Glimpse Of Paradise

Went round to see a couple of pals today after spending much to long indoors. The winter may be over, and you’d think a part of you might take up the offer of gentle warmth and sunshine coming through, but when you find yourself, halfway through July, still taking up the same pew in front of the telly that you did all winter, you start to realise the sadness the summer brings. The good weather does not proffer that same old excuse that held strong oct-feb – that it was too cold and/or wet to go out - that there is no excuse now to not go outside unless you want to admit, to yourself at least, that most of the time there is nowhere for you to go.

So I went out. Through my door, down the bleachy, well kept stairs; out onto the street. Around 5.45pm. In the air hung a motionless hardly-there fog. So light and thin I thought it might’ve been a grand mirage or the quick and sudden onset of cataracts. I was later to find out it was due to the hoods robbing a car and crashing it into the security gates of a police station, setting it on fire before they bailed. Not the best welcome back into the world of the living and breathing and moving. I had chosen to walk out when the mentalist element picked up their Molotov cocktails and sharpened their pitchforks.

I walked the road up to the pals’ place. They told me they’d some news for me. They’d moved out of pal#1’s older brother’s (who’s also my dealer/wholesaler) to shack up together after they fell in love. So I wondered what the news could be walking along. My sheltered, conservative upbringing told me they were to be wed. It turned out she was preggers! As I am totally averse to children I pulled the best happy-for-you face I could and said (a little too loudly to be this side of sincere) CONGRATULATIONS! Were I to be pal I would feel a suicide letter coming on. Personally I wonder (sometimes aloud) why people want children. To me it is like wilfully contracting cancer. For me the main sticking point is all the noise they make. If I were to be told I was to be a father I’d pray to all that was (un)holy the child was born a deaf mute.

The (girl) pal brought out her Thoth deck of Tarot Cards said to be favoured (or created. Can’t remember) by Alistair Crowley. She also showed me this book giving diagrams and explaining what each card meant. She told me of a game she played, the yes – no game, and explained the elaborate way she cut the deck and what order she turned the cards over, to set the game up. I wanted to ask her to do my cards, but it was nearly teatime so I didn’t bother. I said I was going to buy my own but she warned against it.
“It’s bad luck,” she advised. “Someone has to give them to you.”

This video reminds me of the pictures on the cards.