Amadeus squirmed and leapt from my arms. He shot through the door, and instinctively, I darted after him. As I pushed it open, I noticed that the interior side was washed in a brilliant, deep, crimson hue. Blue on one side. Red on the other. My stomach twitched. Was it coincidental? I metWhen I opened my eyes, the butterflies were gone, and the woman sitting in the center was flipping tarot cards down onto the table. She had spectacles perched on the end of her nose, and the lenses gleamed like marbles. She arranged them in an extensive spiral pattern around a central card. She gestured for me to look at it, as red birds flew out of the curtains. The one seated to the right rose up, and opened the door. The air was alive with the trembling wings.
I turned the card over.
It was blank. The white surface gleamed. I frowned, and turned it over, ran my fingers over the edges, puzzled. The back was identical to the other cards', decorated with an leaf pattern.
"That card is the Indicator. It signifies you, the querent."
"It's blank."
My mind expanded, became a helium balloon. The woman's voice grabbed it, held it down.
"You are not who you are. You are only what you are doing. Nothing. You reflect something else. Void."
She gestured to the card, and it became a vortex, which gradually reversed and spewed tiny red seeds all over the room like hail. They bounced off the surface of the table like beads.
"Have you ever looked inside yourself before?"
I imagined organs and muscles. My heart beating. Red. The color. The inside out. Click.
Brilliant red goldfish swam in the air before me, their little fins flicking and shimmering like glitter, mouths opening and closing, unblinking eyes. I caught one, felt it quiver in my hands, released it. It wiggled towards Amadeus. The answers came slow and thick, like porridge oozing out of a pot. Again, patience.
I became so detached that I just started crawling into people's heads? I became so empty that my mind was void of useful things and people used me like I was a vacant lot where you can throw your trash or host a party? What about Olmstein and his psychedelic exhibits?
I heard something that could be described as amusement. Dry.
"A slight miscalculation on our part."
I'm turning into nothing more than a cell in a human beehive. Making wax for the man. I could be in Greece, or Uzbekistan, or Iceland, or New Orleans, writing or painting or dancing or anything, doing anything. I could be singing or building or laughing or sleeping. I could own the stars, and instead I live in a building with a fat landlord and crazy ventilation. I go to a job everyday which makes me nothing but miserable. I'm right on my way to cracking up. I'll be a crazy old lady with five fucking million Amadeus Jr.'s, and I'll talk to myself. I'm becoming one of the voices I hear. Misery. Resignation�but how can I break away now?
How can I not?
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