I don’t know this guy. I just know his type. Driving a large black truck with bright stickers showing his loyalty to profit-blinded corporations that tell him what it means to be a Real Man™, he kept trying to intimidate me by driving around my block.
Sometimes he would attempt to drive onto my driveway. He usually spun out just by making the attempt to turn. Every now and then he would manage the gentle slope and hit my personal car with vigor. As soon as he slipped back down the driveway, however, the car self-repaired itself. It was whole and ready for use before the asshole was back in the street.
He didn’t like that. He would increase his aggressive and threatening remarks against me for a while, then brag about how many of his friends don’t like me for a while, then resume trying to drive up my driveway to hit my car again.
I saw the parallels between his actions and my travails in social media, nodded at the lesson, and decided to change the dream.
I entered my car and left for the open road. The asshole tried to follow, but at the first turn down the street, he spun out and became lodged in a ditch. It seems his tires are not as suitable for varying terrains as he had been led to believe.
Out on the open highway, the sun moved from west to east at times, and from south to north at others. There were many drivers on the interstate, but we each appeared as indistinct ghosts to each other. Occasionally I would pass someone on the shoulder with a flat tire or other metaphorical delaying of their journey.
Leaving the freeway and the desert it pierced, I entered a thickly wooded area that hid a massive university compound. I let the road determine where to take me and it led me to a perfect parking spot under a perfect tree in a perfectly quiet corner of the campus. The sidewalk led to a side gate that opened for me as I approached it.
I should have been wary of too many perfections surrounding me and an environment that was trying very hard to please me (and succeeding). But the area had the smell of the Library which welcomed anyone seeking to know more, no matter what that more may be.
At the end of an overly complicated path was a small building. In that small building was a cluttered room. On the other side of that cluttered room was a glass door. Beyond that glass door was a short column framed hall. When you approached the small building, you saw only thick trees on the side of it. But when you pass through the small building so that you entered the grove of those same thick trees, you saw other halls and other paths leading away from the grove. Well, you would if you were me. If you weren’t, you were more likely to see an enclosed and windowless room with murals and tapestries on the silent stone interior.
I was not the first here. Five others were already seated and studying their own personal pursuits. They were not bothered by my approach and I was not bothered to see them here. I was content to sit peacefully and dwell quietly on some things that had been bothering me in other worlds including the Waking one.
A book is slammed down on the floor in frustration. I wince at the idea of angering the Librarian. (She is very aggressive about the care of her books.) “Just how many tarot decks are there, anyway? Aren’t they just the same app with different skins?” The multi-toned voice tinged towards shrillness with the barely checked despair.
The outburst initiates a conversation between the six of us. We each explained to the student how we individually perceived and used tarot decks. One went into great detail of the known history of tarot and the wild speculations and myths that accompanied it. A few of us produced our own personal decks and let the student thumb through them to compare and contrast both the visual appearance of the decks and our own reading styles.
I offered to show the student how a UV reactive deck changes appearance in daylight. The student states there are no windows present for sunlight to sneak through. I point to the trees and the path to other campus parks beyond them. They persist that there are only murals of trees painted on the stone walls and tapestries to keep the chill away between them.
Another of our company explains to me that not everyone can perceive the paths leading away. That it is a combination of our personal understanding and what access we have been granted by those controlling those areas that determines if we can see beyond the trees, much less pass into those areas.
Looking forward to an exploration, I started to pass through one of those open archways for myself when a series of knocking noises from the small building behind us caught all of our attention. Through the glass door, we could see a woman stumbling over obstacles that were not there for me when I passed through. It took her great effort to reach the door, and another series of efforts to find how to open it and pass through.
“Excuse me. Like, does anyone work here or something?” The dark-skinned woman’s hair was braided in a legion of thin and long braids. She had worked up the braids into a bun with a trail cascading down. Long and curved manicured nails scraped against every hard surface she could fondle as she ungracefully sat down at the first horizontal surface she could find. “Do like, any of y’all read tarot or something? I’ve been searching for a reader I can trust. Not some Miss Cleo bullshit.”
Some of our number looked at her quizzingly. I and two others winced at the mention of Miss Cleo. The other two dismissed her immediately after her remark. I took out my [US Games] Universal Waite deck and started shuffling them.
“I read tarot, and fuck Miss Cleo. I’ll pull three cards for free and read those entirely. If you wish more, you will have to pay for my services.” She agreed to my proposition. As I started shuffling, I noted that I was dreaming in color.
But I always dream in color. So why would now be any different?
I shuffled the deck face up against my habit. As she recognized certain cards, she would call them out. “Heyyyyy, Death! And look, it’s that Tower motherfucker!” She was not upset to see them, so I continued as did she. “It’s good that you keep the negative cards in the deck. I am so fucking tired of people trying to blow smoke up my ass by taking the negative cards out as if they could take negativity out of life.”
“Yes, I work with intact decks, sometimes with extra cards. But Death and the Tower and other so-called negative cards are not really negative. They are negative in the way that sugar is negative. Some sugar in your diet is good and necessary. Too much will rot your teeth and cause other problems if you persist. Death and the Tower are stages we sometimes have to work through. It’s not pleasant at the time, but pulling one’s head out of one’s ass rarely is.”
She shrieked in genuine laughter and clapped her hands carefully so that only the palms touched each other. It was then that I noted she was dressed in primarily yellow. Yellow extensions added highlights to her braids. Her long and curled nails were painted yellow and black. She wore a yellow jumpsuit with a great amount of gold and yellow-stoned jewelry. Even her eyeshadow was yellow, and her lip liner as well.
She gestured for me to deal.
The world lost its color and became shades of grey except for one hue.
Blue became vibrant and shimmering.
And even then, the only thing that was showing as blue were the blue portions of the face-up cards.
She gave no indication that my perception of the dreamworld had changed. Time slowed down as I focused on the top two cards. One in my hand about to be laid on the table, and one still face up on the deck I held tightly. Both had shimmering blue sections in areas that teased at my memory.
She read my face as I studied the first card. I glanced at her and realized she already knew what the cards were. I looked back at the card in my hand.
The god damn alarm shattered the dream before I could see further.
I reserve the right to go through my Universal Waite deck to see which cards have blue in the areas that shimmered in the dream.