poemtry and prose

That night, Lexi tossed and turned. Her dreams were filled with allegory and delusions. The dream-Lexi walked outside her apartment and back down to where she stood only hours (or was it minutes) ago where she burned all of the tarot cards. Except this time, there was a lady sobbing next to the ashes of the deck. Her back was turned to Lexi and she had black lace covering her blonde hair. She wore black woolen shirts and had on a black skirt, with matching tiny, black Victorian leather heals. She was kneeling on the ground, and had her hands bent to her face. Her sobs were small and tiny and she sounded like a young girl.

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.