Visionary

  She heard him sigh as she turned the card over.  His face, already on the edge of collapse, crumbled further as his mouth twisted into a grimace.  She had to stifle her exasperation.  She preferred it when they just came in for the kicks.  The serious ones were always trouble.  

     His eyes flitted from the card to her face and back to the card.  She cleared her throat.

     “That card…” she began.

     “I know, I know, the Tower,” he moaned, “the only bad one in the deck.”  His finger hovered over it, tracing in the air above the card the jagged gash of the lightning bolt that shattered the scene.  “Ruin, destruction, chaos.  A crisis on the horizon, a catastrophic failure.”  Goddammit, she thought, an enthusiast.

     “Well,” she said, “Yes.  However!” she added quickly, watching his tragic frown deepen.  “However, in this position it can represent hardships to be overcome, you see?”  He looked doubtful.  “And it is meaningless in isolation, yes?  We must draw another card,” she said, ladling thick spoonfuls of what she thought of as her soothing voice into her words.  “You will see, you will see!”  He hunched his shoulders against fate, reached across, drug the topmost card into the center of the table, and turned it over. 

     Even Madam Julia gasped.

     A second Tower, smug as a coiled snake, lay on the table between them. 

     The man’s eyes grew white as his pupils withered away in fear.  She watched his Adam’s apple flutter up and down his thin throat.  “I don’t understand…” she said, but was cut off by a loud groan, thickened with fear and muffled by the man’s closed mouth.  “Listen,” she said, watching her tip vanish, “the cards can be tricky, fickle even, sometimes they just don’t work right, you know?  How about we try palmistry?  Or tea leaves!  I’ve got some nice lapsang souchong, we’ll get a cuppa going, alright?”  Her voice trailed off as the man, sick with fear, locked her eyes in his own unblinking gaze.  She swallowed, and tried to protest as he reached across the table for the deck.

     “Look mister,” she started, but then stopped.  He shook his head, once, and drew a card.  A third Tower joined the other two between them.

     A single, shrill cry from deep in his throat filled the little room.  She jumped as he leapt up, baring his teeth and rolling his eyes.  He overturned the table and lurched drunkenly towards the exit, tears streaming down his face, great raking sobs shaking his frame.  The bell over the door chimed obscenely as he fled into the street.

     Madam Julia was surprised to find herself standing.  She patted herself down nervously, shoulders, chest, hips, stomach, then ran to the door and locked it, switched off the neon sign flashing in the night outside. 

     She rummaged through her desk, shifting errant paperwork until she found what she was looking for.  She ground her teeth as she examined the box the tarot cards had come in.

     “Fucking pinochle deck,” she growled.