The Gypsy
Every year the fortune teller at the carnival starts afresh. She thinks up a new name as December fades to hang in front of her tent in luminescent neon. Straight off the top of her head, any name that springs to mind; she used Carla Smurche the year when those teenage interlopers set off an entire crate of Roman Candles at the Big Top. Once she went by Jolyn Cerutia; she could remember it from the fantasy book she stole it out of, down to the page number and paragraph. Last year it was Meshinda Gohns. She actually liked that one.
She had a real name, once, lost a long time ago. No, rather, she discarded it. A name, after all, was just a label you gave yourself or one given to you by someone else. Either way, it is up to you to decide if you want to peel it off.
.
Unlike most other carnies, she is proud of what she does; fortune-telling is an art form that takes a lifetime to master – how a writhing, amorphous cloud in her crystal ball took form in her mind, the interpretations of both the Major and Minor Arcana written on the back of her eyelids, the tracing of the contours and canyons of the palm becoming second nature.
The man sitting in front of her has been holding the cards far longer than the normal Querent would, and the edge of her lip curls from annoyance.
When he finally returns the cards to her, she begins her work. The top ten cards are spread in the shape of the Celtic cross and are flipped over quickly - she knows that this step is crucial in preserving the energies transferred to the cards – and read.
The Lovers, Three of Swords Reversed, The Knight of Swords Reversed, Four of Cups. A relationship rife with grief, full of despair and suffering.
Do I get what I want, the querent asks in a voice laden with hope. She looks down at his hands. Rough, calloused, a wedding band on his finger. Maybe he had children, a large house. A happy family, one she never had. Yes, she whispers, over the map of his life.
.
A few years ago, she decided that her abode was far too plain. What kind of fortune teller had 1983 Beatles posters on her walls? People came into gypsies’ tents expecting to see raven feathers and beaded curtains and candlelit skulls covered in melted blood red wax.
(at least the people on Carnivale do)
The next time they stopped near a town, she went looking for ornaments to furnish her home with. She bought a large hexagram to stitch onto her tatami mats, saffron and tumeric to draw patterns on her walls, a shrunken head impaled on a stick to go outside right next to the genuine Tiki torch, just for the horrific juxtaposition.
She passes over the rubber insects and black polyester spiders. If there were a prize for the tackiest piece of decoration ever spawned, she would place fake arthropods and arachnids at the top of the list. Though, blue furry dice were pretty good competition.
The next thing she considers is a headdress woven from blue velvet and adorned with kingfisher feathers. A delicate garment that rests on the crown of her head with the pinions tucked behind her ears and running down the back of her neck. It would go well with her flowing dress of turquoise silk, holding its breath in her closet. The one that she sewed herself with the blood of pricked fingers and the tears of regret stitched into the fabric itself. The last one she made before she left her tribe all those years ago. She thinks of it sometimes, hanging in the dark like an afterimage of a stillborn twin, sucking on mothballs as if they were pieces of hard candy.
She places it back onto the display rack and goes back to pick up a box of dangling spiders. She would keep it in her closet, too, just in case.
.
Just as she was about to leave, she finally notices it. It was perfect; exactly what she was looking for.
Nowadays, all who enter her tent are greeted by its frozen, unwavering countenance; a deformed pig foetus floating in formaldehyde and strangled by its own entrails, a crushed skull and soulless, dead eyes. The jar is illuminated from below by torchlight to create an eerie strobe, a macabre reminder of what could have been, and what should never have.
.
A woman sitting in a graveyard, in the large macropterous shadow of a willow long dead. Her hand trailing a silver patina onto her gown, like the gilding of great ages gone by. A broken man lying still in her lap. The corrugated ground winking with the shine of diamonds and quartz.
(she awakens, and it was all just a dream.)
.
The day before she left her tribe, she did a tarot reading for herself. The first card was The Nine of Swords. Persistent haunting by her fears and pain, real and imaginary. The second, The Five of Cups. Emotional dejection over the past, living in yesterday. The Moon, a manifestation of dreams in reality.
Now even before she drew the last card she already had a foreboding that it was going to be The Moon. Very rarely does she export the substance of her dreams to the real world. On those occasions, it had been a teardrop, fat and swollen with sorrow, or maybe a muted sob. The realm of sleep was, after all, a shallow one; once she had broken through the surface of her dreams with the taste of apples fading in her mouth and the warm touch of a hand on her back and the aching blue of the sky burned into the back of her eyes.
It had always been fascinating to her, how that barrier was impenetrable yet porous enough to let fragments slip through from her inner life into the cold outside world. She truly believed that in those instances, it wasn’t just her mind dreaming, her physical being was too.
She knew that then and there because last night, she dreamed that she was walking on the surface of the Moon where everything weighs less, even regret.
.
The Fool. One who is ignorant and inexperienced, lacking substance.
Reversed Ace of Wands. Inability to discern true goals, a lack of personal direction.
Ten of Swords. Ultimate hopelessness, dejection, the feeling of being pinned down.
Strength. Be careful what you wish for.
.
When the carnival closes its doors and the last visitor is shooed away she places her cards into a rosewood box and shelves it amongst her books. Outside she lights a cigarette, holds it in the corner of her mouth. The ground a pure white sheet of alabaster. The snow graying with cigarette ash. A twisting, writhing snowflake that falls into the palm of her hand and melts, fading slowly from memory. Once the cigarette is but a stump she stubs it out with her toe, digging it into the snow and watches it hiss, its final breath a faint plume of smoke curling away in the still winter air. She reaches towards it, tries to touch it with her fingers, shape what cannot be shaped.
Stop time. Defy gravity. And the entire world, slowly turning backwards on its axis.
Just as well, she thinks. After all, the only thing certain about the future is uncertainty. She’d learned that a long time ago.
*
This is the piece I wrote for the Creative Writing Circle newsletter; I have actually been planning for this long overdue essay for two months now. Obvious CSI reference somewhere in the middle, but never mind. Some of the writing style was actually blatantly lifted from The Road (run-on sentences, sentences missing subject verbs) but I think it works. Thanks to Ruth for 'macropterous'.