It's in the cards

She pulled one more card. The Empress. This was her inspiration for
her Queen of Hearts costume at the Mad Hatter's Ball back in
college. The stains remain on the hem of the red taffeta
bridesmaid's dress she always meant to have shortened for formal
parties that never happen. A nice memory, but no insight, she sweeps
up the cards into a pile and wraps them in the tattered pink scarf
and puts them away, still as uncertain as ever.

Disciplined meditation has taken her away from her comfortable
rituals. The cards mock her with their insipid vagueness. She
recalls hours spent in the library with her best friend randomly
opening books, giggling at answers to life's most dire questions,
usually having to do with men and sex and love. Then, the prompts
were needed. Now, she knows, the answers are not in drawings that
have been passed down for generations or rituals devised by modern
school girls.

She sits and waits, focusing on the picture in her mind and the words
written in her heart.