A cold sun: the centre bare, no card yet set there, for they had only been dealt once and my hand was just about to place the first central card in its destined spot when the thought of the sun occurred. I hoped it wasn't a king.
Second round. Third round. Fourth.
It hasn't showered today as it did yesterday, when I was at this same stage: arranging the cards. There's been no pitter-patter against the window panes to arrest my attention and delay my appointment.
So...
A sundial made of cards. Yet no shadows by which to tell the time of day will fall across its face. It's already getting dark. Outside. Inside. Late afternoon light. A pink-greyish shade, that will with time grow deeper and darker. The pink will fade to blend with the grey; the grey will deepen and deepen, sometimes to an oily block of black, but by then my curtains will have been drawn and its transmutation to this: the dark of night, will have gone unnoticed, and yet its barred presence will be felt because the upright lamp's on, casting shadows on the wall and ceiling, and the circulating air feels colder.
Or is that just my imagination? Sensitive to the direction of the wind and to bright or muted light. Wherever I am. Regardless of the time of day.
However, light cannot change to an all-engulfing black as quickly as that in the three games I play. That comes after, in the hours set aside for writing. In that dedicated segment where ungovernable thoughts are mastered and where nothing else is permitted to interfere; in that all too brief period before the body vocalises its needs and I try to delay then resign myself to: a hot shower, food.
I could easily live on Spanish time. Or I do only feel this because I'm a couple of years off forty? My digestion doesn't mind. I eat carbs at nine. And feel tickety-boo.
I digress. For the clock face with its card numerals has no influence then. Its pause spent, its games won. The kings united and standing firm, two stern and two with more gracious expressions.
Yet in that suspension, in that gap of time where a door to all thought is opened, there's always a chance a king will forego his given moment to cause the loss of a life or a blow that signals death. That final strike, like the last stroke of midnight when any magic is undone. Everything reverts to what it was. The day unchanged. All because each suit of king made an ill-timed (though for them it was timely) appearance, thereby putting an end to the unfailing hope that maybe, just maybe, they'd be licked.
Just once out of three games. That's all I ask for.
There's still two more to play, so the hope though dimmed remains. And a king might in the next two fall in the wrong place on the clock face or in the pack, which will give the opponent the advantage, if an advantage in a game of probability can be had. It cannot be pressed or made, that's for sure; the odds are mostly against you. I think. Because I'm not good at computing that kind of thing, and I think a lot of it comes down to the shuffle, at which I think I must be poor.
I've grown more conscious of how I collect the cards. I gather them back into a pack in an unsystematic manner, divide in two and shuffle five times over, ensuring the corner of each card in each half overlaps with each other as I flick through, like one of those tiny books where the drawings form a moving picture, so they'll not be side by side with their equally valued cousins. This technique, however, needs perfecting, for in this USA printed deck the kings generally outwit me and appear all too quickly to take up their rightful central thrones.
Picture credit: The Shower of Cards, John Tenniel, 1832, Alice in Wonderland
All posts published this year were penned during the last.
