SciFi and Fantasy Stories: Of Tarot Decks and The Circus.

          Blonde.

          She pulled  the hair from his collar, and waved it slowly in front of his face. 

          “Sloppy, sloppy,” She whispered in a voice that made roses bloom between the cracks on the pavement.

          “I was hungry,” he whined.  “Come on Doll, don’t be jealous.”

          “I’m not jealous,” More roses struggled up between the cracks.  Their thorns glinted in the moonlight. “Now help me look for that door.”  She broke from their embrace then, and walked down the alley way.  Her gloved hand caressed the graffiti covered wall.  Poison ivy sprouted wherever she touched.

          “I don’t see why we have to go,” he said, biting her neck.  His teeth almost broke her green skin.

          “They’re expecting us to.”

          “We’re not their homing pigeons.”

          “You’re so sensitive! Now stop bitching and help me find the¾ Oh! never mind I found it.”

          She pulled open a part of the wall, and together the lovers walked into the audience. 

          “Oh good, the show’s just started.”

          In the midst of a spotlight, a masked man in a top hat was speaking to the crowd.  

          “Welcome one and all, to the Tent.  Relax, sit back, and let your troubles tumble away.” 

          Behind the gauze tent, the performers scrambled around.  They moved their three legged tables, holding their cars, and they (mostly) put away the booze. 

          They couldn’t directly look behind them, the spotlight was too bright.  And because the booze was directly behind them, they were all a bit crabby.

          “D-damn it,” exclaimed a clown, his hands were shaking violently.  His blood shot eyes darted around as if they were two wild birds that had just been caged by his mask. “My Stuff!  I c-c-ca-can’t get to it. W-w-ill someone turn around and get it?”

          “Hell no,” said Strong Man, “I’m not going blind for you,”

          “43 of ‘em now” said Twisted Taylor, always trying to avoid confrontation”

          “43 of what?” asked Jasmine, fidgeting with her mask.  No matter what, she couldn’t loosen it.

          “Things that just keep getting worse.”

          “I only counted eight, the last time I even thought about things like that,” said Jasmine.

          “Yes,” agreed Taylor.  Her voice slowed with every fragment, as it did every night before Performance.  “Well,¾¾¾ the others take such a long time¾¾Beds start¾¾¾to get harder, the laughing a little harsher, the food a little worse.  And there are¾¾¾some that you wouldn’t remember, like¾for instance¾I can’t really remember, really.”

          Jasmine nodded, and stalked off in the other direction.  The performers used to annoy her, by accepting everything in this hell.  But, now she was starting to agree with them, lose hope, and that scared her to no end. 

          Down a winding path, and through the forest, Jasmine walked.  All the way to the place were the performers sleep, blocks away from the Tent.  Trailers cluttered the place like oversized pop cans.  In the distance Jasmine could hear the whispers of applause and laughter, haunting her, chaining her to their souls.  The trees stretched out  above her head, shielding the stars from her eyes, and casting everything into a suffocating darkness. 

          Jasmine counted the trailers.  Three of them until she got to the Gypsy’s.  In daylight, it wouldn’t be hard to spot, it had the only wooden door. 

          Jasmine knocked on the door, a small Hindu picture shook on it. 

          “Madame?  Madam Marie?”

          “Enter.”

          Jasmine slowly entered Madame’s trailer.  Silk scarves hung on every wall, enclosed the bed, and played with the candle light in the room.  Madame Marie was sitting in the middle of floor.  A present in her hands. 

          Jasmine sat on a small pillow across from her. 

          “Would you like some tea?”  Madame Marie slowly got up.  She was an old woman, with wrinkled hands, silver hair, and a mask of deep purple.  Her blue eyes were glassy, and tired.  She was getting slower, and slower every time they stopped to perform.  It wouldn’t be long until she couldn’t move at all, and she went to the Tent for her one final bow. 

          “Please.”

          “Would you like some sugar, dearie?”

          “No, but lemon would be nice.”

          Madam Marie cam back with two steaming cups of green tea. 

          “I never heard of anyone having lemon in their green tea before.”

          “I never heard of sugar in it either.”

          Madame Marie laughed, a twinkling thing with just a hint of cackle.

          “Happy birthday, darling,” Madame Marie said, handing Jasmine a small package.  It was wrapped in a dark silk scarf.

          Jasmine opened it, pocketing the scarf in her ballet slippers.  In her hands were a beautiful deck of tarot cards.  Madam Marie took it from her hands, and shuffled them.

          “This deck is very special.  It’s been passed down from witch to witch since the beginning of time.  Every special magical group has been represented on these cards.  You see?  The Lovers are Native Americans, the Queen of Wands  Egyptian, and so on.  They were sewn with hair from a baby unicorn on velvet and has been blessed with all five elements.”  Madam Marie stroked the deck lovingly, looking at all of the pictures for one last time.  “This deck was mine and now this deck to you.”

          “Thank you.” it was all Jasmine could think of to say.  Her purple eyes followed the cards around in a trance.  She wanted t touch them, try them out.

          “I’ll put these on your bed, dear.  You better get to the Tent before all chaos breaks loose.”

          He watched the tight rope walker like a man possessed.  She was beautiful.  Honey colored hair, shiny purple eyes, exotic white skin with a touch of pink in her maiden cheeks.  He wanted her.  He wanted her innocence that was plainly told on her pearl white mask.  She was the only one for a very long time that traded her servitude to save someone else.  The last time that happened, that He remembered, was three hundred years ago.

          The tightrope walker took on final bow, a small smile on her red lips.  Flowers¾roses, and daisies, and such were thrown to the ground so far down below her.  A couple petals stayed on the rope, casting deep shadows to the ground.  The crowd applauded, more then they did for any other performer, giving her their very hearts. 

          Their was a little chuckle behind Him.  Startled, He turned to see the Ring Master.  The Ring Master had a large floppy hat on, which covered his pure black mask.  In his left hand was a long cane, with a glowing red ball.  Wisps of what appeared to be red smoke snaked it’s way into the cane.

          Jasmine  stood on the tight rope, which dipped a bit under her weight.  The spot light wasn’t so blinding in the Tent.  She looked to the crowed, and wished it was. 

          She didn’t see people.  Just skeletons, sick and clapping.  Maggots nested in eye sockets.  Rats, with their blood eyes, and sharp teeth, darted in and out of rib cages.  One even nibbled on a baby’s head.  Red smoke glimmered between  and in front of them, causing their appearances.  He was taking away their life, and the audience, unaware, just kept clapping.

She looked at her lover and back at the Ring Master. 

          “Once again, I’m going to have to ask you to not bring, this, this hell, so close to the cities.”  Grass sprung under the woman’s feet.  Her green eyes looked deeply into the Ring Master’s but she saw no signs of life.

          “I go where I want,” was all he said as an answer.

          “You will listen to us!” her eyes flashed from a dark green to a bright red.   “Or do you forget?  We can take you down in a heartbeat.”

          The Ring Master sat down behind his desk.  Patiently he stroked the head of a white tiger. 

          “I know, that together the magical world could take me out.  But, you see, and correct me if I’m wrong, the magical world hasn’t been brought together since¾well the beginning of time, I believe.”

           The woman sat forward in her chair, poison ivy now incased the armrests.  “We can do it again.  The leaders don’t like that you  took that witch for instance, or did you not get the notice?”

          The Ring Master’s gaze floated to a skull in the corner. “I believe I did hear something to that sort.”   

          “Give her back her magic.  Set her free, and we’ll leave you alone.”

          It was hard for her to tell, but She thought that the Ring Master was staring into her eyes. 

          “I have a contract with the witch.  Which is still very legal, and very binding.  Even if the laws have been drastically changing.”  the Ring Master got up and lead the woman and her lover to the door, “And as for returning her magic, well I never even took it.  Just buried it.”

          The lovers walked outside. 

          “You’ve been warned,” said the Woman, and walked down the path, leading from the Ring Master’s tent. He slammed the door behind them.

          The lovers walk on a bit.  The Man, biting at the Woman’s neck, breaking her green skin with his fangs.  The Woman giggled a bit, and was about to kiss him, when she saw the tightrope walker.

          “Hello,” She said to the girl.  Surprised, the girl looked up, loosening her honey colored hair from it‘s bun. 

          “Hello,” she answered.

          “I loved your performance tonight.  What is your name?”

          “Jasmine.  Jasmine Sunday.”

          The Woman smiled, and flowers bloomed.  “Would you mind, Jasmine Sunday, if I got your autograph?”

          The Woman handed Jasmine a sheet of paper, and pen.  The girl signed it and handed it back.

          “Sixteen is a very important birthday,” said the Ring Master to Jasmine, “You honestly didn’t think that I would let it slip by without giving you something myself, did you?”

          Jasmine shook her head.  Her hair was let down, and covered her face.  She didn’t want to look at him.  She never wanted to look at him.

          The Ring Master’s white tiger, purred under Jasmine’s touch.  His teeth were bared in a happy grin.

Death seemed to take on it’s own odor in the Ring Master’s Tent.  It burned Jasmine’s eyes, and stung her throat.

          The Ring Master’s pet tiger rubbed against her shins, ruffling the feathers on Jasmine’s costume   

          “Here you go,” he said, handing her a bottle.  The stopper was in a shape of a bleeding heart, and Jasmine was weary of it. 

          “W-what is it?” she asked, barely holding on to it.

          “Something that might come in handy, ten years from now.  When you can go home.”  There was a snarl in the Ring Master’s voice, a cruelty in it.  “But, since it is your birthday, I’m giving you one extra gift, love.”  he got up, and undid Jasmine’s mask. 

          She watched it fall  to the ground, and smiled.  Such a weight was lifted off her shoulders!  Oh, she could cry. 

          Jasmine rushed to the mirror, and looked into it, touching her face.  She hadn’t seen it for over a year now.  She looked up at the Ring Master, her purple eyes filled with tears.

          “Thank you,” she whispered. 

          The Ring Master came behind her, and grabbed her shoulders.  He held them so tight, that she could hear things snapping inside

          “You don’t have to live like this, you know.  I’m offering you more.  Join me.  I can give you your deepest desires.”

          “No,” said Jasmine, her voice harsh. “I can’t love you.  You kill for enjoyment.  You drain the heart of love, because you don’t know what love is.  You’re a monster.”

          Jasmine felt his cane hit her back.  She fell to the floor.  Pain clouded her mind, put pressure on her chest, and brought tears to her eyes. 

          The Ring Master watched on, collecting her tears in a bottle, and masking her face again.

          The cauldron bubbled, sending the smell of spices and salt through the trailer.  Dark silks rustled in the late night’s breeze.

          Madam Marie added another handful of rat tails to the mix.  She stooped in her old age, like a wilting flower.  All she wanted was to be loved by him again.  To feel his touch on her cheek, to be young again.  Not to be tossed aside for some youngling with purple eyes!

          The cauldron hissed and sputtered.  Red flames touched the trailer’s ceiling.

          That was why she was making this potion.  Separate man from beast, and she’d have him.  He’d need her again.

          The old crone walked over and grabbed a pair of scissors.  She drove the blade straight through her palm.  The metal, gleaming red with blood, could be seen from the other side.  She let the blood, and small clumps of skin fall into the cauldron, thickening it, turning it from a deep green to a bright red. 

She dipped the ladle in, catching half of a rat eye.  She slurped.  She let it run down her chin and the front of her dress.  She reveled in the slime.  She savored the goo of the eye. 

          She drank her revenge.

          The lovers kissed in the tent.  Flowers sprung up from behind the bleachers.  The Woman moaned deep in her throat. 

          Foot steps, from the beginning of the bleachers, rang out in the air.

          “You came,” said the Man.  His lips were swollen, and his voice was husky. 

          “You knew I would,” said the tight rope walker. 

          She was in a pair of jeans.  The Man remembered they were called bell bottoms.  She had on a multicolored shirt, with a giant peace sign on it,  that clung to her every curve.  Her hair was parted down the middle and straight.

          “Right,” said the Woman, standing up.  She fixed her shirt, and pulled back her white hair. “we have two horses waiting for us outside.”

          “The rift is only open at sun rise, and that is the only way I can leave.”

          The tiger paced up and down in front of its master’s trailer.  His white coat gleamed in the gray of very early mourning. 

          Something scurried to his left.  A rat.  The tiger smiled, showing all of his gleaming, dagger teeth. 

          He crouched.

          The rat was at the edge of the forest, washing its dirty, black face. 

          The tiger stalked up behind it, licking its lips.  A small growl escaped from deep within the tiger’s throat.  The rat took no notice. 

          With one giant snap, the tiger clamped its jaws around the rat.  It broke in two, spilling thick red blood all into the grass.  The tiger licked it up greedily. 

          Behind a tree Madame Marie let off a soft cackle.

          Jasmine Sunday hadn’t rode a horse for a very long time.  She remembered that she got very bad motion sickness watching the landscape bounce up and down in front of her. 

          But, she still couldn’t bring herself to bury her head into the Man’s back. 

          Out in the distance, lights flicked on.  She could hear some shouting and screaming, but mostly she could hear the alarm. 

          It rang out into the early morning, like a thousand babies screeching for food. 

          Trees blazed in front of her, bounding, but now things were moving on them.

          Black birds.  They awakened, and took to flight. 

          Beaks peaked at Jasmine, drawing her blood, which splashed to the ground.  They cawed in her ear.  They tried to bite her fingers off.

          The strings on Jasmine’s mask started to tighten.  It cut into her skin, which made her vision blur.  Jasmine tried desperately to untie the ribbon.

          The Man rounded a corner.  Up in front of them was the rift, Jasmine’s only door to home.  

          Her heart beat hit hard against her chest, threatening to burst.  Her mind slowed.  Her throat was closing up.  In her mind, she could hear the Ring Master’s voice.

          “You’re my plaything,” his voice said in her head.  It held no love, or humanity in it, just anger, and venom.  “ and I can break you if I want to!”

          Jasmine wobbled.  She could no longer hold her head up.  In front of her was the rift, closer than Jasmine had ever seen it.  Colors blazed and shifted, showing cities and people.  Then it would shift again, in a blur of color, and show another city, thousands of miles away. 

          She could no longer hold up her head.  Her lungs screamed for oxygen.  She gagged, and gagged. 

          Her arm seared with a sudden sensation of pain.  It caused Jasmine to scream out into the dawn.  Her heart beat was slowing.  She could hear it ticking in her ear.  It counted down her life.

          The Woman threw the tiger off of the girl‘s body.  It wasn’t that difficult, it was blinded to see the world again, to see light again.  It stumbled, and ran off in the other direction.  Or, rather pranced off in the other direction, so happy was he to be out of that hell. 

          The rift was still open, and the image of the forest swam behind it, as if it was just ender the surface of a flowing river.  The Man got off his horse, and helped the young tight rope walker off.  She was unconscious.

          “Not breathing” he said to the Woman, laying Jasmine on the ground. 

          Black birds started to swim near the surface of the rift.  Their caws were barely audible, but could be heard.

          The Woman pulled out a small pocket knife.  She started to hack away at the ribbon.  

          The Ring Master appeared at the rift.  His eyes flashed from black to white to black again.  He was saying something that couldn’t be heard.

          The Woman still hacked away at the ribbon, until finally, it frayed.

          It took both lovers all of their strength to pull the mask off of Jasmine, but finally it snapped off. 

          The Ring Master was closer to the rift, he reached out a hand, and the surface swelled, starting to let it pass through.

          The Ring master watched in horror as the rift quickly closed, devouring the witch’s blood, and locking tight. 

          He let out a horrific roar.  The people in a nearby town awoke from a horrible dream, gasping for breathe because of his roar.

          “What’s the matter dearie?  Did you lose your playthings?”  the old crone appeared by his side, resting a hand on his shoulder.

          “You!” he snapped.  His voice was more beast than man.  Madame Marie choked as her masked tightened.  “You had something to do with this, didn’t you?”

          “N-no!” she croaked, hands clasping at her throat, “but I know how to help.”

          Her throat opened up again.

          “How?”

          “We can wait.  With the Council members changing like they are, they’ll soon make a mistake and open up the rift again.  You know as well as I do that things locked won’t stay locked forever.  Especially when the government gets sloppy.”

          “BUT HOW DO WE FIND HER AGAIN!” the Ring Master screamed.  The trees bent with the force of it.

          “She took something of mine, something that I didn’t give her,” replied the crone.

          “What?” the Ring Master asked.

          Jasmine washed her face off.  She was in a motel bathroom.  The Woman was watching her, reading a newspaper in the other room.  The Man kept watch outside the door.

          Jasmine poured cold water on her cheeks.  It felt so good to be back again.

          She walked out of the bathroom, and collected the only two things she had, the mask, and the tarot deck.  Her wound was bandaged with a purple scarf until she could get to the hospital.

          “You know,” said Jasmine, walking out of the bathroom, “I never did catch your name.”

          “Names are very valuable,” said the Woman.  The flowers on the bedside table blossomed.  

          “What do people call you then?” 

          “Yin,” she said, “and they call my lover Yang,”

          “A little mythical if you ask me,” said Jasmine, “But I like it.”

          Yin smiled. 

          “Thank you,” she said. 

          “What?” said Jasmine, turning to face the green woman, “I should be thanking you.  You saved my life back there.”

          “And you saved mine,” said Yin, stretching out on the bed.  “I probably would’ve been the next to join his hell.  He didn’t like the idea of myself going back to the Council.”

          Jasmine laughed, and joined her friend on the bed.  It was soft, and warm, and felt so good to her.

          “Where are you planning to go, young Jasmine?”

          “School.  Finish up there and travel the world or something.  You?”

          “Oh, I don’t know.  All I know is that I’m not working for the government ever again,” Yin let out a gentle laugh and daisies started to grow from the cracks in the wall.  “Yang and I’ll probably move to an island.  Where no one can find us and have a bunch of kids.”

          Jasmine stood up and collected her belongings.

          “Best be getting to the hospital,” Jasmine said. “Good luck to you.”

          “And you, Jasmine Sunday.  May the world bless you with a strong life.”

          Jasmine walked out of the motel, and out into the daylight.  She looked around.  Cars passed her by.  People were playing the Beetles on their little radios.  The celebrated free love and goodness.  They opposed oppression and “the man”.  They weren’t going to be anyone’s little plaything.  They were their own people.  And so was Jasmine.