Good at Cards
by Rita Feinstein
The first card is The Lovers, reversed. The second is Three of Swords, a heart skewered by blades.
The interpretation is painfully obvious. “You’ve experienced heartbreak recently,” I say. “Maybe a relationship where one person was more invested than the other.”
“How did you know that?” the girl across the table gasps.
I never know how to respond to this question. The truth is that I probably would’ve told her the same thing without pulling a single card. People don’t seek spiritual guidance when they’re happy, and most people are unhappy for romantic reasons.
“Now is the time to focus on self love,” I say, because it’s important to end on a positive note.
Her eyes fill with tears behind her hipster glasses. “Wow, thank you,” she says. “You have no idea how much I needed to hear that.”
Still thanking me profusely, she rejoins the tide of people drunkenly celebrating the end of college. I wish there were a quieter place for me to read, but Kaleigh wanted me in the high-visibility room between the kitchen and the patio. She also wanted me to wear something “mystical.” I feel ridiculous in my granny-ish beaded shawl.
I never should have told her I read cards. I never should have agreed to do this party.
At one point in my life, this was the dream. I wanted to be just like my godmother, a master of the arcane arts. She had long black hair, always smelled like rosewater, and of course wore beaded shawls. During the darkest days of my early teens, she taught me tarot. Over steaming mugs of chai, we went through her Rider-Waite deck card by card, learning the major and minor arcana, the aces, the court cards.
Certain cards scared me at first. The Tower. The Devil. Death. But my godmother taught me to think of them not as challenges, but as opportunities for growth.
Another partygoer sits at my table, and I know from the angle of his baseball hat that he’s here to debunk me. I’ve grown to admire people like him. He’s already cynical, so he’ll never have a crisis of disillusionment.
As he’s shuffling, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I grit my teeth and send it to voicemail.
“I didn’t know wizards have cell phones,” he says, smirking.
“I’m not a wizard.”
I’m not, and neither was my godmother. I thought she was good at reading cards, but she was just good at reading people. And yet she let me believe that magic was real. That I could channel divine energy from other dimensions, that my third eye was wide open. At the time, it was what I needed to hear. But now it just feels like a betrayal.
The card the bro draws is Death. A skeletal knight on a white horse, a dead body at his feet. It means change, not real death, my godmother told me. Whatever happens, it happens for a reason.
My phone buzzes again. I don’t have to be psychic to know it’s my mom.
“Sorry,” I say to the bro, and answer the phone.
Most of what my mom says turns to static in my brain, but I make out the words “Do you want to say goodbye?”
An invisible fist crushes my lungs. I can’t breathe. My godmother can’t breathe. Her crystals and raw foods couldn’t cure her.
I stare at the Death card on the table, the blankly grinning skull. Sometimes the change is death. Sometimes things happen for no good reason at all.
On the other side of the country, my mom presses her phone to my godmother’s ear. I heard the shallow rattle of her breath, but she doesn’t say anything.
I panic and end the call. If I cry, I won’t be able to stop.
“Sorry,” I say again.
I try to focus on the card, but all I see is my godmother’s kitchen. She’s pointing at the setting sun in Death’s background, a benevolent smile on her face. “What do you think this means?” she asks, and when I shake my head, unsure, she says, “It’s time to let go.”
About the Author:
Rita Feinstein is the author of the poetry chapbook Life on Dodge (Brain Mill Press, 2018). Her work has appeared in Grist, Willow Springs, and Sugar House, among other publications, and has been nominated for Best of the Net and Best New Poets. She received her MFA from Oregon State University. Twitter handle: @RitaFeinstein
About Weekly Flash Prose and Poetry:
CutBank Online features one work of flash prose or prose poetry every Monday. Submissions are free and open year-round. Send us your best work of 750 words or less at https://cutbank.submittable.com/submit.