poemtry and prose

It took Lexi almost two full hours to get from the middle of downtown back to her home out in the neighboring suburbs. Her toes were freezing and she cried all the way home, trying to keep her eyes shut. But now, she was safe and a heck of a lot warmer. The first thing she did before she took off her shoes and clothes was to turn on the gas stove and slowly boil some f her fluoride tap water in her chrome and ceramic tea kettle. She mechanically moved her hand over the cup board and removed her favorite ceramic mug with a orange tabby who was comically drawn and appeared a bit italicized on the cup with the word STRESS! written above it. It had been one of the last gifts her mother ever gave her and she used it only during times of stress. It saw her through many late night study sessions and various weeks of mid-terms and finals week tests. And for the first time in a long time, she was pulling it down out off the second shelf where it rested and was going to use it.

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.