August 21, 2008
INTRODUCTION
| JONATHAN WOOD |
Strip lights that pull down a sheen of glass between you and the world. The sterile buzz of the air conditioning—that chill that is never quite there. Step outside, step away. Onto the streets. Out into the real—and, yes, that feels better, that is real light, that is real air, those are real advertisements, that is real sex they sell. And still, still . . .
You see a door, green, paint blistering—must be the heat. God the heat and the humidity like dog-wet breath on your neck. And you tell yourself, yes, you would like the air conditioning now, that it is better than this, because you are not the sort of person who goes into the sort of place that that sort of door enters, with its sign written in neon, its hocum and its pocum and all its other bullshit. But this real, well, it is all well and good in short bursts.
So up the stairs into the not-quite-blessed cool. And at least the light here is just that which stretches through the chicken-wire tattooed glass. And maybe that poor light leaves shadows, but maybe shadows are what you want, thank you very much. Maybe a little mystery is what you like.
You look at the shelves, which are beaten and battered but still functional at least, much like the books they hold. Spines that are still holding it together. You run a finger over the soft cotton smoothness where the sheen of the new has been worn away.
This feels real.
There is a noise behind you, and there is a girl. But of course there has to be a girl, this is a store, someone has to be minding it, yes, yes, that makes sense. You just didn’t see her straightaway. There are shadows here. You said it yourself.
She is younger than you expected. Black tank-top, green frilled skirt that brushes the ground and hides her feet. Her fingernails are not painted. Her hair is pulled up high, not quite in a bun, but not quite in a ponytail either. She walks across the room, over the threadbare carpet to a small card table. Her feet don’t make a sound, just the swish-swish of her skirt on her legs.
She indicates the table’s other chair. You hesitate but then you sit. Why not? Where can be the harm? Where?
She produces a deck of tarot cards. Her fingers blur. The soft slap of the cards against each other, the click of her nails as they catch their edges. Back and forth and back and forth between her hands. She shuffles, cuts, shuffles again. And then eighteen cards are laid out before you, perfect rectangles, perfectly aligned.
Somewhere in the background you hear the A/C unit grind to a halt.
She smiles at you. Her teeth, perfect white rectangles, perfectly aligned. Pick a card, she says, any card.
Jonathan Wood is an Englishman in New York. He writes odd little things that show up in odd little places, like Weird Tales, Fantasy Magazine, and Farrago’s Wainscot. His work is forthcoming in Electric Velocipede, and several anthologies, including Crawlspace: Selections from the Inaugural Farrago’s Wainscot Exhibition. He’s also had a few pieces in this magazine as well. This is his first attempt at editing it. He can be found online at thexmedic.livejournal.com.