"And this," she continued quickly, "the five of Cups beside it? That's disappointments, but they're past now. This is the future." It was a woman in a garden with a bird on her finger. "She's enjoying the good things in life. Alone, but getting wiser about herself."
He suddenly thought of Marilyn, then chided himself. If he wasn't careful, he could start taking this stuff seriously, and then what? Can't go out on patrol today, the cards say it isn't auspicious. But no, he wasn't going to be going out on anymore patrols. Shit. Aloud, he said skeptically, "You can tell all this from a deck of cards?"
She fixed him with a steady gaze. "The knowing is already within me. The cards are like guideposts for my Seeing." Her gaze went distant. She had aged since he had last seen her, but not in a way that was bad. Almost, he could see as she claimed to. A sadness, a regret in your past, he'd say to her, but something you've learned from.
"I have the gift, you know," she told him, in a voice gone soft with mystery. Then Laurie grinned suddenly, spoiling the effect. "Or so Madam Moria tells me."
"You should stay away from that old witch," Stepovich chided her. "Filling your head full of superstition."
"Daddy!" Laurie objected heatedly. "She does not.And she's going to take me and Jeffrey to the Farmer's Market. That's where she buys the spices to put in her teas."
"That okay with your mom?"Laurie shrugged. "She said she'd think about it."
"I bet. Don't go telling her it was my idea."
"Don't you want to see me in the layout?" Laurie changed the subject.
"Where are you?" Stepovich asked grudgingly.
"Here." She tapped a card of a young man with a fish in his cup. "This is me. Page of Cups. It means a captivating young person, studious and drawn to the arts. And you know what this means, here, in my future?" A man with a crown on his head, holding a wand. Green was the color of his jerkin.
"I'm almost afraid to ask."
"It means like beginning an apprenticeship. Learning something." Laurie gathered up the cards carefully.
"Learning what?" Stepovich asked guardedly.
"Music lessons," she said matter of factly. "That card almost always means music lessons."
And the street lights never waver.
And the red lights never dim.
And the neon always glitters;
And it was better me than him.
"RED LIGHTS AND NEON"
The End
STEVEN KARL ZOLTAN BRUST was born in 1955. His hobbies include arguing and drumming. He plays psychedelic rock n' roll for Cats Laughing, twisted trad and quirky Celtic for Morrigan, and Sufi drumming for Sulliman's Silly Surfing Sufi Circus, as well as doing the occasional solo act with guitar and banjo. He supports his music habit by writing, and lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
For information on ordering "Another Way to Travel"by Cats Laughing (tape or CD) or "Queen of Air and Darkness" by Morrigan (tape), send a self-addressed,stamped envelope to:
Steel Dragon Press
Box 7253
Minneapolis, MN 55407
MEGAN LINDHOLM lives on a small farm in rural Roy, Washington with her four children and occasionally her fisherman husband, Fred. Hobbies include cleaning up after the children and intending to have a garden. Her tastes in music include psychedelic rock n' roll, twisted trad and quirky Celtic, and Sufi drumming. She highly recommends the soundtrack from the movie that should have been made,"Another Way to Travel." Said soundtrack can be ordered from:
Steel Dragon Press
Box 7253
Minneapolis, MN 55407
Oh, she also writes.
AN id=subtitle»
PROLOGUE
I hope you don't mind
If I rest inside your door
Please forgive the snowy footprints
I'm tracking on your floor.
"RED LIGHTS AND NEON"
Doom teka teka teka doom teka tek.
Doom teka teka teka doom teka tek.
Doom teka teka teka doom teka tek…
Doom teka teka teka doom teka tek.
There is something about the sound of the tambourine.The zils rattle or ring in the same tones and pitches as the kettles in which you heat the water or stew the meat, and the calfskin head that is as old as Nagypapa will predict the rain by saying dum or the dryness by saying doooooom. When the tambourine is played well, the feet move on wings of their own, and the heart leaps with them, while the lips, distant observers above, cannot help but smile a little, no matter how somber the mood. This is why the dance and the laughter are one, and whoever says different is either deluded or in the service of You Know Who.And You Know Who has many servants.Some are weak, some are strong. Some need guidance day by day; others, well, others can work their evil on their own, and bring more souls into the sway. For example, there is the Fair Lady, Luci, who-
No. We will not dwell on that now, there is plenty of time later. Now, we are remembering the tambourine, which is as perfect a match for the fiddle as the onion is for the bacon, and the memory of the ear and the tongue is forever, which is as it should be. These things stay with a person, no matter how many years have passed, or what paths he has trod. Once those sounds are in his blood, he can never forget-
Never forget-
Umm…
Somewhere, perhaps half a mile to his left, a siren divided the evening into sections. Why do they call them sirens, he wondered. What sort of sailor would be attracted to them? The question was rhetorical and ironic. He wasn't worried. He had no reason to think the siren was for him, so he continued to stroll down Saint Thomas, which seemed to be the street where appliance stores gathered, with a few grocers and liquor stores interleaved between them like the thick cloth that keeps the pottery from breaking against itself when-
Umm…
He had been a sailor once-twice? Something like that. He remembered rope burns on his hands; endless buckets of fish soup; toothless, fair-haired men with food in their beards shouting to him in Dutch;salt water in his mouth; the sick-sweet smell of rum;earplugs so the batteries wouldn't deafen him; scraping sounds of a too-small tool against an ugly green metal hull; salt water in his mouth. He almost remembered meeting a small shark once, but this could have been a dream. He'd never met a siren, in any case.
It was coming closer. He almost ducked into a storefront from some urge to flee, but there was really no reason to think they were looking for him. He kept walking.
A wooden door opened almost in his face and a burly figure in a red plaid jacket walked away from him. He noticed the jacket and thought. Is it cold, then?He could see his breath, and there was a light coating of snow on the sidewalk, so it must be. He looked at his own clothing and saw only a very thinly woven cotton shirt, pale yellow with a few blue threads for embroidery. He wore baggy blue pants of the same material, and high doeskin boots. These should not be enough to keep him warm. Perhaps he ought to go inside. A sign above the door said ST. THOMAS BAR, which meant it was a public house. The door had opened before him, which could as easily be a Sign as it could be a Trap or nothing at all, and the siren, which ought not to have anything to do with him, was getting closer. He opened the door and stepped inside, entering another alien world, which is what any new place is, after all, isn't it?
Cigarette smoke, an anemic blue, hung over a pool table, entwined with a neon BUDWEISER sign, and crept over to a long bar where a fat man in an apron was talking with a smiling patron. The fat man's features were not unpleasant, and his nose had been broken at least twice; the patron hunched his shoulders as if the world had been too much for him for along time, and he had a large scar down the side of his neck-a knife scar.