‘Pick a card,’ the man said as he fanned a pack of playing cards, all face down, in front of the young girl. The girl giggled, her freckles dancing across her cheeks, and looked up behind her at her mother. Cars honked nearby and people moved around them on the sidewalk. The man’s long black coat fluttered as a gust of wind passed through the trio.
‘Go on, pick one,’ her mother’s sweet voice responded to her daughter’s gaze. One of her hands lay lightly on her daughter’s shoulder and the other held onto the brown jute bag with all the teddy bears and sweets that they bought that day at the fair.
The girl extended her arm and her tiny fingers brushed past the tops of the cards, bright red with beautiful intricate patterns, and stopped at one.
‘Go on, take it out,’ the man said. ‘Don’t be shy, and don’t let me see it.’ The man gave a cheeky wink.
The girl giggled again, her small hands trying their best to hide the card, and looked at it. A beautiful red queen holding an even redder heart stared back at her.
‘Show it to your mum too.’
The girl held the card up a bit so that her mother could see. Wind rustled the girl’s blue frock, as blue as the sky above her.
‘Good card,’ her mother said and brushed her daughter’s black hair.
The girl looked up at the man in front of her. His round spectacles glistened in the sunlight – his eyes hidden behind the glare. He was smiling. A big smile. Ear to ear.
‘Got a good look?’
‘Yup,’ the girl’s voice, meek and sweeter than her mother’s, responded.
‘You sure you’ll remember it?’
‘Yup.’
‘Great!’ the man bellowed. ‘I’ll riffle through these cards. You tell me when to stop, okay?’
‘Okay!’
The man could tell the girl was excited. His thumb riffled through the deck of cards. The girl liked the sound the cards made as each card fell against each other with the help of the man’s thumb. It was almost hypnotic.
‘Stop!’ she screamed and then giggled.
‘Excellent! Now slide your card into this gap,’ the man extended the deck towards her, his thumb cutting the deck at the place she told him to stop at. ‘Don’t let me see it.’
The girl pushed the card in and the man closed the deck.
‘Wonderful!’ the man beamed. ‘Now I’ll throw this deck high up in the air.’ The man looked up towards the clear blue sky as he said this. The girl also looked up. ‘And you try catching one card as they all fall down,’ he said. ‘Just one,’ he added.
The girl looked back at the man. Hesitation wrinkled her forehead. She had never been good at catching things. Or even holding them to be honest. Butter fingers, her father would often say. Her mother felt the girl’s shoulders droop under her arm.
‘It’s okay. You can do it,’ her mother affirmed.
‘You think you can do it?’ the man asked. ‘If you don’t, then this would all be in vain.’ The smile on his face disappeared. ‘All in vain.’
The girl gulped and took some comfort in her mother’s soft yet reassuring touch. Her mother, however, felt an uneasiness creep in.
‘Yeah,’ she whispered.
‘Can’t hear you,’ the man teased, still unsmiling.
‘Yeah.’ This time a little bit louder.
‘Well, that will have to do,’ the man said and threw the cards high up in the air. The thin pieces of plastic shimmered in the sun as it floated higher, spreading apart from each other like a shattering ceramic plate.
The girl, caught by surprise, raised her hands, palms up. She looked up at the sky, its blue interrupted by the scattered quadrilaterals of falling cards.
The girl’s mother followed the cards on their downward journey. She thought she saw the Queen of Hearts glisten amidst the other cards right before her hand, which a moment ago was resting on her daughter’s shoulder, grabbed thin air. She lost balance and fell forward. The jute bag slipped away from her other hand. A bunch of sweets, wrapped in red and blue, rolled out onto the sidewalk. Her elbows saved her face from the ground below.
The cards rained down around her as she stood up. She didn’t feel a few of them hit the back of her head as they made their way towards the sidewalk to reunite with the other cards. Her scraped, stinging hands fumbled for her daughter as she regained her footing. Nothing. She was gone. And so was the man.
People gathered around the girl’s mother. She didn’t hear a woman ask her if she was okay. She didn’t see the man who picked up the jute back and another man who helped put the sweets back into it. She didn’t see or hear anything around her, and she didn’t feel the tears running down her face.
Her legs trembled, and she sat down. She mouthed her daughter’s name. Sound refused to come out. A woman, the same one from earlier, placed a hand on her shoulder and said something in her ear. The girl’s mother sniffled and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Her eyes hovered over the scattered cards on the ground – all lying face down, their intricate red patterns blending together. Except for one, right in front of her. She picked it up. The card wavered as she stared at it – The Queen of Hearts. She squinted at the Queen’s face. Her brown eyes. Her familiar smile. And those freckles.
Her body shuddered, the card slipped out of her hand, and she wept. The Queen of Hearts, now with an uncanny resemblance to her daughter, fell once again towards the ground, this time face down, and mixed with the rest of the cards.
