The Tower Card
This is my message to you, from a place where nobody ever returns.
Actually, I’ve always been the kind of person who believes in mystery stuff. Not that I’d think about ghosts or monsters under my bed all the time; but there has been a slight shiver after every story, and a growing passion for tarot.
My mother taught me how to handle the cards when I was a child, but I lost interest soon and forgot them. Not much later, she died in a car crash, and I went to live with my dad in Berlin. Now I’m 24, and a couple of month ago, I returned to my mother’s house to pick up a few things. Of course, I found the tarot cards, too, and getting nostalgic I decided to take them with me.
From that day on, I started asking the tarot regularly, once or twice a week. It cleared up my mind and made me feel a little more confident, feeling a connection to another power. You may call me a freak, but that’s what I thought of it. Sometimes, I could almost feel the presence of my mother again, smiling gently and explaining the meaning of every single card.
‘The most important thing about tarot’, I remembered her advice ‘is to honor what it tells you. You may not ignore the card you pick, because it picked you, and you may never ignore its voice.’
Even though I knew that, that evening, I was in a bad mood already, and hoping the tarot would cheer me up (which was definitely the wrong base), I decided to pick a card. Without taking time for the usual candlelight atmosphere, I just sat down on the bed, grabbing the tarot, hastily riffling. Then I drew a card, checked what it was and threw it away with a snort. The tower was one of the worst symbols and I really didn’t need any more bad news right now.
So I drew another card, hopefully something that would fit my purposes better, but as I looked at it a short shreek escaped my lips. The tower card, again. This couldn’t be possible, still holding the paper tightly, I stared at the other card on the floor, unable to move. Slowly, I turned my head to where my mirror hung. The reflection didn’t show it lying there, and as I dared to take another look, it was gone.
Suddenly, my head hurt and it got hard to breathe. What had I done? I tried to tell myself that it was all a dream, and that none of this really happened. My hands moved automatically, I put the cards aside, not wanting to have them in my reach right now. Cold shivers went down my spine and I lay down, putting my covers over my head.
That’s when the headache became really bad. I began to sweat and my throat went dry. At this point, I was really starting to believe that I had made a huge mistake. ‘You may not ignore the card you pick, because it picked you’, my mind told me all over again. It was like my mother stood right next to me, her voice filled the room, echoing in my head, driving me completely insane.
I don’t know how long I lay there, but somehow I managed to fall asleep, because the next thing I remember is waking up. My head still hurt, but I told myself that this didn’t happen and went to work as usual.
When I returned, I was feeling strange again, but resisting the wish to run away, I closed the door behind me and entered my room. The second I opened the door, I started to scream.
In the center, the tower card was lying on the floor, next to the corpse of my mother.
I turned around immediately, trying to open the door, but I couldn’t get out. Blinded by fear, I wanted to crash the window, but it wouldn’t break. There was no escape, and suddenly, I could smell smoke.
That’s when I knew; I would die. My house was burning, and I ignored the warning.
It was over.
‘And you may never ignore its voice.’
