The Fool

A DC insider wanders on a dark night

The Fool

A cold night in DC. The winter lay upon the city like an occupying force, the tanks of ice leaving treads of frost across the roads. Submit, the cold seemed to say to me as I walked the streets. I win. Shiver for me.

No! I wanted to scream. But I did, of course; there was no point arguing now.

I wasn’t wearing gloves, which made things worse. But I couldn’t if I wanted to indulge my habit, rolling a quarter between my frozen fingers, up and down and back up again, this way George Washington, that way an eagle, wings spread above a proud laurel.

Occasionally, I’d reach a crossroads, and be faced with a choice. Left, or right? I flipped the coin to decide. The eagle. Right, then. I told myself it was pure chance, pure maths, but that wasn’t quite true. In my heart I knew it was a kind of divination �" or, at least, I saw it that way. I hoped the act would make things clear, part the fog of the world for a moment, allow me to see straight into the world as it was, all laid out in a clear pattern. Just a glimpse at the future, now that would be something.

“B***h,” I said aloud as my headache struck. More painkillers tonight. I was running low. The Senator would help.

The fog of the world seemed hard to glimpse past. All of DC was hidden behind a cool, icy filter. Heavy clouds above blocked the stars; in Winter’s new kingdom, no outside help was allowed.

The coin was, to some degree, a fraud, though nothing much was real in this city anymore. I knew where I was going �" an old house, two stories of ugly concrete tucked away beneath the beltway. I simply allowed the coin to dictate my route, though it lengthened my journey by an hour. I hoped the act would allow me some secret insight as I walked; perhaps I’d find some optimistic child, or a dead bird or some other omen. Yet there was nothing. No doubt the Crone Beneath the Beltway would think me a complete fool.

One among many. January 20^th, 2017. It was to be the year of the fool �" the ice was just the beginning. The demented child, who treated war and peace as a toddler would a snowball, would make things colder, and colder, and colder. The creep would creep like a freezing blanket til the whole world turned white, and all the people lost their minds from the sounds of chattering teeth, their psychotic laughs and raging shivers mixing into one.

He understood more than I did, I thought. He did what I couldn’t. Pulled back the veil, peered into a world other than this. But the world he saw was…wrong. I pulled my coat tighter.

I was at the house now. The collapsing house of concrete, home of the Crone Beneath the Beltway. Did I really want to go in? The heavy traffic above tried to answer me. Yes, said one lane. No, said the other. I flipped the coin to decide. George Washington. Then it struck me �" I hadn’t chosen which face meant what.

I trudged to the door, and knocked a frozen hand against the frame.

“Come in,” said a voice, loud enough to be heard even over the racing DC cars, and so I did.

Inside was warm, and quiet. I closed my eyes and breathed deep, letting the warm air fill my lungs and spread through my chest. Then I frowned. “Where is everyone? I thought you’d be busy, tonight.”

“They are too frightened,” the reply drifted elegantly from the kitchen, accompanied by footsteps. It was handsome voice. The Crone’s accent wasn’t American �" Cuban, according to the rumours, though I didn’t know anything about that. “All but you.” 

“I had nowhere else to go,” I said, shrugging as I realised how sad it sounded. I took a seat at the Crone’s table. Her house, despite it’s ugly concrete exterior, was beautiful inside. Glass crystal danced from fine string, hanging from the ceiling, and as they danced they cast rainbows about the place, so much clearer than the frost outside.

“Well then,” the Crone said as she joined me at the table. To call her that was unfair; she was over fifty, yes, but good looking, with sandy blonde hand hair that tumbled down her back, and a wide mouth that smiled easily, and brown eyes the colour of honey. “Let’s get started.”

She took my hand. “You are frozen, child.”

“Foolish, more like.”

“That too. That coin of yours leads you this way and that, and one day it might just lead you to your death.”

“It’s no different to your cards,” I said defensively. “Or anything else. My coin, your cards, astrology, the I Ching, all just ways of diving things.”

“You’re not wrong. But I know how to read, whereas you meander mindlessly. Now, hush,” she reached into her bag, and pulled out her cards. “What do you want to know?”

I asked her my question. What happens now? Will the world carry on? How can I see into the future, pre-empt what will happen, stop it? Is this the real world, or a dream, or some mass delusion we all need to break? Then the Crone pointed out these were many questions, not one, but perhaps, she said, they share the same answer.

She placed down her cards, and one-by-one she flipped them over, revealing things about me.

My current disposition: Five of Cups. Gloomy. Despairing. Yes, that was true.

My immediate past: The Tower. Yes, that made a sense: a card showing high ambition, turning to disaster. The Senator could attest to that.

Yet I got no answers to my question. I knocked my hand upon the table. “Come on!” I cried. “Tell me my future, the things I want to know!”

“Very well,” the Crone said. There was only one card left, and with elegant fingers, she turned it over.

The Fool.

“Oh, come on! That’s too convenient. Are you playing a joke on me?”

“Taking you for a fool?” The Crone chuckled. “No, child. The card before you is true.”

“Well, what does it mean?”

“What the Fool always means. A new beginning, and an end of old. The Fool leaves the old kingdom, and heads for somewhere new, to find new songs to sing, new Kings and Queens and pretty Princesses to entertain. That he does what he always does; he plays his game, and he moves on.”

“But…” I stuttered, words jamming in my throat. “What new beginning? This isn’t a new beginning. It’s an old darkness.”

“I agree.”

“Then why the hell did you show me the Fool?”

“You asked for glimpse of the world that lies beneath, no? That was the meaning behind all your questions, questions, questions. That is what is in the card. The truer world, stripped bear, a clearer view. And in that view…I see you, the Fool.”

I stood up, blood rising in my face. “You’re mocking me.”

“No. Never.”

“I shouldn’t have come here. This was a mistake. If you were so smart, all those aides and interns and politicians coming to you for advice, this would never have happened.”

“They chose to come here,” the Crone’s wide mouth was a hard line. I’ve offended her. “As did you.”

I snorted. “The coin brought me here.”

She shrugged. “Same thing. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

“Keep your cards,” I said, and left in protest.

Outside again, and I was cold immediately. I pulled my coat as close as I could, beginning the long trudge home. Stupid b***h, I thought. The headache hit me.

Absently, I looked up. Still the clouds covered the sky, winter’s bright little soldiers smothering the world. Complete. And hopeless.

But I glimpsed something, shining, for an instant. The clouds had parted, giving way to the tiniest gap �" a star twinkled above.

Idiot. Fool. Don’t you know your light isn’t welcome here? The star must have heard me, because the clouds closed, and I was alone once more.

And yet, bizarrely, against all the forces of the cold, I felt a touch of warmth. It was as if someone had seen me �" the real me, not filtered or distorted by the veil of the world, but the truth of me. It was like being looked at by someone who loved me.

I turned, and looked back to the Crone’s house. I understood what she meant now. Should I go back? Apologise? No doubt I’d stumble over my words, make things even worse…but I couldn’t just leave on those terms.

Then I knew. I took my coin from my pocket, and flipped it.