Coming of Age

a flash essay in the form of a tarot reading

Sharing something a little different today: a flash essay in the form of a tarot reading. Content warning for non-graphic sexual violence. All images are from the Smith Rider Waite tarot.

Coming of Age

THE FOOL

Time will reverse in the disorienting way it does: nighttime in your body, sun thick and bright in your eyes. When you land, New Delhi will smell like a campfire or like childhood but not quite. See the pack, hanging from their stick: you carry what has shaped you with you. Here what was known becomes unknown: the previously rote requires careful attention. A new orientation in space. Anything could happen. 

ACE OF WANDS

Fire is inspiration, creativity, heat. A careful balance between what feeds and what burns. See the leaves that sprout from the wand, the beam of light surrounding the hand: you are being made new. You’ll smell the air: incense, exhaust, frying street food, spices so aromatic they’ll make you cough. You’ll listen to the chatter in the language you don’t know, the constant horn honking. You’ll see the moon from where you are: waxing crescent, bottom filled in white, a smile stretched across the sky. Different than home. For the first time, you’ll be alone.

WHEEL OF FORTUNE

You’ll watch the country go by from the train, swallowing every drop through the window. They’ll serve food: rice pulao, chapati, dal, mixed vegetables. You’ll eat it with your hands, let the breeze shake you alive. No one in the world knows where you are, and this will feel like freedom instead of loneliness. Later, this will blur in your memory: mother feeding daughter on her lap across the aisle, your own tray in front of you, all out of focus.

KING OF WANDS REVERSED 

You’ll emerge from the station like it’s the first day of school. Get your bearings: two hours south from the bottom bunk in the large room at the hostel on Panchsheel Park. Two feet on the ground, inside your black sneakers from the mall a few oceans away. Two hands in your pockets. 

You’ll see a sea of auto rickshaws and tour guides in front of you. The man will swim right to the front and offer to take you around for the day: the Taj Mahal, a nice restaurant for lunch, Agra fort, back in time for your evening train. He won’t be dressed in red but he could be. You still think you can trust everyone you meet. You’ll climb in the back of his auto, and it will rattle to a start. 

TWO OF PENTACLES 

As you bounce down the road, you’ll tell him about graduating college, about yoga school, about wanting an adventure. He’ll tell you that he teaches yoga too, and that he’s studying to be a massage therapist. He gives people ayurvedic massages at the end of the day. Part of the tour.

You’ll say no, thanks. You’ll hold the delicate balance. He’ll pass you back a faded red notebook, one hand on the steering wheel, tell you to read the nice messages people have written at the end of his tours. You’ll flip through.

NINE OF SWORDS

It’ll still be early when you get to the Taj Mahal. The pale dusty air will glitter with the morning sun. Where Agra Fort is all red clay and dirt the Taj Mahal will be ascendent: pale white stones, rounded minarets, polished gardens, a long, rectangular reflective pool. You’ll ask another tourist to take your photo in front of it. The Taj will be in perfect color, but shadow will render your body a dark outline. Not a person, but a hint of one. 

SEVEN OF SWORDS

You’ll go to the hotel. He’ll tell you about his friend who owns it and lets him do massages there. You’ll tell yourself everything is fine. Jangling heart, legs loose and wobbly as unspooled yarn, a mind floating above a body. You’ll tell yourself how normal it all is. You’ll want to be the easygoing adventurer you see yourself as. He’ll lead you upstairs, where it’s dark. The door will shut behind you with a click.

THE TOWER

A body programmed is a body in motion. The body does what it has been told: put one foot in front of another, arrange mouth pleasantly, succumb. A whole body rigid, tight. See: the breaking.

KING OF SWORDS REVERSED

Back in the auto rickshaw, you’ll swallow the hot, wet air and take his little book into the backseat. You will smile through shaky hands, your whole body a coiled spring. You’ll dream of a room full of people, your bottom bunk. You’ll flip to a blank page of his book and write. At the station, you’ll hand him a fistful of rupees, a generous tip. You’ll get out, throat tight.

10 OF SWORDS

Call it the price you pay for living a life. Call it coming of age. Call it inheritance. Call it lesson, call it what you deserve. Call it not rape. Call it a dark, quiet room. Call it another sad story about what happens when a girl travels to a place people say she never should have gone alone.