finally being talked into going on that funfair ride. “Ok, Scar.” He said. “For you!”
She smiled and shuffled her cards quickly. They looked like over-sized playing cards, with strange exotic pictures on one side and blue twirling patterns on the other - they were heavily dog eared and worn.
Carefully she put them into two equal stacks side by side in front of him. “Put one on top of the other, Doc.”
“Which one do I chose?” He said blankly to her.
She raised her eyebrows at him. “Fate is only fate if you let it.” and clicked her tongue.
He looked down at them, pondering it like a chess move. Then in one quick motion picked the left stack up and placed it on top the right stack.
Scar clapped her hands. “Ok, Doc. There’s lots of ways you can do this next bit. Read somewhere a woman could do it with just three cards, wish I was that clever - but I’m not so I prefer this.”
She took the top card and placed it in front of herself, but didn’t turn it over, then picked five more from the top of the pack, turning each one over and forming them into a line beneath the single unturned card.
“See that didn’t hurt did it, Doc?” She said with a smile.
He blushed slightly. “No, that didn’t.”
Scar shot him a quick, puzzled frown, then looked back down to the cards again. Her long matted hair hung over her face. After a few moments she reached out a dirty hand and fiddled with them. Some of the cards were upside down - nearly all of them had scribbled notes alone the sides, but as to the meaning of them, I couldn’t tell you.
“I don’t. I...” Scar mumble and began fiddling with the cards once more, touching each one carefully with a long dirty fingernail and mumbled again, but this time louder. “You...?” Her eyes fixed him with a bemused look. “You have no answer. There’s no answer here, they're silent - the cards are silent.” With her right hand, she pulled back her hair. “I’ve never had a reading like this; you can’t get a reading like this. They’re not speaking to me, they're blank?”
Mr Kydd who by now had come back from his short walk, sat back down with them, I returned as well with a bungle of sticks.
“I see the cards have come out to play.” said Mr Kydd. “Are they singing for you my dear?”
She quickly gathered them up and carefully put them back into her coat pocket. Except for the unturned card, that she put into her other pocket. “You don’t want to know, Mr Kydd.”
Doc looked embarrassed. “Did I do something wrong, Scar?”
“Look, Doc. I’m sorry - I’m not trying to play games. It’s this place you know, this fucking place.” She then walked off to her grave, as the first morning light broke free. It was that time again to go back to our own graves. It felt like it was becoming a habit, a part of the norm.
As we began to leave, Doc turned to Mr Kydd - his face looked drawn and sad. “I’m a damn fool.” Mr Kydd put his hand on, Doc’s shoulder, but said nothing. I felt sorry for him.
That night as the sun disappeared, we rose from our graves and sat back around the fire, each with their own thoughts, own questions, Scar sat cross leg slowly shuffled her cards in her lap. Doc nervously bit his dirty finger nails, while Mr Kydd leant his head back to stare at the stars.
“I wonder what the aliens up there would think of us sat down here tonight. What answers could they give us about all this?” He said in an idle way.
Scar looked up from her cards. “There are no aliens, Mr Kydd.”
“Oh please, Scar just look up. All those lights shining out life, just like that highway over there. Doctor, would you please tell the young lady the scientific fact that is above all our heads.”
Doc spat a small piece of nail out. “It’s something else.”
Mr Kydd turned his head towards him. “Doctor, you can’t say such a thing as that. The stars are pure science.”
“No, they’re not. None of this is.”
With a laugh, Mr Kydd burst into life. “I see the thing the devil and God fears most in men.” He looked directly at, Doc. “A change of heart! Is there something you need to say, maybe even to us my friend. After all, this was your idea.”
Doc, slowly rubbed his brow, his eyes looked like they hadn’t seen sleep in a while, a long while. “I have given it a lot of new thought, about the chemicals waking us all up. And to some of the questions I just can’t seem to find answers to.”
His face became strained and worried, his whole body tightened. “Before I start this, there’s something I want to say, one thing that has left me completely in the void.”
Cupping a hand over his mouth, he looked up towards the sky - his eyes jumped from one star to another, as if trying to read them for an answer.
Then slowly he closed his eyes and began to speak just above a whisper. “I don’t know how I died. One moment I can remember sending an email from my office, the next I’m here. How did I die, how? Was it illness, accident? What was it that ended my life?”
With an effort of will he forced his eyes to flicker back open. “And the more I think about it, the more I come to an answer, to an understanding.”
He turned towards, Scar. “Your cards were right, there is no answer for me and I don’t want to know either, I’m sick of knowing, even if that means not even knowing my own end. And to put the record straight, my reason, my secret is...”
From his jacket, he took out his notes and threw then onto the fire in one fluid motion. They instantly burst into flames. “I don’t believe in what I said to you all the other night, never have.” He tried to force a carefree smile as the flames grew higher, but it didn’t fool anyone.
Mr Kydd looked at him shocked. “But you’ve seen it work, we all have, you were right. Science and sociology is the answer.”
“But that’s just it. I’ve never believed in science. That’s the thing I need to get off my own chest. That’s my paradox. The very thing I don’t believe in is the very thing that will get me out of here, it’s crazy I know, it makes no sense at all. It has no answer - no answer at all.”
He turned his head to watch the last of his notes flicker away into ash. “For a long time when I was alive, I’d secretly lost the wonder of this world, the sheer magnitude of it all. I never really did think in the end there was a genetic nuts and bolts to all this. For all the answers science gives us, it is the questions that are more beautiful, more real than any set of cold calculated numbers could ever be.
All answers do is bring a cold logic - a cold order and what’s happening to us here is the ultimate question. Do you understand? I don’t want an answer - I’d rather just accept it like it is, with all its possibilities, all its endless possibilities. It’s like the way that no matter how close to the edge we go - life always finds a way to pull itself back.
I’ve been surrounded with numbers and answer’s all my life, hard facts and spread sheets. What I’m really trying to say is this. You can look at the molecular structure, the very atoms of any object, that a simple flower can lose all meaning to you and be lost into a matrix of formulas and meaningless data.
And it’s got nothing to do with believing in God either, I don’t. God’s too simple an answer for this. Let’s be honest that’s just Bronze Age thinking, yet at the same time all I really see science as - it’s just a complex rumour. I’m just glad to see the world didn’t blow itself up with all that information. Maybe at best this is where science and some element of religion meet…Like I say - no answer.”
“So why did you do it, Doc?” I said.
“Old habits die hard I guess, Sexton, Occupational hazard. It was the only logical thing to think of first - simple but true.”
He paused for a moment and scratched his dirty hair. “Maybe I should have fallen in love with someone. Don’t they say love only shows you the true beauty in this world? No questions, no answers, just love. Maybe I should have let that flower in me instead?”
He glanced over to Scar for a second, I thought he wa
s going to say something to her - to say it all out loud about what he felt and dreamed for them both. But he didn’t, it was for the best. Even he knew that.
Instead he stood up. It looked like a mountain had come off his shoulders and looked each of us in the face. “Sexton, I think you should talk more about yourself. Scar, don’t play with them cards to long, too many answers can weigh you down and Mr Kydd, there is one thing.”
Their eyes awkwardly met.
“Be careful. This isn’t a game and I don’t think this is opera either my friend, I don’t know what it is. But just be careful in what you say - you’re not a court jester.”
For the first time since being here, Mr Kydd looked serious. “Old habits do die hard, don’t they?” he shyly said.
Doc must have sensed he had hurt his feelings. “All I ever wanted to be when I was a child was a magician.”
Mr Kydd beamed his usual broad smile again. “I think you would have made a wonderful magician.”
“I could have been…The Great Count Zardiny.” Doc said and waved his fingers as if playing a piano. “Or even…The Mysterious Doctor Mist - touring the world with my magic tricks.”
Mr Kydd looked at him like they’d known each other all their lives, instead of the few short nights. “But you still have this one last act don’t you, my friend?”
“I do, I do. Well, if you can excuse me all, this is my turn to say goodbye, good luck my friends. Wherever it may take you and I hope it does take you.”
He shook each of our hands warmly and hugged, Scar for a second or two too long. Then stroll back to his grave without a care in the world.
He got to the foot of his grave and called out to us. “Ladies and gentlemen, for my final illusion tonight, I shall be performing the great disappearing act.”
We all stood up and gave a cheer. Why we did this I don’t know. Maybe like Doc said it was the only logical thing to do. He bowed then went down into his grave, a brave man. I, Scar and Mr Kydd looked at each other.
After a time, Mr Kydd spoke. “And then there were three.”
Scar shyly looked away. “Yeah I guess so.”
“Now now, my dear, just keep thinking. It’ll come.”
“Has yours?” She said.
He rubbed his chin thoughtfully for a moment, then spoke. “Yes, yes it has. It has for some time.”
Scar sat back down by the fire. “Tell us then, Mr Kydd.”
“Well I guess there’s no time like the present for my secret or some might say confession.”
Mr Kydd and I sat down next to her.
Taking a deep breath he gathered his thoughts. “I once ran for political office, many years ago. Toured the country, visited every state, every city in a blaze of confetti and bandstands. I wanted to change the country - the times.
For months I spoke my ideas, my dreams for a new political way of thinking. To really shake America into what it could be to itself and to the world - till finally I left it to the people, to democracy. The votes were all counted - it was close, close as it gets really.”
Then for a moment he stared at his grave. “One vote was against me, one single vote. To think all those millions of people had cast their mark and I had lost by a hair's breadth - by a number so small that it could mean nothing at all, yet meant everything. Only democracy can do that. And so we get to the point as to why I’m here with you both.”
He motioned to, Scar for a cigarette, she quickly made him one, he took it from her, stared at it as if was some kind of poison, then threw it away in disgusted. “I voted against myself.”
“What, but why?” Scar said.
He sighed to himself with the memory. “I can still remember now so very clearly. I could see my name on the paper, the pencil was right there ready to cross the box and I froze, my hands began to shake, a sudden change came over in me. I couldn’t do it, I just couldn’t