Was playing poker with tarot cards (Minors only, this time), with an engaging and homely gentleman in a chocolate brown pinstripe suit. The winning hand would be interpreted as a divination throw for someone the suited gentleman had in mind but would not identify. It was quite interesting to be used as the hand of fate instead of being the one to challenge it.
It was all fun and games until the doorbell rang. An invisible attendant answered it then came to the suited gentleman’s chair.
“[The person you were expecting] has arrived, Sir.”
“Ah. Good. [Weaver], do you mind?”
I placed my hand face down on the table. “It’s your home, and I know you’re a busy man. I can play some other time. This sounds serious.”
He smiled. Oh hell, he smiled. Rows of serrated teeth glimmered as they moved in anticipatory glee. He quickly closed his mouth and excused the display as unnecessarily excessive, but I know him well enough to know better. Instead of showing fear (which I did not have, this time), I patted him on the hands and wished him a “good game”.
He stopped me from rising. “No. Stay. This won’t take long. Please.”
Please. I remained seated and placed my hands in my lap.
“Well, hello there. I did not know you had company. Another time, then?” The tall and sculpted man was escorted to the inner room for formality’s sake. He placed a satchel on the table and peered over the exposed cards. “No… this is the right time, I see. Good day to you, [Weaver].”
I returned the greeting with the same congeniality and formality as it was given. The guest smirked, just enough for me to see.
The guest, formally dressed in a black suit with a white linen shirt, removed from his satchel a series of clothing. The men talked business in a language I could not comprehend as the guest began to undress. To be polite, I kept my vision on the cards before me. (Though not without noticing the defined musculature of the large man. Which Greek statue came to life? Oh no. He’s hot.) Though the Majors had been removed and placed to the side, I realized one of the Majors was now sitting face up on the disarray of minors. The card seized my attention and I could not look away from it.
The statuesque guest leaned down and whispered deep tones in my ear. “Which card is it, oh [Weaver]? What do you see?”
“I see the Sun, in an unnatural course. Out of place to those that take it for granted. In its proper place for those that can move it. I see the Sun, ill-dignified, and it portends woe for the soul upon which it has been laid.”
Where the hell those words came from, I do not know.
A large hand covered my face, closing my eyes against my will. “Then you have seen enough.” The guest’s voice, still deep, was masked and muffled. With my sight removed, my other senses tried to describe the scene around me. I felt shades of black, gray, and yellow on my skin as his donned clothing brushed against me. The multiple layers of stiff clothing slid and caught as he moved. I smelled a conflict between discomforting hospital disinfectant and overly warm exposed infection. The air briefly congealed on my tongue, and I tasted what I imagined a plague infected house would feel like the moment before it was set on fire.
Yes. I have seen enough.
I remained still and blinded as I heard more unintelligible conversation between my host and my guest. The guest’s business (and transformation) now completed, he returned to my side and stood silently beside me. Though I knew he had become something we humans would consider monstrous, he was as he always have been, and I was not afraid of that.
I nodded in acknowledgement of… something… I’m not sure what. On a subconscious level, I knew what he had become without having to see to confirm. I knew that the same hand that showed kindness to me could strike me down without pause. I knew that he and my host were far, far, beyond human consideration. What the hell did he need my confirmation for?
I nodded anyway. He is as he is, as he always have been, and I accept that.
He left.
I remained still and blinded. I heard my host (and his attendants) throwing open all the windows. I did not realize how thick the air had become until the winds obeyed the summons and blew steadily through the room. It was only when the air became fresh that I allowed myself the luxury of coughing.
My host laughed at my decorum.
An unexpectedly small (yet very dense) hand rubbed upward on my face. My eyes opened at the command. I saw him quickly picking up the tarot cards off the table.
“Is the game over so soon?”, I politely inquired.
He laughed again, in sincere mirth and delight. “No. Your part in the game is done. And you have played it well, thank you.”
I felt dawn approaching in the Waking World. “Normally, when I play tarot poker, I include the Majors and treat them as a fifth suit. Why did you pull them out?”
He shuffled the cards to restore the entropy expended in the play. “Because you treat the Majors as acts of Fate and Destiny. Threads against which you can not command nor deflect, but must work around. The Minors are mutable to you. An ill-dignified card can be redeemed. A good-dignified card can be squandered. For the game I was playing, that outlook served my purposes very, very, well. Thank you.”
Two Thank Yous in a row. I’m being dismissed.
I nodded in sincere acknowledgement. “Forgive me, my dear host, but my human weaknesses show again. It is almost dawn and I have a bear of a day to work through. May I be excused?”
He took my hands and held them softly. “You may.”
He released my hands and I was gently exited from the dream.