'The Fool' by Clarissa Guerra

I looked across from my seat where she sat. It took me a years’ salary just to get her to consider talking to me. I had no choice but to turn to the streets to gather the money needed. She watched me across the seat will the chauffer drove. Her ancient body spoke of an ageless wisdom but no one knows her exact age. Her face, lined and cragged with the years she experienced and the fortune’s of men she had won, bored into my soul. Her white hair proved the stark contrast of her attire. Her skin brown showed the evidence of her mulatto blood and her dress was black as the night.

The city of New Orleans gleamed in the soft sunlight of spring. Birds flew sang the song of my heart as we drove deeper into the French Quarter. The wrought iron fences pierced into the sky, foliage of rich pinks, bold purples, deep blues, and strong greens surrounded businesses and dwellings.

We were in her burgundy Ford Model T. The automobile was a testament to her vast wealth. Yet to let it be commonly known that I so much as spoke to her would led to my fall from grace. I felt the hard steel of my gun in my purse. In these times of poverty people of my esteemed position found it necessary to carry weapons. I didn’t think she would harm me but what could be said of later events.

I looked into the dark, cold eyes of Marie LaVeau, the most famous fortune teller in New Orleans. People the world over came to her for her words. The people of New Orleans commonly say that she makes a poor man rich and a rich man poor. Many people say that the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, but Marie LaVeau is his instrument on earth.

We arrived at her house and walked me to a dark room. Twenty three candles surrounded the room and a large crystal ball in the center of the room standing on a small round table. The table holding the ball could only seat two people. We sat across from each other. I gave her the money she required. I came to find if she would confirm my happiness, if he truly loved me. She rose and danced as she lit the candles eveloping our small party in a circle of fire. Her grace would not have been out of place center stage at a ballet.

She then sat again and mumbled words I had never heard before. She turned cards, one a queen and the other two women and one man. Her eyes lit up as she turned a black card that showed a man lying with several knifes in his back.

“Someone you love is secretly true to another who is very close to you. Leave now and forget you ever saw my face,” she said in her gravelly voice. Even I could see the truth laid plain before my eyes.

That night I couldn’t sleep. For months my happiness was false. He made me believe in us but now I could see it was only my family’s affluence that was his compelling attraction. I started looking through his clothes and gently ran my fingers across them. I began to smell them. That smell that he always had was so sweet, so vaguely like honey. Then I realized where I had smelled that aroma before. I left my house to find him.

I opened the door and saw them in the dark room I had been in earlier that day. They laughed and kissed until they saw the gun in my hand. Before they could rise from the sofa they were dead. As I looked at their lifeless bodies I walked to the table. The cards of my fate were still laid out against the table. She had tried to avoid this but even she couldn’t turn Fortune’s wheel. As I examined the cards there was one card that she must have turned after I left. It was the fool about to fall of a cliff. He seemed to be oblivious to the precipice that was about to consume him. I gazed into her crystal ball and saw my dark destiny as clearly as I saw them through the transparent orb.

(Inspired by Cher’s “Dark Lady”)