In Memory of: The Tarot Deck Belonging to a Woman Named Margot.
Dates: Purchased at a metaphysical fair in Sedona, 2019. Passed quietly on a Wednesday afternoon, face-down in a smudge-smudged silk scarf.
Survived By: A quartz cluster that has also started developing a nervous tic; the smell of palo santo that will never quite leave the apartment; a small altar of unanswered questions.
Predeceased By: The querent’s patience, her capacity for mystery, and the last shred of dignity belonging to The High Priestess card, which was shuffled so aggressively that its corners now curve like a wilting flower.
Let us be honest. The deck did not die in a dramatic flash of lightning, or in a cleansing fire, or at the hands of a skeptic who burned it for sport. It died of exhaustion. It died of being asked the same question for the forty-seventh time in a row.
The querent, a woman named Margot, had a type. Not a romantic type, as she was deeply, surgically convinced she had no romantic type—she was simply “open to whatever the universe sends.” But the universe, as the deck soon learned, was sending the same message over and over, and Margot was not reading it.
The deck’s final hours were spent spread across a thrifted coffee table, its cards splayed like a confession. The Three of Swords was permanently creased from being pulled, stared at, and asked, “But what does it really mean?” The Knight of Cups had been dropped into a mug of tea (chamomile, no sugar). The Fool was bent at a jaunty angle from being used as a bookmark in Women Who Run With the Wolves.
The deck did not die because it was old, or neglected, or broken. It died because it had been loved to death in the wrong way.
The cause of death, the coroner’s report might say, was Overinterpretation. A condition in which every card—even the mundane Two of Pentacles, which simply means you’re juggling things and need to find balance—was subjected to a fifteen-minute audio recording and a three-paragraph text to a friend who had stopped replying. The Death card was not allowed to mean transformation. It had to mean he’s coming back, right? The Tower was not allowed to mean collapse. It had to mean maybe I should text him. The Moon was not allowed to mean fear, illusion, confusion. It had to mean what is he thinking right now, this exact second, I need to know.
And so the deck gave up. Quietly. With a small sigh that sounded like a card sliding off a table.
It is survived by the memory of its first reading, which was for a stranger at a party who had asked, “Will I get the job?” and the deck had said, “Yes, but you’ll hate your boss,” and the stranger had laughed, and that had been enough. The deck had not needed to explain. It had not needed to be transcribed, screenshotted, sent to a group chat, analyzed by a friend who “also reads.”
It had simply been.
The funeral will be private. The deck will be buried in a shoebox under a jade plant that Margot bought because she read somewhere that it brings luck. She will not attend the burial. She will be in her apartment, shuffling a new deck—The Wild Unknown, this time, because she saw it on Instagram—and asking the same question.
The new deck will not answer. It has already learned to be afraid.
In lieu of flowers, the deck requests that you let one question go unanswered. Just one. See how light it feels.