poemtry and prose

The smell of dew and fresh air woke Lexi that Sunday morning. She stretched, stared at the ceiling and smiled. The vision of having done the ritual was still fresh in her mind and it reminded her of the fresh start her life would hopefully now take after having actually performed a ritual. Lexi took out a fresh notebook and decided to write down the notes of her ritual, just in case she decided to ever perform one again and to maybe use as padding for her dissertation for a first person account of using personal symbolism and tarot symbolism with a religious rite.

She clicked the pen, and as the tip pushed the ball down to write, she thought about what she was going to say. Her eyes closed as her mind struggled with the words. After a minute of not having written anything down, Lexi decided to just start with the facts and write a quick stream of consciousness blurb that she could then edit and adjust to match her research outcome when all was said and done. Low pitched scratch marks filled the apartment as Lexi quickly rushed to get all the emotions, the energy and intensity down on her paper. Her hand rushed across the paper and her brow scrawled into a furrow as she concentrated on recapturing everything she did and said.

"Gawd, I hope I do not forget anything. This will be great stuff if I am ever able to finish it all and submit it in to Professor Leslie vonTurling. I know she has been my biggest proponent of my work and will love seeing that I am trying to attempt to add some personal experience and written prose into here. Hmm, I wonder what they would say if I added anything creative into the work. After all, I was a Creative Writing minor in my undergraduate."

Lexi's grasp on the pen was tight and when she finished capturing all her notes down on the page, she had to shake the tenseness out of her wrist. "Ugh, I hope I am not getting Carpel Tunnel Syndrome. That would just really suck. I do not have a lot of monies to afford a new computer or desk and I know that my current one is not very ergonomic." She continued to sit on her bed a few minutes more while massaging the pain out from her wrist.

"What should I do today? Got one more day off before I go back in to work at the school and hit the books again?" she said, looking around the apartment, hoping that something around her sparce place would jump out at her or help her make her mind up for something to do. "It is a fresh new start and I want to do something fun before I got to go back and hit the grind tomorrow."

She got up off the futon and stretched her arms out to their sides and then swung them in a back and forth motion to try and crack her back. "Maybe after I take a shower I can find something to do."

Lexi moved into the bathroom and twisted the white plastic knob that started the water. She adjusted the heat so it was not too hot or too cold for her. Finally when the water temperature was just right, she stepped into the shower stream and washed her body and hair. Ten minutes later she had her hair blown and dried and up in a pony-tail. She pulled on a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt and then added a small amount of make-up to complete the look.

She went over to the shelf where she had placed her tarot deck and swept it off the shelf. She unfurled the silk wrap to look at her deck once more. When she got to the front of the deck, a startled look swept across her face. Some how the order of the cards was different. It was as if someone had come into her apartment and switched the order to something else.

"Huh, that is odd," she remarked. "Now I know I ordered the deck in the right way. And I did not hear anyone come into my apartment last night, so what the fuck. How did it get all changed around?"

Instead of The Fool being the first card she saw when she unwrapped the deck, she saw that The Star card had migrated to the top of the deck. It's picture of a naked woman pouring water into a river with a full moon that slowly appeared to have blood dripping down over it stared at her. Lexi blinked her eyes quickly a few times. She was confused at what she was seeing and a little scared seeing that her deck appeared to have a mind of its own. Carefully she started sliding through the rest of the deck, to see if there was any sort of pattern or rhyme or reason to the new order.

After The Star came the Ace of Wands. The image displayed a single wand hovering in the center of the card while a planet hovered behind it, from the redness of the hue, Lexi thought that it may be Mercury. Two hands came out from the sides of the card as if they were going to try and grab a hold of the wand bringing it back down towards an unknown body. She slid the Ace of Wands to her other hand and displayed the Nine of Cups. A field of cups met her gaze and it appeared as if the cups were flowers in that field. A butterfly hovered over head and a rainbow appeared far off in the distance.

Lexi frowned, "What does this mean. I wish I knew more about the cards than I did to maybe understand these a bit more."

She quickly flipped through the cards watching as the names continued to be out of order. The Two of Pentacles followed by the Nine of Wands, and the King of Swords. She then flipped the entire deck over and held her breath. The very last card that was sitting on the bottom of the deck was The Devil card. The image of a man displaying a bare and smooth chest met her gaze. He was smiling but his eyes and top of his head was covered by a furry black cat-like mask. It was repulsive and grotesque at the same time for it looked as if the person had skinned a cat and wore it's skin on his head. Bowing next to him, were two more people. A man and a woman sat animalisticlly at his feet, chains wrapped around both their necks. They too, were also naked but had worried expressions on their faces. The woman even had a tear running down her cheek. To even make the scene worse, red and yellow flames rose from behind the man and the two chained people licking their body with searing heat.

Lexi groaned and then hurriedly wrapped the cards back up in their silk. She attempted to do her best to preserve their new order but just wanted to be done with them. Her mind raced as she figured out what to do next. "Who can I show this to, is there anyone I know that would believe this? That I did not have anything to do with this order?"

Her mind scrolled through all the people that she knew sorta like her fingers would quickly move over a Rolladex. Claudia would have been her fist pick after Dylan but seeing that she did not trust nor want to deal with Dylan, it also stood to reason that Claudia would not see things the same way either. Claudia was still friends with Dylan and she also vocally disapproved of many of the things Lexi uncovered in her research about alternative religions. She was Catholic and very devout in her studies. Therefore it was better if Lexi did not call Claudia up to show her this new discovery. She ran her left hand through her hair as she continued to think of someone she could trust with this new information.

Her brain finally tripped on the solution as her mouth uttered, "Naomi. I should call Naomi. She would understand all this and maybe she can even tell me what this all means and how it affects my life."

She threw the Windchaster Tarot back into her sling back and pulled the cell phone out from under the book that was sitting on top of it. She scrolled through the names that displayed on her contact list until it showed Naomi. Lexi pressed the call button and held the phone to her ear.

"Come on, come on Naomi. Please please please be home," Lexi said as she waited for Naomi's voice to appear at the other end or the answering machine to pick up.

Naomi answered after the third ring," Hey Lexi. I am surprised to hear from you so soon. How are you doing? More importantly, how are the tarot cards working out for you?"

"Oh thank goddess you were home Naomi," Lexi said. "Funny that you should ask me as that is the very reason why I am calling you just now. I sort of did something last night and I need to talk to someone about it. I do not know what this all means yet but I am a bit concerned. Do you have any time today to maybe have some lunch?"

Naomi listened to Lexi rush through the phone on the other end. She could tell that her friend was concerned about something that happened, " Sure thing Lex, you know I always have some time for you. However, you got to slow down and tell me what is going on from the beginning. Want to meet for Thai at the Nan Desu Kon? I know you do not have much money so this will be on my tab. Kay?"

"Thanks Naomi, you are such a life saver. How about I meet you down there in fifteen minutes, and then show and tell you what I need to say?"

"That sounds good. See you soon Lex. And one more thing. Girl you need to breathe. Whatever happened will be okay. I promise you that. See you soon."

Lexi hung up the phone as Naomi said her farewells. In addition to the Windchaser Tarot, she also put the hardback on tarot back into the sling back. She slid on a pair of Nike sneakers and grabbed both her keys and her jacket. While it looked sunny outside, Lexi knew better than to trust that the weather was warm this October.

She rushed her car over to the Nan Desu Kon, which was relatively close to her apartment complex. The restaurant was in a small shopping complex. The buildings had all been freshly painted brown with a forest green trim, so many of the walk ways were closed off with several Caution: Wet Paint signs.

Lexi arrived first and grabbed a corner booth that appeared furthest away from any of the other patrons. She did not want anyone to be able to listen in on what she wanted to tell Naomi. Already she was nervous about what she was going to say and how Naomi was going to respond.

"This is nuts," she thought, "What am I going to say? How is she going to react? None of this makes sense and I am afraid that she is going to think that I am making all this up as I go along."

A tiny Korean woman appeared and handed her two menus. She took Lexi's order for a Pepsi without ice and then walked off. Not to much longer, Naomi arrived at the door. Lexi stood up and waved her friend over.

"Sorry I am a bit late. Your call caught me off guard and I had to quickly get ready. So I apologize for my appearance."

Lexi forced a smile, "No worries Naomi. I am just happy to see that you were willing to come and have lunch and sit and listen to all this craziness that I am just about to tell you. So, would you rather we eat first and then have me tell what I need to say? Or just spill it all out now?"

Naomi nodded as she removed her jacket, " From the looks of it, you better spill the beans now before you implode. Remember, breathe first, get centered and then tell me what happened."

Their waitress returned with Lexi's Pepsi and took both their orders and Naomi's thai iced tea drink request. Once Lexi was sure that she was away and out of listening range she pulled out the Windchaser Tarot.

"This is what I brought you here for," she started as she unwrapped the deck.

"Ooh, I see that you got a piece of silk fabric for it. Very nice," and she reached her hand out to touch the deck, "Can I touch it?"

Lexi quickly snapped the deck back to her chest, "Please no. Not yet. Sorry Naomi, but I am not quite sure that I am ready for anyone to touch this yet. Not after what happened last night." With that, she launched into her the ritual that she performed the night before and some of the things that she learned from the book. Lexi spent most of their lunch talking, only pausing when the waitress brought them their food. The both ordered an appetizer of Spring Rolls with a side of the restaurant's homemade sweet peanut sauce. Then they also got a bowl of miso soup followed by a two person order of spicy chicken pad thai. Naomi slowly ate her order with chopsticks as she carefully listened to Lexi's story in its entirety before answering and responding.

Lexi finished her story by showing her the reordered deck. "I swear to you, what I am showing you is not from my hand Naomi. I try to keep the deck ordered in the sequence that it came out of the box, with The Fool on top and then the King of Rocks at the bottom. Even after I performed the ritual last night I carefully put them away. So, yeah... can you tell me what this all means."

Naomi finished the bite of Pad Thai that was in her mouth and swished it down slowly with some iced tea. Then she dabbed her lips with the white, soft cotton napkin. "I do not know how the cards decided to reorder them selves, but I do not see anything that you really need to worry about. You once told me that you used to sleepwalk, right? Well, maybe that is how the cards got reordered. Honestly, the first card, The Star means hidden unknowns and the Ace of Wands means the primal creative forces. So from my vantage point I think that maybe the tarot is opening your third eye to the possibilities that maybe there is more out there than you originally thought. So maybe last night you subconscious took over and wanted to play more with the cards. And the last card, The Devil just means that you probably have broken the addiction that you had when you were dating Dylan. I know that I saw how he tended to have you wait on him hand and foot and you really were not able to do much on your own without wanting to ask his permission first. So honestly, even though the card imagery can get a bit scary, I think that this is a good sign. I see it as a new chapter in your life. So it seems that your ritual has worked."

Lexi nodded and slowly started to reorder the cards in her old way, "Strange that I have not sleep walked in quite some time. But okay, yeah... you are right. Maybe I did rearrange and play with the cards and just totally do not recall it. And you are right, this is the first day of a new chapter so I guess we should just spend the rest of the time celebrating?"

"Oh totally. Here is to you and this new and exciting chapter of your life. May the cards guide you on this new path to self discovery," Naomi raised her glass ceremoniously and clinked it to match Lexi's. They started giggling and spent the rest of the lunch talking about the tarot more.