Nanowrimo - The Tarot

She heated up some mushroom soup and made cheese straws like her mother had taught her.

She wasn’t sure why, but suddenly – squirrel – she wanted to find her tarot cards and the book she had purchased in her later teens – The Tarot of the Bohemians.  It had a purple cover.  She couldn’t remember the author – some Bohemian no doubt.

She couldn’t find the book, but she did find her cards.  They were wrapped in a silk cloth and tucked behind the paraphernalia inside her bedside table. These weren’t her first deck of cards.  Those cards she had purchased, along with the book, but many years back she had thrown them out after attending a lecture at her church about the pitfalls of things like tarot and horoscopes.

She hadn’t thrown them all out.  She had kept the Major Arcana card – THE SUN.  She used it as a book mark in a book of verses – one for each week of the year. 

However, a few years ago she had purchased another deck called Angel cards.  They were tarot cards, but the illustrations were of angels and archangels.  Each card was a beautiful piece of art. 

She slowly shuffled the cards, thinking of her to-do list.  Thinking of the end of the month.  Thinking of that newer world. She laid them out as she had been taught over forty years ago. She used the celtic cross layout – always had.  Ten cards.

Suddenly the smoke alarm went off – the soup had boiled dry, and the cheese straws were burnt beyond saving.  Back to the drawing board.  And by drawing board she meant that she made herself a cheese and lettuce sandwich.  She made tea and stayed there watching the kettle boil so as not to set off the alarm again. See?  Watched pots do boil. 

With tea and sandwich in hand she went back to the card layout. and slowly turned over the first card.