sat comfortably in his mouth as his right hand sat twisting a six-chambered, gun metal blued revolver. Large words were written under the gunslinger in twists of gold and yellow block printing: COMING SOON, THE WATCHTOWER, BOOK SEVEN of the series by the world’s leading horror writer STEPHEN KING. Somehow, the tower in the background looked menacing enough to Lexi to draw a shiver down her back. She had read the entire series until the final book and she knew that somehow the tower that appeared in the posting sitting a mere inches away from her cold body was not the one that King described in his series. No, instead it appeared more like the tower that was on the face of her tarot deck, appearing as it had before the horrible lightening bolt struck the side of the tower, demolishing it and tearing it down into stones and rubble. Lexi reached out to trace the image on the poster and wondered if the demise of the tower and the fall of the people outside of the top floors was going to be the picture of her own fate as well.

Her other hand grabbed a small baggie filled with a wide variety of teas. Many she had purchased at the store but some of the tiny bags were hand-me-downs from friends whom she had gone shopping with and split the exotic flavors. She dug through the baggie, carefully looking for that one particular tea that could help remove some of the stress out of her body and return it to a state of calm as well as take out all the cold and frost from her bones. She sniffled her tears back inside and chose a tea that had the simple name of Calm. The tag was small and copper and the single word was written in a bright yellow format. The aroma of chamomile, Vetiver, vanilla and other various herbs and flowers filled her nose and she shyly smiled as she resealed the baggie shut so that the potency of all the other teas could remain intact. “Yellow and blue make green,” her mind carefully said as well trained as the commercials of all the plastic bags taught her to do in her youth. It was a mantra that helped forge a generation of plastic bags.

She dipped the tea bag into the empty mug and then carefully wrapped the thin, white cotton string around the top most portion of the handle and tied the tea bag tag under the loop that the string made. Making sure the tea bag and the tea kettle were both secure and doing their job correctly she made her way into the bathroom. She reached down deep into her bath tub and held the small cold plastic plug that fit into the bottom of the bath tub and twisted it in her hand. She brushed some old hair down into the drain and then plugged the deep chrome hole with this small plastic, being careful to make sure that the small, chrome metal chain that was looped around the top of it did not get stuck or caught underneath the plastic where it would slowly drown itself in the hole. Satisfied that none of her fresh, hot bath water would drain out of the tub, she slowly and deliberately twisted the small claw-like knob that had ornate, old fashioned script with three letters of H, O, T on it.

Water started pouring out of the thin horned spiket of her old fashioned bear claw tub and soon steam was spreading up from the bowl and into the air making her apartment feel a bit more like it was in a tropical climate instead of being smack dab in the middle of the pacific northwestern states. Shortly after she had the hot water running, she carefully measured out a bit of cold water from the other claw-like knob so that she would not burn or damage her smooth and white skin. There was no emotion on her face or in her eyes, saved for the quickly drying tears turning into sand in the corners of her eye sockets as she undressed herself and removed the two layers of clothing she had put on earlier that night to attempt to wash away the depression.

“Fuck this shit,” she said. “Why did I even bother listening to her? She does not really even give a crap about anyone else. Much less her studies.”

The water level rose in the tub and Lexi tested the water with the tips of her fingers. A wave of warmth spread from the point of contact up through her arm and spread out her body. It was like a being of unconditional love had touched her and made her feel like the most special person on the planet. Naked, she lowered her tiny lithe body into the water and allowed it to wash away the cold reminder of her night and the horribly disturbing image from the night club.

Reliving the image in her head again, got her mind turned to thinking about the damned tarot deck and all the damage having purchased it was doing to her life. She turned her head towards the main room outside her bathroom and searched out her closet with her eyes.

“What do you want from me?” her eyes screamed at the deck. “Why are you messing up my life and how the fuck do I get rid of you? Because I really do not need this shit in my life anymore.”

Of course, nothing responded back. Lexi closed her eyes and tried to keep the image of the deck out of her mind. A few minutes later, a high pitched squeal came from her kitchen, letting her know quite dramatically that her hot tea water was ready. Quickly pulling her now warmed body from the tub, she pulled the plug and wrapped a fluffy green towel around her body. She wiped her feet off on the rug she had purchased for the bathroom and then made her way back into her apartment.

She flicked the greasy black knob on the stove off and removed the still bleating kettle from the red hot stove coils. Lexi paused to let it cool down for a little bit and then carefully poured the insanely hot water into the tiny mug, trying very hard not to spill any drops on her counter top or on her skin. Steam poured from the kettle as the boiling water hit the cool room temperature exterior. She set the mug down and then went into her closet to throw on some warm and comfortable clothing.

While searching for a long sleeved t-shirt, Lexi looked up towards the corner of the closet where she had put the tarot deck. She forced a long, winded breath out of her lungs and stood silently before the shelf. A frown spread across her face and her heart sped up.

“I cannot believe I am letting a fucking deck of cards do this to me. How fucking juvenile,” she said to herself. “I am sure this is just stupid and nothing wrong is gonna happen.”

She lifted her body up using the metal rod that her clothes were on and crawled her fingers to the back of the closet to where the silk wrapped cards sat helplessly. Finally her fingers wrapped around one corner of the silk and she gave the package a sharp, quick tug and down they came. Lexi landed squarely on the middle of the bottom of her feet and muttered “ouch. shit.” under her breath.

She then threw the cards on her futon as she turned to grab her mug with still steaming tea in it. The mug sent short sharp pin-pricks of heat through her body as she deftly maneuvered her desk and the piles of books to reach the futon itself. First, she sat the mug on the ground and then hopped over it to sit cross-legged on the bed. The cards sat a mere twelve inches away from her but she made no move to touch them.

“What the fuck do you want from me?” she repeated again, her eyes burning into the cards. She blew off the steam in her mug and took a very small sip from it. The liquid rushed over her teeth and tingled them a bit. When the tea cooled off a bit more she drank half of it before even looking at the cards again.

Her body finally relaxed and she leaned against her pillow, thinking about how much her life had changed in the time that she had purchased the deck until now. It was crazy how much worse it had gotten. And she had told herself that things were going to get much better. She thought about the things her deck made come true. Predictions did not even begin to cover the way the deck operated.

“It is as if the deck wants these things to come true,” she said. “Why? What did I ever do to you? What do you want from me?”

She reached out her hand, poised it over the deck, ready to unwrap it from its case. But it just sat over it.

“Do I really want to know the answer to this,” her mind shot back. “Be careful what you ask for. As you have seen, you are NOT playing with something that is just a simple pack of cards. This thing, is evil. It wants to hurt you.”

“But I have to know,” came a small timid voice from her mouth. “I have to know if this is all for real or if my mind is making it all up.”

And her hand touched the deck and started to unfurl the cards from their wrap. Once again, Lexi found her arms tensing up as she shuffled the stiff tarot cards. She focused on the question that was repeating itself over and over in her head, “Why me? Who are you? What do you want from me?” As the words went over and over in her head, her breathing became more rhythmically and started beating her heart to the beat of the words.

After what seemed like forever but only lasted a few seconds, the sounds of the flickering cards stopped reverberating throughout her apartment. She twisted the two halves of the deck back together and then held all seventy-eight cards ot her chest as was her tradition. “Who are you and what do you want from me?” she asked the deck once more, this time out loud as she lowered it down into her left hand and closed her eyes.

Instead of turning over each card one by one, she quickly dealt out five cards face up. Grounding herself and finding her center, she slowly opened her eyes. There, laying on her bed, was the impossible.

All five cards were the same… each and every one of them… showing a long and slender building made of stone. The top of the building spilled open, as a bolt of lightening shot through the air and down at the building, ripping the insides out. Falling to either side of the tower, were two bodies; one male and one female. A cloud of bricks and other debris showed to be fastly following their trail. Lexi slowly opened and closed her mouth in disbelief. She backed away from the cards, not wanting to bed lieve what she was seeing. She rubbed her eyes and blinked. Unfortunately it did not change what the cards were showing her. The Tower, as Naomi taught her, was one of the worst cards to get in the deck. From everything they had read about the card, it meant ultimate demise and horror.

Here was her deck, The Windchaser Tarot, showing her a spread of five towers. Five of the same card. An impossible action possible.

“Fuck you,” she stammered, the words getting caught in the back of her throat a little bit, “Fuck you and fuck all this.”

She pushed her legs out and grabbed the five cards off her bed spread. “I should have never purchased you in the first place. Fuck this noise. It is not true and this is not happening.”

She smashed the cards back into the deck, not even bothering to reorder them as she had carefully done so in the past. One of the cards from the reading, got bend over in half as she picked it up off the matress. But she did nothing to smooth the crease or edges out. Instead she swiped the cloth off the bed as well and slammed them down on the table.

“Fuck this,” she repeated the words over in her mouth like a new mantra, “where is the lighter fluid. I know that Dylan had kept some here.”

Dylan had been a smoker and used a fancy Zippo style lighter. His lighter had a ace of hearts etched deeply into the chrome finish. It had been a gift from the previous girlfriend before him and Lexi remembered how Dylan loved to tease her with it, as she refused to add another lighter to his small but growing collection. Lexi continued her tirade through all the cup boards and drawers in the apartment. She did not bother caring to be silent, red was in her eyes and all she wanted to do was to find that bottle of lighter fluid that she knew she had kept.

Finally she found it in one of the random junk drawers near the kitchen sink. The yellow plastic bottle shone like it was the holy grail. And in a way, Lexi thought of the one pound bottle as her savior for the evening. The words “ZIP-LIGHT, the Trusted Name in Lighter Fluid for your Zippo”, had been stamped across the plastic bottle in a slight arc. Beneath the logo a small orange and red flame shot up from a black square that suggested it was coming out of a Zippo lighter. Lexi grabbed the bottle and gave it a short, hard shake. She was worried that it had become empty for having sat in the drawer undiscovered for so long.

Thankfully, it was halfway full. Lexi smiled. “You are going to love this,” she said, turning around and shaking the bottle back and forth at the deck.

“See this? This is lighter fluid. And the last time I took a chemistry class, it was well known that when you combine a combustible, like this here lighter fluid, with bark and pulp from a tree which composes the very heart and soul of each and every card stock that your precious TOWER images are made of, it goes up in flames. Never to be seen again. How do you like them apples, eh?”

She was half hoping that the deck was trembling in fear and calling out for mercy, even though she could not really see any emotion or trembling going on in the stack of cards sitting calmly on her deck.

“What? I can not hear you? I think you will have to do better than silence in order for me to let you live.” She paused, still nothing.

“Fine, that is it!” She flung the lighter fluid down next to the small rectangular pieces of paper, “where IS that lighter? I know I have at least one laying around here.”

Lexi threw her body in circles as her eyes whipped from one end of her apartment to the other in a desperate search for her generic branded lighter. Finally she found the small translucent green lighter sitting on the edge of her desk.

“Ah-hah,” she said as she flung herself towards the desk, “now we are getting somewhere. Your days are now numbered, you fucking agent of evil. This is going to teach you to never mess with the great Lexi.’

She stomped over to the bathroom, where she left her Mary Janes and quickly stuffed her feet into them. Lexi did not bother to tie them up, either. She did not plan on being outside for too long. In fact, she did not even grab a jacket either.

Quickly pausing by the small two person table floating in the middle of her studio apartment she grabbed the deck and cloth and lighter all in the same hand. Then she made sure her door was unlocked and that she would be able to re-enter the room without her keys and entered back outside into the cold. The air was thick with cold and humidity but she trudged unknowingly out into the corridor between her room and the annoying undergrads across the hall. She stomped down the flight of stairs and marched out into the middle of the parking lot.

She gave the whole scene a once over as she made sure that no one was watching her from their apartment and that no one was still in the parking lot or entering the lot from the main street entrance. Feeling that everything was safe, she marched further down past the cars resting in their stalls, all the way to the edge of the parking lot. Lexi peered at many of the car’s license plats as she crept by them. Many of them had the familiar Oregon license plats with their pretty green evergreen tree in the center of them. Others had the image of a mountain with its top cut off, Mount St. Helen’s, the Washington State license plate symbols. A few had the script of California on it without any fancy images decorating the bland white background. All were either undergraduates or graduates of her university and were either sleeping or out and about.

“I wonder how many of them are back at the night club, smearing their bodies all over Claudia or Michele or those sluts on stage,” Lexi wondered as she tried hard to push the anger, hate and tears out of her eyes.

Finally she got to the edge of the parking lot, near the dumpsters. Hardly any cars bothered to park so far away and close to the garbage. A dank, raunchy scent hit Lexi and she was unable to cover her mouth.

“Okay, this is it,” she growled looking down at the cards, “are you ready to meet your final resting place over there in that there old and rusty trash bin? I hope you are because that is where they will sweep your ashes up into when I am done with you.”

And she dropped the cards on the ground. They trickled out of her hands like a waterfall made from small, tiny pieces of paper. They puddled between her legs. After all the cards were on the ground, Lexi pushed them closer together in as tight of a pile as she could with her feet. Some of the once beautiful images on the cards now showed rough bumps and scratches running length and width-wise over their delicate imagery. Lexi sneered and smashed the tip of one of her shoes into the pile, creating more scratches and creases to appear on the card faces. Carefully, she looked over her shoulder once more just to make sure that no one was watching.

Satisfied once more that the coast was still clear, she flipped open the cap to the yellow, plastic bottle of lighter fluid. She held the bottle straight out horizontally over the cards and then slowly and deliberately turned her wrist to the left, watching the nozzle tip downwards towards the cement. She felt the weight in the bottle flow from the bottom of the container, slipping past the middle and then finally into the top of the bottle where it started flowing freely from the tip. As the liquid lighter fluid started hitting the cold, hard ground it sounded as if some frat boy was outside taking a piss. Lexi smiled and started curving doodles around the pile of cards, being careful to keep the spatter of fluid focused mostly over the cards. She wanted as many of the cards to be fully saturated with the slimy liquid as possible.

Her mind envisioned the cards going up into a bright and quick blaze and that is what she was going to do. The flow from the tip of the bottle slowed to a small drizzle and then, a few drops. Lexi shook the bottle a few more times, making sure that the whole thing was emptied out and then gave the cards a few more seconds to soak up as much lighter fluid as they could.

She tossed the now empty bottle over the red brick wall and into the garbage can. It hit the bottom with a muffled thud. Then Lexi pulled the lighter from the inside of her left front pants pocket and kneeled to the ground.

“See you later fuckers,” she said as she flicked the lighter once and bent down to star touching the small flame to as many edges of the cards as she could before burning herself. She stood up and watched as the flame quickly grew over The Windchaser Tarot deck. The fire snapped and crackled as it leapt from one card to another, eating through the images and pictures and shriveling the cards up to ash. The small fire warmed her knees. The fire burned for a minute before dying down, which Lexi then stomped out to avoid setting the rest of the parking lot or the neighboring field on a blaze. Most of the cards had been reduced to ash, and the ones that remained were so horribly disfigured that no one could identify their purpose or would want to use them.

“Fuck you,” Lexi whispered once more to the cards before turning around and dropping the raw black silk cloth off into the trash and heading back into the apartment, away from the cold. She walked much lighter, as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She plopped down onto her futon and fell asleep, still dressed.

Her friends were a great support to her however, even Claudia put off all the boy chasing and phone calls that she was famous for to walk over that evening.

“Dude, Lex,” she said, trying to pull her friend from out of the tons of covers she had thrown over herself. “I know you miss him and I am trying not to put this off or belittle it in any way, but you really need to pull yourself together. It is not the end of the world. I know it feels like it right now, but you cannot just hide under the covers for all eternity. Come on, let us go outside or do something. I refuse to stay here and watch you waste away to nothingness. When was the last time you ate? I am almost positive that it was not today or even yesterday. So what do you say we go out and grab a bite to eat? I will bet admission to a nightclub or sushi bar of your choice that you are starving and want to be treated out.”

Lexi the lump under the covers shifted her weight a little bit. She poked one small corner of her head out of the covers and met Claudia’s gaze with one teary blue eye. “Yeah, I am hungry but I just do not feel like going out and doing anything. Claudia, a little boy died… maybe because… well, he is dead and there is nothing I can do to save him or bring him back. He is dead and will never discover college and the real world. And you expect me to eat?”

Lexi sat straight up in her bed, the blankets covering her and protecting her completely. She blinked at Claudia and started sobbing.

“Sweetie, I know. I know you hurt but to answer your question, Yes. Yes I do want you to eat because if you do not eat then you, too, will fade away into the mist and there are a few of us, me, Michele, your mom, this Meghan person, um… the people you work with and all your Professors and students who will be really sad that you cannot join them in their own triumphs and accomplishments if you are dead. So, come on… get out of bed, get on some sexxy black, gothy mourning clothes and come out with us. We miss you and want you here to be with us on the living side of life. Please.”

Claudia held her breath for a few seconds in anticipation of Lexi’s answer. She had no idea how her friend was going to respond but stayed motionless. A battle waged behind Lexi’s eyes as she struggled to win the fight to not let the depression consume her whole. Finally, after what seemed like eternity, Lexi slowly pushed the covers off her and said, “Okay. You win, I give up. Let us grab Michele and we can head out to that The Velvet Kink you guys are always wanting to go to. I guess, you do owe me a night on the town and some food.”

“Well then, girlfriend, time to get you all gothy looking and let us grab some sushi and head out to The Velvet Kink,” Claudia said as she pulled her pink cellphone out of her bag and dialed the number for Michele, the third of their trio. She then made plans to have them meet her at SushiBinge for a small dinner of raw eel and salmon and California rolls before they got their grove on inside the club that catered to the town’s darker side of life.

Lexi pulled on a warm pair of black pants and a black hoodie sweater. She decided to wear her Doc Marten’s Mary Jane slippers this time as they were more conducive to dancing for long periods of time. Fifteen minutes later they were out in front of the SushiBinge where Michele was waiting for them. All together they walked into the conveyor belt sushi bar and ate their dinner. Lexi did not have a whole lot, the food was very good but rich to her stomach and she feared she would get a bit sick from it. Conversation was light and they all tried to stay away from the most depressing of recent events. The delicate Japanese waitress came by to count up their plates and then hand them their check and they were on their way out to the nightclub.

Claudia played gothic favorites in her car, like London After Midnight and The Cure as the girls tried to get into the mood of recapturing their high school gothiness. Lexi even tried to sing to some of the songs, even though she did not know them too well. Finally, after a few more minutes of navigating the city streets and locating a suitable parking spot that was close enough to the club to walk to and in a well light area, they were ready for their night out on the town.

The Velvet Kink was in a newer part of downtown, nestled between two tall brick and stone business buildings. It was three stories tall and most of the windows were opened as smoke drifted out from windows that had no screens on them. Silhouettes of bodies swaying and bopping to the beat appeared in and out of the window’s view as a steady thump, thump. thump beat rushed out from the door to great them.

The bouncer had a Mohawk and snarled at them as they crept up to the door shivering in the cold full moon night sky. “IDs please,” he said monotonously as he held out a bare knuckled hand that grasped a heavy flashlight. They handed him their driver’s licenses and he placed a stamp that read, “t3h scene is dead,” on the insides of their right wrist.

Lexi blew on hers, hoping that the ink would dry faster as she walked through the main door. The room was dark and the loud speakers pumped Ministry’s “Every day is Halloween” from them. She smiled as she tried to relax into the atmosphere and tried not to think about tarot decks or dead high schoolers. “Okay Lex. Breathe. You can do this,” she said with her eyes closed as she paused before going into the darker part of the bar.

When she opened them however, she was astonished at the first thing her eyes laid on. Everyone was dressed in vinyl and strange rubber outfits. Some people had spiked collars around their necks and long dangling chains leading from a D-ring of said collar to a hand which held the other end of the chain. She could not believe her eyes. They had come on some BDSM Fetish night.

Claudia turned her head which had a very sheepish grin on it and mouthed the words, “Oops. I am so sorry Lexi. I had no idea this was happening tonight.”

Lexi’s body tensed up and smirked back at her friend. They brushed past her as they entered into the dance floor and tried to find a comfortable spot to dance for a few hours without acknowledging that everyone else around them were dressed even more freakily than they were. Lexi shrugged and thought about the humor that had to be found somewhere in the evenings plans. After not really seeing any, she took a few steps forward into the room herself. And then froze.

The club had a stage. She was not prepared for what was on the stage however. A man, dressed in tight, black, rubbery leggings and a very tight black-matching vinyl g-string underwear, with red, tribal-style body paint splashed all over his check stood in the center of the stage. He had red paint all over his face and a pair of long black and red blinking devil-horns on his head. His mouth was turned into a grimice and he held two sets of chains in his hand. Writhing on the floor to his right and left, were two nekid bodies of women who were writhing and slithering across the dance floor as far as their very short chains and collars allowed them to move. They feigned horror and pain on their faces as they blew twisted and bizarre kisses to one another and the audience. One girl, obviously delirious from the production had started masturbating as the Devil moved to hover over her and start rubbing his hard cock against her back.

Lexi’s heart pounded as her body froze absolutely still. The sight of the sex-play on stage terrorized and repulsed her. But it was not just that. It was the fact that they looked like the figures on The Windchaser Tarot deck that she had left at home and moved from the bottom shelf of her bookcase to the farthest corner of her closet where it sat.

“But, but but…” her mind started screaming at the figures writhing on the stage.

Just as The Devil boy bent over to force the two girls to kiss and make out even more, someone bumped into Lexi from behind.

“Hey, care to stop gawking and move forward? Fuck,” came a harsh and drunken voice from behind her. A boy with purple hair hovered over her, his breath reeking of drugs and alcohol. “Yanno some of us want to get closer to where all the action is?”

Lexi whipped her head from the stage to him and back again a few times, searching desperately for her friends. But they were no where to be found. Fear gripped her hard and she turned and bolted for the front door.

Tears streamed from her face as she ran through the streets of the city. The chill settled down from the air and into the hard, concrete cement tinting the ground in a very very thin layer of sleet and frozen dew. Lexi’s feet made a short and sharp thudding sound as she raced away from the horrors inside The Velvet Kink.

“I cannot believe they took me there,” her mind screamed at her, “What the hell was Claudia thinking. Scratch that, I know she was not thinking too much. She never thinks. Had she really thought this trip through then she would not have dragged me all the way out here.”

Her body passed the thick glass window of one of the town’s few local galleries. Inside the window hung paintings from wires. Lexi caught a few glimpse of the artwork as she breezed by and saw pictures of women dancing in old style Victorian clothing around rings of mushrooms that looked like cups. A cast iron sword sat embedded in a paper mache representation of a stone, its hilt, covered in jewels, glinted off the single spotlight the store’s owner cast down upon it. There was even a photograph of a man laughing as he walked towards the precipice of a cliff, his focus pointed over his shoulder straight at the hidden photographer. A small dog yapped at his feet.

Even the street signs seemed to have some tarot significance. Instead of turning down 9th Street, she appeared to be heading down the 9 of Swords street. Lexi blinked at how close to the tarot cards she owned the artwork seemed to follow. She pumped her legs harder as she tried to get them to take her faster and farther away from all this symbolism and back to the security of her small apartment. She ran and ran until she was out of breath and then she ran farther past it. When she broke her body into running no further, she limped the last remaining miles to the warmth and the safety of her bed which awaited her arrival.

“Man, we have come so far,” she reminisced over what some people would call, “the good old days,”. “You know, that period would make a great anthropology study. I cannot recall a whole lot of writing being done on the time period yet.” She made a mental note to maybe talk to publishers about writing such a book come her graduation from Grad School. She closed her eyes and started daydreaming about the what her life was going to be like outside the convenient bubble and comfortable umbrella of Fieldsmith University. Of course, she liked to think that she would retain a paying day job in the library system, where she would help students discover which books they wanted to use to help them write and craft their papers for all their classes. She wanted to help buy books for the library to fill their growing shelves of books that would, in turn, spark the creativity and the passion that learning about new subjects or invent new ideas that come from being in a big time university setting helps give their students.

She imagined how she would continue her own studies by uncovering new thoughts and symbols and how they helped to connect people together and push the universal creative process forward. She planned on writing articles for several predominate anthropological papers as well as open minded religious papers or literary studies. She would live in a house, with a few rooms and wanted to get a cat, as she was never really allowed to have a pet of any sort, not even a kitten or a hamster, when she was younger and living with her family. Of course, her apartment complex she was currently living at forbid her to have fuzzy pets of any sort. Which it upset her but she had no control over it and was not going to test the hands of fate by sneaking a cat into her apartment only to have the rental property force her to get rid of the tiny furball or worse, yet, evict her from what had to have been the best apartment deal she managed to land since she had left her freshman dorm Engersall Hall.

Lexi smiled at the dreams and plans that she wanted to put into motion once she got her second small piece of paper degree professing her expertism in her chosen field of anthropology, when her cell phone started to ring.

She brushed her laptop off her lap and darted for her well loved sling back. The cell phone pocket un-velcroed with a loud zippp as she released her small phone from its harness against the black padded strap of her bag. She looked at the small LCD display that told her who was calling, it simply said Unknown: Out of Area.

“Huh, that is odd,” she said. She knew that it could not be her parents as she never gave them her number or address. Her mind started processing through the small Roladex of people she knew throughout her life that she could have possibly given her cell phone number to. Coming up with a blank she decided that it was probably in her best interests to pick up the cell phone despite the basic fact that it could have been coming from a telemarketer or some other spam promoting product pusher offering her toys and services that she did not want to buy at any given moment in her life.

“Hello,” she said, waiting for the computeristic voice to answer from the other end confirming that she should never ever really answer a phone number from an Unknown or Out of Area listing on her cell phone.

“Is this Lexi Carsten?” the tiny, almost inaudible, somewhat familiar voice of a woman, came from the receiver.

Lexi paused before answering, as she was not able to readily place the voice to a face, “This is she speaking. I am sorry, but who is this and what can I do for you?”

“I can imagine that it has been a long time since we last spoke. This is Meghan McGraw, from the dorm days at Fieldsmith University? Do you recall me now?”

“Oh My Gawd. Meghan. Yeah, I know you. I am sorry I did not recognize your voice. It seems almost like a life time has passed since we last sat in the lounge watching really bad MTV videos and playing pool on the broken pool table. How are you doing?”

The voice on the other end sighed audibly and paused before answering, “Well, actually that is what I wanted to call you about. I am not really doing good at all. I have some disturbing news for you and…”

Meghan paused again and Lexi heard a rustling nose from the other end of the phone as the woman blew her nose into a wad of tissue paper. “Sorry about that, after… well, I have not been able to stop the tears from falling.”

Lexi was confused but very patient. What ever news Meghan had to tell her was very, very important and she was having difficulties on finding the right words to tell her, “Meghan it is okay, take your time and find the right words. I can wait. Just start at the beginning. What happened?”

She heard another deep breath over the phone and then Meghan quickly blurted out, “He is dead, Lexi. He is dead. My little boy killed himself.”

Shock and horror registered across her face as the realization that her dorm floor mother’s son, was no longer among the living.

“Oh, wow. Like really wow. Oh wow,” Lexi found that she was repeating herself over and over and could not stop or do anything to get the words to stop coming from her mouth. “Wow. Meghan, do you know what happened? Gawd, I know this sounds awkward but Shane was such a cool kid, he helped me put up my make-shift bunk bed. That earned him lots of points. Er, that is, can you tell me? I am sorry, I do not mean to sound ”

Shane was Meghan’s teenage son who while he did not live on campus with his mother while she stayed on the University’s dorm staff as a guardian for all the girls on her floor. He was shy and wore a lot of heavy metal t-shirts and torn knee jeans with a pair of vans on. But once you got him talking he would not shut up and would talk for hours and hours about music and skateboarding and whatnot. And now, he was gone.

Meghan coughed into the phone. “No, no. I know…. It is just hard for me to talk about but I know that you tried to help him and make a difference in his life. He was such a good boy, my Shane. Quiet but very smart and studious. I blame the people at his school and all the crap they did to him and filled his head with, really. But I digress,” she breathed heavily, in a desperate attempt to keep ahold of herself and her sanity. “I was at the college, when it happened so I do not know what actually happened to him that day but, when I got home… I found him hanging from his attic bedroom rafter, by a black and grey woolen winter scarf I got for him to wear the previous year’s Christmas. He had written a note saying that he could not stand things as they were going on and that he knew his grades were slipping and that it was too hard for him to try and push on any more and that he figured that he would be better off dead than to face the reality that he was probably going to let me and Charlie down by not getting into the ivy league college that Charlie wanted him to go to when he leaves for collage next year. So yeah, he had hung himself off the rafters. My little baby boy, committed suicide because he did not think he could hack life anymore. His neck was all blue and black and it looked like he had maybe broken it from jumping down off the beam he hung from. Oh my god. It was horrible and I hope that no mother EVER has to go through seeing something like that again.”

“The paramedics came and carefully cradled his body while they cut the scarf loose and free from the banisters. His body was so limp. It all felt like a dream,” Meghan started crying again.

“That is so horrible. Oh wow,” Lexi said, sniffling herself after hearing the tale. “When did this happen? Is there going to be a funeral? And what can I do to help you or Charlie out? Wow, this is so shocking. I cannot believe that he is gone.”

Meghan cleared her throat and choked back another sob, “It was totally out of the blue and it happened last night. I do not know what time it was because I was at school and not at home with him. I should have been home, you know. I should have been there to talk him out of it and let him know that have always been proud of him and never, ever wanted to push him into something that did not fit what he wanted to do in life…”

Lexi choked and started to cry as she asked, “Did you say last night?”

“Yes, I know I probably should not have called so soon but I needed someone to talk to and I recall how good you were of a person to chat with and provide some perspective to me and my family and I really wanted to let you know what had happened. I felt like you should know as you were very much a family member as he was.”

Lexi’s mind spun as the image of the Hanged Man popped up in her head. Slowly, the rest of the other cards from the horribly depressing reading she had done the other night came into place. The reading was about Shane. She could not believe it. She closed her eyes very tightly and tried to not think about it all. Was the reading the cause for his depression and his death? Should she have known better and tried to stop all of his insanity by calling them up and seeing what pep talk she could have done to get him to NOT destroy his life and his family’s life? Had she had done that would he have still been alive at this moment and instead of having a depressing death talk with Meghan, would they be discussing her alma matter and all the new and interesting changes that came the school’s way since she left two years ago?

“Oh my god. Oh god,” Lexi cried into the phone. Choking back the tears that got stuck in her throat, Lexi managed to squeak out, “Please call me and let me know when the funeral date has been set and please let me know if there is anything I can do for you and Charlie. I want to be there for you guys. I wish I had been there last night, because I would have tried to talk him out. I liked Shane, he was a nice boy and had so much to offer people.”

“Thank you sweetie,” Meghan said trying to keep her voice even, “we are dealing right now. But yeah, I have taken time off from school now and we are focusing on Shane’s little brother and the rest of the family. We know we will pull through all this and be stronger. But yeah, I have lost my first born and there is a piece of my heart that died yesterday. That hole will never be replaced.”

The phone beeped on the other end which paused their discussion, “Hey, Lexi. I hate to do this but I have to go, Shane’s god-parents are on the other end and they have a few questions for me. Thanks for listening and I am sorry that I dumped all this on you from out of the blue. But you have my number now, right? Please please call me soon. Let us not grow apart this time. Like I said, you are family and I would hate to lose you too.”

Lexi squeaked out, through tightened vocal cords, “Thank you and a do not worry about worrying me or bothering me. I am glad you called, even if this was bad news and I really wish I had been back home with you. I just cannot believe he is gone now. Please promise to call me if you need me, I can take time off from my dissertation and help you clean out his belongings or something. Be with you.”

“I will sweetie, I will, promise,” Meghan said, “Take care of you and hope to hear from you soon.”

The line went dead and Lexi was alone once more in her apartment. She dropped the cell phone to her bed and put her hands to her face and started crying hard. “What if….,” she muttered to herself as she cried herself to sleep.

Again, she looked around her room in the hopes that inspiration hit. She realized that she did this a lot but it was her mind’s way of trying to parse the information that she had inside her head. She looked down at her gray and black sling back backpack. “Hmm, I really do not feel like studying any more tonight. I think I have been studying all day and therefore deserve a small reward. So nothing in there I want to play with.”

Her eyes darted over the book case to where her iPod sat in its cradle being charged it the small boom-box that she bought for herself over the summer break. “Hey,” she said, snapping her fingers. “There we go. I could go work out at the gym. After all, the school gives all of us graduates a free account and I have yet to really use mine.” She pinched herself and poked at her stomach. A small but growing belly was exposing itself due to her age and minimal activity level.

“I refuse to ignore myself and let my body get all bent out of shape,” she said heading into her closet to grab a pair of sweat pants, a t-shirt and a sweater. “Now, where did I place my sneakers and the work out clip for the iPod?” Lexi began to dig around inside her closet for the missing sneakers and band. It had been awhile since she actually did any sort of organized exercising away from the daily hike to and from the campus. Normally she would just wear her black, ten holed doc martens to school but she knew that with their age and how they hurt her feet after being in them for a few hours, there was no way she would wear them for working out at the gym. Besides, she was a bit more classier than that and actually wanted to not only look very sporty but cute as well.

“There is no harm in trying to pick someone up at the gym, is there?” she said to her shoes as she knotted and double knotted them, hoping that they would not fall apart and come undone. She gave herself a small smile and a tiny giggle burst from her lips. “Hmm, I guess I AM feeling a bit mischievous tonight.”

She grabbed her small gym duffel from its location stuffed in the far recesses of her closet and opened it. “Let us see here, I will need a towel, my keys, my school student identification card and finally, my water bottle, filled with fresh, cold, and non-purified tap water. Blech, maybe I should fill this puppy up when I get to the gym,” she thought as she collected the necessary items and tossed them into her bag. “Oh yeah, and I know I will need my iPod and the headphones. DOY! Cannot forget those. Exercising to nothing but the noise they have in the gym and that lame ass gym techno would make me stir crazy. And that is not what I would like to do today. No way siree.”

Lexi paused after closing the bag’s zipper up with an audible ZZIIIIIPPPP sound. Her eyes darted around the room as she created and went through a small mental check list of all the things that she thought she had on her and needed. “Got everything,” she said as she mentally checked off the last item in her list and knew it was in her bag. “Okay, I am ready to go.”

With that, she walked out of her apartment, shut the door behind her and slipped the key in the lock and gave a sharp twist. She was hyper and almost bounded down the stairs as she quickly moved to her car. Had it been a bit warmer out that night Lexi would have considered the idea of walking to the gym. While it was located on campus not too far from her apartment complex, it was still far enough that she did not want to spent the fifteen minutes walking over and getting a head cold and chill in the process. She also did not grab her jacket, even with the sweater on, it was cold and she was starting to feel the chill through the cotton.

Her car started up and the heater turned up to full blast. Lexi looked behind her as she swiftly pulled out from the parking lot and made her way towards the school’s gym. Located in Bauer Hall, the semi-large, red brick building had got its name from one of the University’s most celebrated marathon runners who attended the school for a few years. A bronze statue was erected out in front of the runner as he stretched out the right calf leg muscle. A faded and yellowish light had been trained on him to light his face and the path of others. Ivy grew in the large circular pot, complete with benches, that surrounded the runner’s statue.

Since it was dark and night out, Lexi lucked out and got a parking spot that was close to the entrance of the gym. A few people, mostly undergraduates Lexi suspected, stood around outside gabbing as they either finished up their physical education credit requirement or their group class workout. A few non-exercising boys stood around the combination trash can and smoking can, ogling and catcalling to some of the girls that were just now wandering out of the building.

Lexi shook her head and put on her best “do not fuck with me” look and attitude. While she did not mind the occasional cat call from a guy she never knew, she was on a mission tonight and really did not want these boys giving her grief for entering the school’s gym and messing up her game plan. She grabbed her bag from the car and swooped out of the driver’s spot. Once her door was shut, she pushed the trigger for her car alarm without even looking back. Her car beeped twice to let her know that it was now secure and Lexi made her way past the ogling young boys and pushed open the heavy metal and glass doors that lead into the gym.

The moment Lexi wandered in through the doors of the gym her ears and brain were assaulted with the overly strong and perky sounds of random techno songs blaring through the state of the art sound system Fieldsmith University paid to put in the gym. “Ugh,” she thought, “I have no idea why kids are actually doing drugs to this stuff already. The tempo alone is enough to make me hyped up insanely.”

She dug through her bag as she stepped up to the check-in desk. “Can I see your student ID,” the perky, young, blonde, undergraduate said while snapping her chewing gum. The young girl leaned over the desk and stuck out her hand impatiently, waiting for Lexi to drag her wallet from the bag. Finally, after what seemed like forever, Lexi finally found her wallet tucked all the way in the bottom of the bag, beneath her black work out towel.

“Here you go,” she said trying not to look as frustrated as she felt, “sorry it took me a few minutes to dig it out.”

The card reader beeped once as the gym assistant swiped her card under the red laser beam reader. Slowly, the girl’s eyes scanned the reader to validate that her card and her scholarship proved valid enough to let Lexi proceed further into the gym. “That is okay, this thing,” she said pointing to the antiquated system, “has been running slow tonight. You would think we have had a lot of people coming in and swiping their cards under here the way things seem to be going. I hope it gets cleared up soon.”

Lexi grabbed her card back and gave the girl a few nods. “Yeah, the library also does that occasionally. Now that is a pain.”

The girl blinked at her and moved her eyes back down to the issue of Hollywood Today that she was reading, “Be careful and have a good work out,” she absently called out as Lexi moved beyond the gate and into the overly lit workout room.

The gym had two rooms to it. The first, was the room she was currently standing in. Large gym machines and racks of free weights and dumbbells occupied the majority of this space. It felt cramped to Lexi but there were hardly any people using the machines when she went in to work out. To the left of this room there were two doors. One marked with a stylized man, denoted where the men’s locker room was. The other stylized icon of a woman, led Lexi back into their own locker room. Off to Lexi’s right was another door that opened into a long hallway. Two racquet ball courts appeared on either side of the hallway. Sounds of bouncing balls came from the space just beyond the end of the hallway. Two groups of boys running up and down the basketball court could be seen as each side attempted to steal the ball away from their opponent.

The strong burning smell of bleach and ammonia filled her nose when she pushed open the door to the woman’s locker room. Lexi sneezed.

“Ugh, I guess someone decided to use the hot tub again,” she said as she pushed her way against the stench to a bench and locker. She found one that was free and after having removed her iPod, the headphones, towel and water bottle, she pushed the gym bag into the space. It fit almost perfectly. Lexi closed the locker and inserted a quarter into the key slot and twisted the key free. She then pinned the key onto her pants on the inside and used the space on the bench to stretch out a bit. Her calves were sore but it took her body to go down almost the entire length of the bench to feel any sort of stretch. Lexi smiled and felt proud that all the walking she did to the campus and back to her apartment actually was keeping her body a bit more in shape. Five minutes later, she had completely stretched out her entire body and felt ready to start giving her body a bit more of a burn.

She filled up her water bottle on the way out of the locker room with fresh and cold purified water and placed her towel around the back of her neck. Her eyes took a minute to adjust to the bright fluorescent lights bleeding into the white walled room. Most of the work out machines in here were also white with small black and grey metal hooks and bars and weights coming out from them at weird and varius angles. Lexi quickly pushed her iPod’s ear buds into her ears and sighed at the almost now silence. Even with the iPod off, she felt better than having been blasted with the strange and crappy tunes that were being pumped out of the gym’s speakers.

She made her way over to the bench pressing machine. Lexi sat her water bottle and the towel down besides her on the floor and adjusted the machines to her settings. She pulled the tiny iPod from her pocket and pressed the play button before slipping it back into her pocket. She bent up to reach the bars and then… paused.

The sound coming from her iPod was a song that was strange and unfamiliar to her. She did not recall ever having the song on her pod and sat in utter disbelief as she heard it. After thirty seconds more of listening to the strange song, she removed the iPod from her pocket and stared at the screen. The tiny LCD display read: “Moon River” by Henri Mancini.

“What the hell. Who the hell? I do not recall having put this on my pod,” she said. Lexi turned the volume down a bit and then pressed the fast forward button. The system quickly searched all forty of its gigabytes of songs and then started to randomly play a new tune. This one, a bit more recent, was still a strange song that Lexi knew that she had never put on her player. Looking back down at the screen, she was puzzled to read, “Don’t Fear the Reaper” by the Blue Oyster Cult.

“Okay, now this is getting a bit frustrating,” she thought. She had only really planned on doing a quick exercise routine before heading home and back to bed but not being able to find a decent song to play on her iPod was making her life a bit more difficult. Once again, Lexi pressed the fast forward on her iPod and then waited to see what the display would return.

The sounds of a woman singing to a melody from a piano came into hear ears and she heard the lyrics, “And here I stand with this sword in my hand.” Lexi stared down at the iPod and read the display. Once again, the display showed a strange but obscure song that she was not sure that she loaded on her iPod. This one, “Take to the Sky,” was written by Tori Amos.

“And I do not even like her. Neither did Dylan and I know none of my friends are even hip enough to really listen to her ballads. So what gives. Who put this stuff on my iPod and where are my tunes?” Fear that someone had rifled through her bag at school filled her mind and Lexi started scrolling and clicking buttons through the iPod’s interface. She saw many songs whizz by on the screen, all of them unfamiliar.

“Regrets” by Ben Folds
“Turning Wheel” by Sonny Landreth
“Black Magic Woman” by Santana

The iPod clicked and whirrled as it picked another song at random. Suddenly, her ears were filled with the sounds of “Shape of my Heart” by Sting. She closed her eyes and listened to the lyrics of the song as she thought about how she was going to have to wipe her pod when she got home and redo her entire library.

“He deals the cards as a meditation,
And those he plays never suspect
He doesn’t play for the money he wins
He doesn’t play for the respect
He deals the cards to find the answer
The sacred geometry of chance
The hidden law of probable outcome
The numbers lead a dance,” came Sting’s voice from inside her iPod.

Lexi quickly turned the iPod off before the song could continue on any more. “Okay, I guess I am not going to be able to work out with all this noise. I have no idea what got into you,” she said silently to the iPod, hoping that no one else in the room would hear here talking crazy. “Might as well go home and figure out what is going on. Because yeah, this is a bit freaky and I have no idea what is going on. I would hate to have to take you back to the store and get a new one.”

Once home, Lexi took out her computer and iPod connector cable. She plugged one side into her computer and the other into the base of her iPod. She woke the computer up from its sleep mode and waited as the computer booted her music program and displayed all the tunes that were on her iPod and her system. Once it was completely loaded, she clicked on the tiny image of the iPod on the screen. What she saw next startled and confused her.

“What the hell is going on? This is getting weird,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. The screen showed that her iPod’s library and the library she kept on her computer were identical. There were no traces of the songs she heard earlier anywhere on her system. None of the songs that it had played only minutes ago in the gym, were to be physically found on her iPod.

She even added a few more pages to her dissertation. Lexi had been hesitant to use her machine after the email incident but once she disconnected her wireless from receiving any internet connectivity, she found that she was able to focus more on entering her notes into her dissertation, and come up with a few conclusions that she had not entered in it once before. In fact, she found that she was able to get a lot of productivity done without distractions and had no desire to play with the tarot deck. She thought that her life was going to return to normal until she hit upon some of the notes she had written about her Windchaser Tarot. She had been writing about how the different symbols on the cards seemed to be the same from deck to deck. She found the connections and beliefs surrounding the symbolism over the decades to be a strange and similar constant. As she uncovered this revelation, her mind once again focused back towards the tarot.

Against her better judgment she decided to reconnect her wireless and found a decent internet connection and went to her favorite web search engine. She plugged in the words tarot deck images and spent a few hours surfing the images it turned up on various sites. She was amazed at the accuracy of her own prediction. Even the computer generated images appearing on many of the newest decks in the lineage contained similar cups and swords and colors that the tarot decks throughout history dating back to the first “true” deck called the Rider Waite deck. Lexi clearly was able to see a pattern in the images and wondered if the deck makers tried to work independently from the other images other designers were crafting or if they did a lot of research on all sorts of different decks and then compiled a list of common words, traits or symbols they wanted to use in their own creations. She wrote down the names of a few of the newer publishing houses and independent creators and vowed to get in touch with them and ask them about their creative processes on designing their own deck.

Her fingers and mind itched to review her own deck that she had purchased a very short time ago. “Okay,” she told herself, “since you have been extremely good this week and worked very hard on your dissertation and keeping the small handful of friends that you DO have, you can allow yourself the luxury to view the tarot deck for just a little bit. If only to compare your deck and see how it stacks up to the other decks that you have bookmarked and vowed to get some other day.”

She felt around the back of her bookcase where she stuffed the deck in a feeble attempt to hide the growing addiction that the decks were posing for her. Finally, after bending over to get a better view of the shelf, she pulled out the rough silk package. Small grey granules of dust and paper from her vast paperback collection had settled down into the silk. Lexi blew off the dust on the back of the deck’s wrapping and then blatently sneezed.

“Ugh, dust. Yay for allergies,” she said sniffling and brushing the rest of the deck off against her pant leg. Rubbing her nose with the back of her hand, she plopped back over on the futon with her deck. She sat the computer on her lap as she slouched against the cold, hard wall of her apartment. She carefully clicked through website that featured all of the Rider Waite card images in their original size and then sat the corresponding Windchaser Tarot card in the gutter of the computer to get a side by size comparison. She then grabbed the nearest black and white composition book to start writing down notes and seeing just how tied into it all her own cards. Once she was done with a card it went from her left, to the computer and then set down on her right.

Fifteen minutes into the study, she closed the computer down and put the two halves back together again. She figured that she spent enough time with the deck and it was ready to put it back into a different spot on her bookcase.

Curiosity was getting the better of her however and slowly she brought the deck back up to her chest. “What is the harm in trying to do one more reading?” she asked herself and her the blankets she slept on.

Not having gotten an answer she decided that the universe was accepting in allowing her to do another reading. She held the full seventy-eight card deck close to her chest and closed her eyes. She imagined a lot of her energy flowing into the tiny paper cards filling them all up with her personality and connections to the world. After a few minutes of silent introspection and meditation she let out a long, long drawn out sigh.

“I should try a different reading and spread,” she said looking around the room trying to find her book. Because she felt pressed for time and because she did not locate her book and was feeling a bit delinquent and was afraid that someone, at any moment was going to knock on the door and bust her for attempting a second reading, she decided to once again use the familiar five card spread of The Dragon’s Eye Spread.

“Okay,” she said once more trying to convince herself that this reading would not spawn anything too earth shattering like the first reading that she had done. “Here we go.”

She shuffled the deck, being very, very careful to not destroy the edges of the decks. When she was done, she smoothed out the edges of the deck, making sure that all the cards stacked perfectly aligned with one another. She hesitated once more, almost as if she was afraid to see what information the tarot would reveal this time. “Nothing bad, this time,” she said, halfway telling the deck to not pull any other earth shattering revelations on her.

“Card one,” she silently announced, this time bypassing all the theatrics that she had done the last time she read the cards herself. “The Wisdom of the Ancients. It suggests past influences of family and friends. And the card that we get here is…”

Lexi closed her eyes as she drew the first card. She quickly flipped over the card. It made a swacking sound as its edge scraped against another side of the cards still on the deck.

“The card I have drawn,” she started, “is… The Devil. Ugh, I really do not like the way this reading is going. So yeah, The Devil card. Apparently this card relates to one’s inhibitions. It seems to be warning me that if I keep doing what I am doing, then things may happen. I am not sure what this means, as I do not think I am indulging in anything bad. I do not do drugs and have not imbibed alcohol in almost a year now. So I am not sure how this card really relates to me or suggests what information the elders and ancients are trying to tell me. So yeah, maybe other cards in the spread may help direct me to where this reading is going.”

She coughed a bit, “Okay. So position two, the Spirit of the Tribe which gives me insight from the cultural influences of the world I live in. And in this position, we now have the Five of Pentacles. Hmm, I am not liking how depressing this reading seems to be. First we have the Devil and his chains as he holds two people hostage against their whim but now we have a picture of two people wandering through blizzard like conditions past a house that is well light and full of light and laughter. This card, makes me cold just staring at it. This card leaves me feeling like life has abandoned me and does not give me a way out of a solution whatever it means. I just hate how bad this card makes me feel hopeless. There has always got to be a way out even when the situation always looks its bleekest.”

“Position three, the Spirit of Time. The card in this position gives the insight that comes only with age. I see this sort of like the aging of a fine wine. And the card in this position is,” she drew another pause as she worked on slowly drawing the card from the top of the deck and setting it down on the bedspread next to the two other tarot cards. “The Page of Swords. Hmm, he or she is rather pretty. This person seems to be rather caught up in the sword he or she is holding. However, he is not smiling, it is as if he is not happy with the sword he has in his hand. His face is painted in a scowl and it seems as if the sword is starting to weigh heavily in his hands as he is holding it. Not sure what this really means but it is almost as if his youthfulness is getting in the way of him wanting to be more grown up or further down in the progression of wanting to do something really cool. Hmmmm…”

“Position four, the Spirit of Place. Ah yes, home is where the heart is, and as places tend to view us as we live inside them this position gives more insight into what influences might exist where you were born or where you currently live in. And in this position we have, the Four of Cups. This card, seems more detached that some of the kids I see in the psychology college of Fieldsmith’s. Beauty surrounds this person as there are trees, green hills and a bunny and squirrel who are hopping around the person’s feet as they go about their daily routine. Instead of appreciating the beauty in the world around him, however, this one seems very self absorbed and apathetic. Is this person smoking pot to not see the world as beautiful as it is around them? And what did I do, shuffle the deck and get all the depressing cards out on top. I have not been this depressed in a long time, actually, ever since I got those emails. I have been relatively happy thank you very much The Windchaser Tarot. So yeah, please stop giving me the lame assed horrible depressing cards, please.”

“Thankfully, the next card I lay down to the incredibly depressing reading is also the last one. So yay, I am spared. I may need some serious cheering up after this because wow, this is getting really depressing. Okay, so the last and final position is the Fruits of the Journey which details the culmination of all the events and experiences that your past lives have ended up living up to. This card should provide an over all context, so here is hoping that this last card, that helps to to end all this depression and chained imagery that is currently littering my bed like a parade of little high school goths and emos with dark deep scars on their wrists and tears dripping in spades down their eyes. And in this position we have The Hanged Man.”

Lexi blinked a bit and let the remaining cards in the deck loosely drop down on her bed spread. “You have got to be kidding me. What the hell is all this, the imagery alone is depressing and dark. What the hell are you trying to do to me, make me helliously depressing here?”

“Okay, thankfully the imagery is darker than the meaning of the card and what it represents. This is Oden, the Norse God. He hangs from the World Tree by one foot. He does this so he can receive higher wisdom and training from his pantheon of Gods so that he can figure out how to save his people. Below him, scattered on the ground are the Norse Runes, which were the gifts he received from having sacrificing forty days and forty nights of hanging upside down looking for new perspectives. Wow, what a mouthful. Therefore, I know that this card, does not really bring death and destruction but rather it brings a new perspective and hope to the person that draws the card. Well, lookie that…. all this death and sadness in the past four cards does not seem to end in more sorrow and depression. It basically shows that throughout life, there will be a lot of good things and a lot of bads things that happen to you. But no matter what happens in life, always remember to view each situation with a new perspective.”

“So, yay, thank you Windchaser Tarot, you did not disappoint me at all this time. Instead you decided to show me that there are different perspectives out there and all I need to do is let them into my life and accept them into my heart. What a nice thing to do. And it brings a smile back to my face. Man, you had me going there… for a second I fretted and feared that you were going to put in another evil twist to all this and make me stop wanting to have any interest in the tarot at all. Which would be sad, seeing that you and your symbols and meaning all fit into what I am writing about and what I have spent my whole life chasing around.”

She absently started resorting the deck and putting it back into its proper order again, continuing to ponder her second attempt at a reading and comparing it to the previous reading and the ritual she had also performed. “Tarot reading is a bit weird. I am still really uncertain on how the whole positions and the cards themselves relate to one another but hey, it is great entertainment and gives me something to do. Of course, do not ask me if I am getting any warnings or insight yet but I guess in some way my subconsciousness may be doing so.”

She set the tarot deck back on the her book case on the bottom shelf; far, far in the corner. The clock on the wall showed seven p.m. not only was it time for her to make dinner but it was also time to figure out what she was going to do that evening.

“Lex, one final word of caution. You seem to clinging rather tight to this tarot deck and ignoring the rest of your life. I know that you are going to work because without that you have no way to keep your home. But from what I can tell you are staying secluded at home and doing nothing but learning and reading the cards. You should try and get out and maybe hang out with your other friends. Do not get me wrong, I am happy that you keep calling me and we keep hanging out as I do enjoy your presence, but I know that I cannot be your only friend and you should try and hang out with some others too,” Naomi said, as she placed a hand on her friend’s arm. “Remember sweetie, that no matter what the cards tell you; you will always have the judgment of your friends.”

Lexi smiled and nodded, “Thanks Naomi. I promise I will not forget about my other friends and studies. In fact, with all the fascinating images and symbolism and how it seems to tied into other similar symbols of belief, would work perfectly in my dissertation so that is why I am using it as a basis in the paper.”

Naomi smirked a bit and tried to hide her fear. Lexi caught onto it unfortunately, which is why she tried to be a bit jokey with her friend. She waved good bye as Naomi’s Honda Prelude took off down the main road that separated her apartment from the South campus border.

Quickly she rushed back into her apartment as the weather continued to cool down, Lexi hated how the cold froze her hands and feet. Slowly the heater warmed Lexi’s cold body up. Thankfully the apartment did not charge her for the huge heating bill. It was all wrapped up into the nice package that they offered students attending Fieldsmith University. The humor in that she was probably getting them to pay more for her heating bill than she was paying for her rent made her giggle in a way. Even still her apartment was a comfortable 78 degrees, it was not like she was trying to go overboard with making her apartment like some tropical sauna or island.

Her boots dropped off her feet one by one, thinking onto the hard wood floor. She wiggled and stretched her toes out and flexed each joint as it regained freedom from being enclosed in the boots. “It is times like this where I sort of wish that I had that really old nineteen seventies shag rug to run my toes through. I miss that feeling of quickly brushing my feet through the long shaggy carpet as it massaged my sore feets,” she thought making a mental note to her self that she needed to purchase a small square of shag next time she was out at a home improvement store and had some spare cash to throw at some small, ugly shag carpet.

Seeing that it was so late, Lexi decided to start getting ready for bed. She took off the warm outfit and quickly changed into her comfy grey cotton sweat pants and her favorite well-worn and loved t-shirt that she had had for probably ten years now. Her body relaxed back into the clothes and she yawned as she moved back into her bathroom to brush her teeth and wash her face. Her tooth brush felt hard and cold in her hand and the bristles scrubbed her each tooth from her dinner at the Half-Cup Illusion Cafe. She closed her eyes and allowed the scratchy bristles to do their work. She hated how something that felt like she was taking a really rough grade of sand paper and running them over the soft pink insides of her mouth. Once she was finished she then washed her face free of smoke and soot and sweat.

All ready for bed but not tired at all, Lexi picked up her room a bit more and tried to figure out what she should be doing to help get herself tired and sleepy. She glanced over at her neglected desk and saw a small glowing and throbbing light emerge from underneath all the paper and notebooks she had scattered on top. She moved towards the desk and cleared off some of the old, dusty paper off to get to the bottom and the wooden section of her desk. Finally she got to the tiny will-o-wisp light glowing from underneath. She brushed her hand over the warm, smooth surface of her iBook. She had been using three by five sized index cards and small black and white cheep composition books that she could buy at the local twenty-four hour pharmacy that was located down the street in walking distance.

“Hello Melpomene, my old faithful computer. I almost forgot I even owned a computer, with all the notebooks and index cards that I have been using to capture most of my notes. I am sorry I have been a bad, bad Apple computer. When was the last time that I took you out and played with you?” Lexi said to the computer as she unplugged it and brought it over to her futon to open it up, “Ah yes, it was when I got that Pet Shop Boys cd for really cheep at the Play It Again store and ripped it to put it on my iPod. And on that note, I wonder when the last time was when I checked my email, I guess I should log in and do some routine maintenance. If anything it just may be boring enough for me to want to go to bed.”

Lexi pressed the button that unhooked the powerbook’s screen from the bottom and watched as it popped up from its long sleep. She pushed the lid open and adjusted it so she could get the maximum screen viewage without getting any of the glare. She checked the wireless icon in the right hand corner and searched for an open wireless connection. Thankfully, she lived in an apartment complex that catered to many students who could receive funding from mommy and daddy who gave them just enough money and toys so they could get high speed internet and wireless connectivity at that. And many of them did not read the manual to close their access point to outsiders because for the last two years Lexi sat in the luxury of having free wireless. The icon went from grey to black as it found a point to connect and tap into. She checked the speed and discovered that who ever owned the point had a nice strong feed to the internet.

“Yay, jackpot,” she said and opened the web browser that was installed on the computer.

She then navigated to the free web email service she used and logged into her email. The small mail icon moved in a small dance as her computer connected to the service and started to download all the messages onto her screen. “Wow, I guess it has been a long time since I last logged in,” she said closing her eyes and dozing off as the messages kept downloading.

Finally her system beeped at her to let her know that everything had downloaded. Lexi adjusted the computer as the heat grew warmer on her lap. She rubbed some sleep induced tears from her eyes and yawned.

The system told her that she had about 100 messages to deal with and sort through. The screen was set up in a three panel frame layout. At top there was space where the usual annoying banner graphic spam advertised all sorts of new products, porn sites or other crap that Lexi was not even interested in purchasing or clicking. Thanks to the new technology that came out to block such banner reducing plug-ins from appearing on screens, she was forced to always endure the horrid epilepsy colors and flashing images. Which is probably one of the main reasons why she never spent a lot of time online or in her email system checking her mail. Beneath the banner area the screen slip vertally to give her a quick column of who the mail was from and what header the message had and a blank space that would display the entire message when she did click and select one.

She inhaled deeply and then breathed out to prepare her self mentally for the chore of cleaning out her inbox. She stared at the screen and blinked. One of the most common and favorite flash-based banners featured a line of brown cartoonish dancing monkies with a large blinking caption that taunted the viewer to catch, poke or slap the monkey to win a free item. Well, the banner at the top displayed something similar except the words at the top read, “STAB THE MONKEY WITH THE FIVE OF SWORDS AND WIN A FREE IPOD.” Monkies danced across the screen as a small sword image sat unmoving, waiting for Lexi to move the mouse over to the sword to pick it up and engage in the art of slaying a virtual monkey with it. Lexi shifted uncomfortably in her chair. She did not expect to see a tarot image in the banner.

Quickly she changed her focus down to the email. Her inbox was filled with mostly spam messages from people like ran.dom VIA.ga or need.to.get.big. She scowled at those people who tried to sell her viagra or drugs or always asked her to visit web sites that could help teach her to make her penis, which as a woman she did not have (or could not under normal standing), bigger. It was a bit rediculious and she got annoyed from it. A few messages under the familiar spam, a new one caught her eye.

Simply titled “A Free gift from your friends at tarot.com”, the message asked her if she participated in filling out an online form she could be entered in a drawing to receive a new, carefully hand crafted, fabric decorated and made to order tarot tote with a gold cord to carefully close and tie your cards safely inside. Lex rubbed her eye one again and blinked.

“What the hell,” she said, “am I dreaming this? How did they know I have a tarot deck?” She deleted the message quickly.

She continued to cull through her messages and found that somehow tarot images and symbolism dominated her inbox. She found several email messages asking her to receive mailings for tarot predictions and a few others asking her to sign up for their infamous tarot readings. She even had one message that simply read “Feeling stuck at home? Well, feel trapped no longer. Chariot for nine dollars and ninety nine cents. Act fast, supplies limited. Get yours now!” Lexi was growing more and more disturbed from seeing the sudden rush and influx of tarot related mail in her inbox.

About twenty messages in, however, she came upon one of her anthropology group messages. It was simply labeled with [list-serv: anthropology]. She clicked on the message and scanned the news. It had been sent a few weeks ago and revolved around a topic one reader sent in about methods for recording items found on location at a dig. Various people wrote in to tell the questioner that they could use the old method of using weather-free paper and wax pencils so that water did not ruin the important dig information. A few others, part of the new and growing line of computer anthropologists, suggested that they use various computer database programs loosely designed for users to create their own tags and field inputs to document whatever it was they were entering. These people suggested that the archaeologist take digital pictures of each item that was found on a dig site and then import and enter the image into the database and catalog the features and other important data specs electronically. Archaeological field work, while a bit interesting to Lexi, bored her to tears while she read through all the materials. However, when she got to the bottom of the message, where the online group placed the customary list-serv .sig, she read the following words: “if you wish to no longer receive these predictions, please click this link.”

Lexi freaked out and closed the computer, putting her system asleep again. She then vowed not to check her email alone again late at night after having discussed tarot.

Her apartment complex sounded like the undergraduate dorms did when their university’s football team won the regionals back in nineteen-ninety-five. Everyone was whooping and hollering and the noise was almost unbearable. Lexi shook her head and pushed the door to her apartment and welcomed the inner warmth and silence her small living space offered. Locking the door behind her, she sighed.

” Awww yeah. That is much better. I can actually hear myself think now,” she mused. “Okay… so… what is the game plan for this evening.”

Her boots hit the floor with their customary thud. “Hmm, I would rather not work on homework, as my mind has way to much on it at the moment. Even though I have class tomorrow. Seeing that I am the professor’s pet though I am sure that he will give me an extension. So, then, hmmm… should I try another tarot reading. I know I want to but I am also afraid that maybe I should wait until I am one hundred percent sure that it is not The Windchaser Tarot that is causing all the events to happen.”

She washed a pot and began making a fresh batch of noodles for her goulash, “I know what I can do tonight. I can call Naomi. Maybe she can offer me some insight into what all this tarot lore means and how exactly it works anyways.”

While the water and noodles were boiling, Lexi snatched her cell phone from outside her right jacket pocket. It took her a few seconds to locate Naomi’s contact information from the list of frequently called peoples. While the number blooped and bleeped as it connected to Naomi’s cell phone she tucked it between her ear and shoulder. “I hope she is not busy tonight as I would really like to hang out with her.” She stirred the pot so it did not boil over.

“Come on, come on. I hate waiting,” she said as the phone rang. Finally on the seventh ring, Naomi answered.

“Good evening, this is Naomi. How can I direct your call,” the perky and upbeat voice came from the other end.

“Hey Naomi, it is Lexi. How you doing?”

“Lex, good to hear from you. I am doing fabulous. Just got home like literally a few seconds ago from a pagan group study. I love talking to the wee ones. You would not believe what some people think that magick is and can do for them. There was this one guy, who said that he loved throwing the different types of energy around, just to see how people reacted. I told him that that was an abuse of power and if he had been my boyfriend I would have smacked him up side the head and thrown all that crap back just to see what he thought about having some of his own medicine back. Another girl, was not sure if she believed in a deity but wanted to perform some ritual that would help her win the lottery in a very short amount of time. Wow, just totally blows my mind that there are so many idiots and noobs out there in this world. Of course the discussion was not all bad, otherwise I would stop going and hanging out with that crowd. Oh, I am sorry, I guess I sort of babbled off there a bit. So, what can I do for you tonight?”

Lexi let out a deep sigh from her end of the phone, a short enough time span that allowed her to carefully try and fin the words that she was going to say, she was afraid that what she was going to say, would label her as crazy, even for Naomi’s standards, “Well, I have a few things to tell you Naomi. Again, about that deck. I need to know a little bit more about the tarot and hot it all works. It is six o’clock now, do you think you would have time to hang out or chat on the phone about this?”

She heard a pause from the other end and a slight rustling sound, as if Naomi was searching for something out of a closet or purse, “Hmm, uhh… I guess so. I mean, I just got home and all.”

“Please, please, please Naomi,” Lexi begged with her best child-like voice, and as long and drawn out as she could, “I really think there is something strange about this deck and the whole tarot business and I need to know how it all works before it all makes me as crazy as a loon on sitting on a log in one hundred degree heat during the summer time.”

“Damn girl, if it is going to make you THAT crazy then by all means, I guess we need to get together and fill your head up with some juicy info. Now, where did you want to meet?”

“Er, I never really got that far as I figured that I was going to end up having to con you into hanging out with me tonight or you were not going to be home to pick this call up.”

Naomi’s high pitched laughter filled Lexi’s cell phone receiver, “That is funny. No really that is pretty funny. So, let us see here, where is a good place that we can head out to that accepts us playing with tarot cards but is not too distracting. I take it you have not had dinner?”

“Well, sort of. I have a pot of raman on the stove right now but I can just put it in the fridge for later. I do have a small amount of money so I guess we can go to some coffee house that offers good food and is open late. Problem is, I cannot think of a place right now. Do you know any good ones?” Lexi turned off the gas stove and let the pot of noodles cool down before she stuck them back in the fridge.

“Let see here,” Naomi started to think out loud, “Half-Cup Illusion Cafe just might be open. Have you ever been there?”

“No, I have not even heard of it,” Lexi said. “It sounds rather interesting.”

“It is. It is this funky little cafe that opened a few years ago on the opposite side of town just near the train tracks. They cater to the late night bohemian types and always have dark and wonderful art galleries up on the walls and interesting snacks to eat. The area is a bit run down but I would be willing to give you a lift over there if you want?”

Relief filled Lexi’s voice, she was not to interested in driving along to the parts of town that were pretty seedy, “That sounds like a smart idea. Safety in numbers or so they say. How long are you going to be?”

“Give me about ten minutes and I will be at the opening to your apartments, okay?”

“Sounds like a plan. Gives me time to maybe freshen up a little bit too,” Lexi said as she went into her small closet to find something more suitable to wear. She hung up the receiver and found a nice black sweater and jeans to wear which complimented her Doc Marten boots.

Looking at herself in the mirror, she was mildly surprised, “I have not felt this gothy since I stopped dressing in mostly black for Dylan. It has been a long time and I honestly feel more comfortable wearing this than I did in the stuffy nice clothes that I had to buy.” She added a touch of foundation to her face and smacked a bit of bright blood red lipstick on her lips to bring a bit of life back into her face.

Ten minutes later she stepped into Naomi’s old Honda Prelude, “Hey there, going to the Half-Cup Illusion Cafe?”

“Hey you,” Naomi said, turning down the stereo, “hop on in. Sorry about the mess but I normally do not have a lot of visitors in my car.”

Lexi carefully lowered herself into the chair, as her boots pushed a pile of stale fast food restaurant boxes and bags crumpled into tight little balls and a few cans of Mountain Dew into the back recesses of the car’s floor boards, “Thank you for driving me around tonight. But I really did not want to go it alone. i have heard all the bad things about that area and feel that it really is better if we go in numbers.”

“Yeah, I know that one. And hey it is no problem, I really do not mind coming over to get ya anyways. You know I love this stuff. It is sort of fun going from one pagan group study circle to another. Ah, now where was that when I was in college. Of course during my undergraduate studies I ended up going to more parties than anything. Either way, it was a lot of fun and had I been back to that age, I would probably have done it the same way too.”

The two girls giggled over that statement and they continued to chat about school, classes and other non-pagan or tarot related items until Naomi’s Honda Prelude pulled into the parking lot of the Half-Cup Illusion Cafe.

“Yay, we are here,” Naomi said turning off her car and slowly pulling the key out of the starter. “Grab your things and let us go inside.”

A splash of cool air washed over Lexi’s face as she stepped out of the car, “Oooh, it feels like winter is coming swiftly.” She pulled her jacket closer and zipped it up a bit more to try and warm herself up. “Well, Naomi, lead the way and I will follow you.”

Naomi nodded and led Lexi through a maze of cars and then through the strong grey weather worn door of the Half-Cup Illusion Cafe. The smell of coffee and strong tea mixed with fresh homemade pastries filed Lexi’s nostrils, “Wow. It smells really really good in here. And how come I never knew about this place before?”

“I dunno… maybe because you are not as hip as you once thought you were?” Naomi said with a wide, playful grin that spread from ear to ear.

“Ooooh that was mean, you get me RIGHT here,” Lexi retored clutching her hands over her heart and feigning a perfect stumble.

They wandered around the Half-Cup Illusion Cafe for awhile so Lexi could get a feel for the atmosphere and the clientèle. There were a few bookshelves around the tiny cafe. They were sparely decorated with books and instead had ancient portraits of people and places that could have been salvaged from estate sales and garage sales. A few spider crawler plants and ivys sat in tiny brass pots on the shelves giving the book cases a more outdoorsy feel. They wandered slowly to the front counter and placed two orders of chai and Lexi got a vegetarian sandwich while Naomi ordered a falafel. The clerk at the counter took their money and slid the five of spades on a stick to them. “Place this on your table and the waitress will bring your food out to you when it is ready.”

Lexi grabbed the sign and nodded as she watched his labret move in and out of his lip while he spoke. Finally they found a good spot to sit down in a private corner of the Cafe where they felt that their conversation could be private enough without having too many people attempting to listen in to what they were saying. An photograph of a gargoyle taken under ultraviolet light decorated the wall space above their booth.

“Okay, so you got me here, what is up?” Naomi asked as she tried to fold her feet under her cross legged.

“You got to promise me first off that you will listen to me as I speak and do not try and place judgment on what I am about to tell you. But yeah, I think something odd is up with these tarot cards. I did my first reading last night and today… Iraq became an independent nation. I was puzzled about what the cards said but when I read US Today and watched some of the CNN news feeds. And it hit me, I think that the cards spawned the events, or at least predicted them and it sort of freeks me out. So I need to know, are readings like this common and will I expect to see this more often? And how does tarot readings work anyways. I know how to do them but it would be nice to sort of know how it works philosophically.” Lexi then launched into a break neck pace summary of the reading she did and all the cards that landed into each position.

Naomi slowly nodded in response to all that Lexi divulged to her, “Ah yeah. I see.” She paused a few more minutes as she sipped her chai and collected her thoughts. “I guess I probably should first reassure you that there are many people whose tarot readings do coincide with major events. I recall having done a daily three card reading the morning that the twin towers fell, you know, the whole nine eleven event? Yeah, well a lot of us reading tarot ended up getting really weird and bizarre readings that morning that did not really seem to relate to us until we turned on the television and saw what was going on. Sometimes, especially in world and life changing events I guess that the cards can and tend to pick up on the larger energy that fills the world and then it goes into the cards and the cards then tend to focus on events relating to that moment in time. So, where as you may ask the cards for guidence on yourself, but instead they see or get a higher calling and pull in that higher energy. Does this make sense?”

Lexi had a perplexed and confused look on her face, “I do not know. I mean in a way I guess it makes sense that if you believe that energy out in the world can be pulled into and then examined in the tarot deck but to have it mesh up with the larger world is a bit disturbing, do you not think?”

Naomi nodded again, this time a bit faster, “Yeah I understand that. It does feel a bit weird when it happens first time but after awhile and as you work with your Windchaser Tarot you will learn that it feels good to know that your readings can and do reflect the greater picture out there in the world.” She then took another sip of her tea.

The waitress then came up to their booth and set down two plates of sandwiches. “Here you go a number eight and a number twenty-one. You two girls need anything else?”

“No thank you, this looks good,” Lexi responded as she picked up the first half of her sandwich and put it near her mouth. “Please Naomi, continue.”

“Sure thing,” Naomi said as she snuck a bite of her falafel, “Okay. So first off, it is okay that you got this reading. Over all, I am sure it was just a nice albeit weird coincidence that your reading came out to match the events of this world as they unfolded today. It is a bit weird that you got that reading as your first one, but who knows maybe you have a very strong psychic connection to this world and that it is just now beginning to develop itself in you now that we got you hooked into the tarot. So I hope this makes you feel a bit better. Does it?”

“Yes it does but I am still a bit worried,” Lexi said truthfully.

She paused again as she took another bite of her food, “Now, onto your second question. How does the tarot work? Well this is going to be a harder one to answer, as no one really really knows how the cards work. I guess quite simply answered you could say it works because people believe in them and have faith. But in a way if you remember what I just said about the whole nine eleven events and energy work that is one way that people think how tarot works. It draws in the energy for the particular moment and captures one possible snap shot of what energies and thoughts are influencing your world at the moment. So that is one way that the cards work.

Other tarotists believe, that the cards work and fit in with other systems of belief, like the Qubalah or that the images tap into hidden thoughts and similar patterns of experience in accordance to our psychological makeup. Some people think that the cards were created to help evaluate our inner experience and the tool can help us to better understand ourselves by relating to the cards and creating stories out of them.

People are drawn to the cards for various reasons. Some love the way the images look. While others and I know that believe this, and I think you do too otherwise you would not be asking about all this higher feelings things, that the tarot can help enrich and guide us while we are experiencing things in this plane of existence as humans. It helps to give us a way to connect to our subconscious and examine our selves rationally with a tool that help give us information that otherwise is not accessible to us.

And of course, the science of it all is that the tarot is somehow wired into the whole global or universal energy of common experience and that when you shuffle and deal or throw the cards it connects into that synchronicity and helps draw unknown elements that may help us learn things or warms us of trends that we are currently involved in and how to aviod them or what the consequences will be if we keep moving down those trends will be. So, yeah… after all that is said and done there is your explanation.”

“Wow, I had no idea that it was going to be so elaborate and complex, I figured that you would just simply say ‘Because it does’,” Lexi joked.

They spent the rest of their dinner talking about some of the other experiences that Naomi had in reading tarot for herself and others. Lexi even learned that there was a lot of accredited associations that you could also belong to. She pulled her notebook out and made a mention to call up some of the local chapters to hear their thoughts and views on tarot and how it all worked. If anything she was determined to start using all this tarot information as fodder for her dissertation.

“Good morning,” she said to Denise as she hung her jacket and her black scarf up on the copper colored coat rack. ”Sounds like something big happened earlier this morning while I was on my way here. What is up?”

Denise looked at Lexi, and blinked her blue eyes a few times. Her jaw dropped and she shifted her weight from one foot to the other as if she was flabbergasted and trying to find the right words to say. “You mean you do not know what happened? You do not have cable, internet or get the newspaper, do you?”

Lexi stared back blankly and shook her head, “No. I do not have any of those. The library and my meager student funds really do not allow me to have the common luxuries like cable tv, cable internet or a daily subscription to the local papers. Sorry. But yeah, you need to really spell it out for me today. What is going on?”

Denise stepped towards Lexi and grabbed her by the left arm, “Come on. I will show you.”

They left the small break room and entered the main library. The smell of dust and old books hit Lexi’s nose and she relaxed a bit. The library always had that calming effect on her, no matter what happened during the day. Denise dragged her over to one of the racks of freshly laid out newspapers and grabbed the nearest one and held it up at chest height at Lexi. It was a USA Today with its blue icon proudly displayed up in the left hand corner of the paper.

Lexi bent forward to read the top story that had been printed in big bold red letters to set itself apart from the others. INDEPENDENCE FOR IRAQ! the headline read. Lexi gasped and put her hands over her mouth.

“No way!” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “When did they announce this Denise? I mean, that war has been going on forever. So what happened to trigger and cause all this?”

Denise held the paper out to Lexi, who took it and held it up to her eyes to get a closer look, “Well, it was on CNN last night. So I guess it happened sometime yesterday or last night. But what it means is that the war has ended and Johnny and the rest of our troops are coming home soon. It has been so long since I have gotten to see my little brother.”

Lexi nodded and took the newspaper with her back over to her station at the front counter of the library. She shook her head in disbelief as she read the paper.

INDEPENDENCE FOR IRAQ!
Washington, DC (AP)–Unity was announced today when the new Prime Minister of Iraq, Mr. Ghazi Ajil al-Yawer, signed a peace treaty with the United Nations and the United States, earlier today, solidifying their independence and embracement of Democracy. Today marks the monumental first step towards making Iraq a Democratic society which breaks over two thousand years of hostilities and wars among this Muslim nation.

The war in Iraq had taken over two hundred thousand civilians and troops, and over five thousand United States and United Nations troops over the course of six years.

The treaty was signed in the nation’s great capital of Baghdad and was overseered by British Prime Minister Douglass Watkiss and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari. The Leader of the United Nations and several other world leaders were also on hand to sign and witness the treaty that marked a new age of diplomacy for the tiny third world nation.

“We are proud to begin a new age of prosperity and wealth in our great nation,” the Prime Minister said in an press conference with the Iraqi news syndicate. “It has been too long since our people have known the silence and joys that peace brings us over our great land. We hope to have great things happen to us and our nation and partnerships with the rest of the world in the coming years. We look to you as our role models.”

“This is a big step forward for both the United States and our new friends over in Iraq,” said President Smith as he was boarding his airplane the Freedom One, homeward bound from Baghdad. “This opens up a whole new world of opportunity for the peoples of this great nation to learn and grow and build up a better society for their children and I know that the United States is proud to have been given a front row seat to witness the drastic changes that have occurred practically over night.”

The biggest question that remains yet is when all the troops will return back home stateside from their long tour of duty in Iraq. To which the President remarked, “We have already started getting the ball rolling on bringing our troops home. It will take some time, of course, but we believe that we will have the majority of our forces home by the holiday season later this year.”

Many nations have started coming together to help rebuild the Iraq nation so they have a better and bigger infrastructure. China and Vietnam sent boxes filled with rice and grain to help many of the cities and districts hit hardest with the war in getting their food supplies and stores back up to proper status. The United States, under armed guard, sent medical supplies and doctors over to the nation to help the needs of the sick and the children who have gone without basic food or dentistry for so long.

“The help and openness of the world’s community has been overflowing. We did not know that so many people wanted to help us out as we build our new nation to something greater than it once was,” the Prime Minister remarked as tears welled into his eyes during a press conference this morning. “We hope to not disappoint you as we learn more about the culture and political changes our nation is moving into and towards.”

Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed in any way what so ever.

Lexi sat in shock for what seemed like an eternity after having read the entire article and several other opinionated and related ones. She was amazed that so much had changed in such a small time overnight. Her mind boggled at the implications of all this meant for the Iraqi peoples, their way and quality of life and for the people back here in the United States. She knew that Denise was excited about the possibility of seeing Jonathan, her little brother who had been dragged off to fight in a war that not too many people were happy about. Even Lexi believed that the war was more about oil than of the welfare and benefit of the people living in the desert country. But it was not up to her to decide the laws.

Throughout the day, Lexi heard many opinions on the developing news. Everywhere she went on campus the television channels had some new news to report or some recap going on. CNN’s familiar ticker tape banner constantly scrolled with new updates and their news people, on scene were constantly blithering about some new development or two going on. The barrage of all this news started to overwhelm Lexi. And in a way she was growing tired of it all.

Her mind wandered back to the tarot book, and during her lunch break, she finally had an hour to escape the political noise and retreat into her own head and studies. Her iPod blasted VNV Nation through her headphones as Lexi settled down into a ratty old, lime green sofa to read. She kicked off her shoes and curled her feet under her butt and slowly bobbed her head in time to the music. She opened the book and flipped back to the page that The Dragon’s Eye spread had been bookmarked. She smiled at the thought of having successfully done her first tarot spread last night. However, as she thought back to the cards and the confusion she had while she had laid down each and every card, her smile turned into shock and horror.

The cards, the spread, the confusion about how it applied to her life finally added up. Lexi felt as if someone had walked right up to her and smacked her over the head with a really hard, long wooden board that had a billion splinters still on the outside of it. The reading did not cater to her life, but it was about the events of the world. The reading that Lexi had done the night before, where she thought it was about her own new beginnings and ability to take charge of her life, was not about her life at all. Instead, it was about the very political upheaval that had been plastered all over the news today. Her tarot deck and spread had accurately saw into the future and made it come true.

Blood pumped through her body raising her body temperature. Lexi’s face flushed with shock and fear. “Holy shit,” she said, running her hand through her hair, “I read it and it all came true. This is why I was so puzzled at first. It was because the reading was not for me, instead it was about the world. I read the cards and they came true.”

The book slipped out of Lexi’s hand and made a loud thump on the floor below the lime green sofa. The noise startled Lexi and she jumped a bit.

Denise appeared in the door way, “Hey, you okay in here? I heard something fall and figured I would come in and check to make sure you were okay.”

Lexi bent forward to pick the well worn hardback off the floor. “Yeaaaah,” she said with a gruff voice, “everything is fine. I just dozed off a bit and dropped the book I was trying to read for some research on my dissertation is all.”

The tiny librarian nodded, “Oh. Okay. Just as long as it is nothing serious. I would hate to lose one of my best assistants is all. I hope that research of yours is not keeping you up to all hours of the day, missy. So how is that dissertation going anyways? I know you were having some troubles with it awhile ago. Is it getting any easier for you to write these days?”

“Yeah, I think so. There is just so much I could do with that paper and there is a lot of interesting research on developing your own personal symbolism and how that all ties back into a concept of a group symbology…” Lexi paused and closed her mouth after she realized that she started babbling on about her dissertation. “I am sorry Denise. I totally did not mean to bore you like that. I know that what I am writing about is not really the most interesting thing in the world but in a way it is for me. Let me ask you something?”

“Sweetie, you cannot bore me. Not after some of the other things I have heard during my tenure here at the library. So sure, go ahead and ask me.”

“Do you believe that your actions can influence the world in a greater context?” Lexi spewed the question out rapidly.

“Wow, when you have a question, you really have a whopper. Hmm, wow, I do not know. Never really gave it any thought,” Denise retorted as she moved over to a faded blue corduroy rocking chair. She started rocking in it as the chair started letting out a rhymatic, creaking sound which attempted to lull Lexi into sleep again. “I guess that it is possible for one person to influence a whole world or culture. Look at some of the greatest minds of our time like Dr. Martin Luther King or the founding fathers of America. Their contributions and thoughts certainly swayed the world into doing new things and having new thoughts. So yeah, I guess it could.”

“Hmm, I was not really thinking about that way. More like if you did something that no one was around to see or hear… would it be possible for that small tiny event to change the world?”

Denise shrugged as she got out of the chair, and stretched, “Again, Lex, I am not sure. It could be possible; after all we have that one saying about a butterfly’s wings causing a hurricane wind force on the other side of the continent. So yeah, I guess it can be possible. Why do you want to know all this anyways? Is this part of your research?”

Lexi nodded slowly and deliberately, “I want to know if I think about a circle and then think about you thinking about that circle, does that mean that in a few hours you will be thinking of a circle and get the same meaning and maybe even the desire to call me about your revelation? Maybe. In any case, it is just a question that I had in my head while I was reading this book. Some religions, like many of the neo-pagan ones believe that your thoughts and consciousness has the power to change and influence other things. And well, I was wondering if you thought it was possible. I am not sure what I believe as I have never had it happen to me but I am certainly open to the possibility.”

She had flat out lied to Denise. Lexi knew that the power in those cards had somehow influenced the world and created a new democracy for the Iraqi government. Of course, she was not going to openly admit it. No, doing so would have probably got her a one way ticket into the local asylum and a comfortable and cozy white padded straight jacket with matching white padded walls to match. Instead, she thought it best to keep this insight to her self. Of course, she might try and talk to Naomi about it as she felt that Naomi would believe her and maybe try and help her to understand what exactly it was that she purchased from the Aquarian Dreams last weekend.

“In any case, your break is over, so I came back here to get you to go cover the front desk so Jules could take her break. And girl, try not to think too much. You have such a long life ahead of you and questions like these, while worthy, will only cause you to lose a lot of sleep over them. Just go with the flow and have faith. At least that is what my mom always told me to do.”

“Thanks Denise. I will be there in a few minutes. Let me put my shoes on and put my iPod and this book back into my bag. I promise I will be out there serving the devoted student population in just a few minutes, tops. Promise.”

Denise shook her head at the dramatics and went back to her desk in the corner of the staff area. She pushed a few strands of her long hair out of her face as the static from the computer monitor connected within reach. She stared at her computer screen and slowly lost herself in the ordering screens process for buying the books for students to use in their studies.

Lexi finished getting her shoes back on her feet. She took a long deep breath that came from deep down in her chest in a half-hearted attempt to refocus her body and mind and ground her back in this reality. However, she could not let the disturbing thought that she could use her tarot deck to control events that occurred in the world.

“What if something goes wrong and the reading hurts someone close to me? Is there any way I can control where the reading goes and direct only positive energy,” she thought. In addition to the rest of her front desk duties, Lexi thought about these questions and how she could learn to control the readings so they only benefited the world and her friends and could never produce any harm.