Amanda Miska and Barbara Esgalhado

Barbara Esgalhado
from the Kafigeledjo Series
Inspiration Piece

The Tarot Reader
Amanda Miska

Response

Her friends confess to moving the Ouija board planchette, applying more pressure and direction to control the movements to their own whims. The fortunes in the cookies from the Golden Wok have devolved into inane wisdoms, lucky numbers, and random language lessons. And the Magic 8 Ball has gone blurry-blue. Newspaper horoscopes say vague things about happiness, about paying attention, about “next steps.” Nothing worked anymore. Everything was broken and without magic.

Her grandmother tsked at her tarot deck splayed out on the living room floor, saying that to try to predict the future or divine what someone else thought of you was “like trying to rhyme with orange.”

She was 17 with a smart mouth and a hopeless crush on a boy.

“Orange Borange,” she said as she turned over another card onto the shaggy brown carpet. The Queen of Cups.

And her grandmother said, “That’s not a real word.”

“I made it up.”

She flipped through her tarot guide, skimming the description, nodding her head.

“Just because you made it up, that doesn’t make it real.”

The girl flipped over the third card, The Emperor. She flipped through the book again. She sighed, slid the cards back together, reshuffled the deck, and started all over.

She would deal until she got the answer she wanted.

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