Intuition

To the two sitting on raid-sodden ground, the world ahead forks into two distinct paths. A coin has two sides, many say, and so does the Earth with her two hemispheres, and a card with two faces. Mothers beget daughters with rowdy minds and turbulent tongues, spewing storms from throats and sucking them back in again. Thus-

The fumes of young barrels skyward like cirrocumulus clouds. Rain thick, holding back thunderous bellows like a leash-snarred hiccup. 

Her girl sputters, “How do you keep going through the fog despite being unaware of what’s under your feet, in front of your hands? Unknowns jabbing from the unclear into your mouth or eyes? I wish I had a third eye! I beg for an oracle deck to show me visions of my future! How else can I live but with guidance?” 

“What can a third eye see that your human two cannot?” Mother says. “What will divinated interpretations relay that the real world would rather hide away?” She smirks, snaking a curl of burn-dark hair behind the girl’s ear. “After all, what will you do when your eye or deck reveals blockage across your entire path with no way to avoid it? Not useful anymore, huh?”

Mute lightning pulses through the clouds. “Do you not understand? I need to know!”

“Know what, my dear?”

“All of it! Every to-be-avoided crack in the sidewalk, all near-falling trees, which apples have worms before I snap their skin with my teeth! I cannot bear the pain that comes with misfortune! The agony of mistakes! Mother, find me a way to dodge the burdens or I will refuse to live!” 

She’s unrelenting. Storm brewing bubbling over her coiled brain through her eyes as rain hails from the sky. Not unlike Sisyphus’ stone in its final moments, her fear teetered on the edge of thought in anticipation of its inevitable roll back to its source.

Mother laughs. A different rumble fills the scene from below: water weaving between the roots of grasses and weeds, a pill bug burrowing under fallen logs and tossed stones. A knowing, calm feeling, like the gentle rocking of a bassinet.

“That is half of life, darling! The storms that brew and cast the world in monochrome sadnesses, uprooting century-old groves. Without the fires that sweep through forests and kill what once stood, new growths would find nowhere to plant their roots.”

Digging her fingers into the soft soil at her thigh’s edge, the girl’s mother pulls out a pinched card. On it, a lonesome ship carrying two souls dips across an angry bend of ocean. The bow, porcupine-spiked by six swords, points towards a lighter patch of sky, away from the turbulent waters below. 

“You want tarot to reveal your fate? If so, this is all you need to see,” Mother waves dirt crumbs off the card and hands it to her daughter. “Do you see the crossing? How they escape the troubles that rock their ship and journey from poor to plentiful?”

“They are us,” the girl mumbles, sniffling. Rainstorms lighten, retreating slightly into the atmosphere. “Where are they going?”

Mother raises an eyebrow, “Is that what you believe matters? No, the boat matters most, do you not see? Crafted by our own hands, the vessel takes us on the course we plot toward whatever destination we are indebted to.” 

The grassy hill on which the pair resides ripples calmly. It’s an eyelid-drooping wave: that pseudo-feeling one gets after a day of jumping through ocean currents once on impervious lands, like images of pulsing dark and light that fog the mind when eyes are closed. 

“We have the human ability to adjust our course. We can traverse around the storm or through its generous eye, push aside the fallen log or leave it to block the street, advance comfortably onto the next steps of life or shudder at the inevitability of sorrow.” 

“But…” The girl starts, a spring water drop falling from her dark eyelashes onto the card. “How do you tell which path to take? And when? Without guidance-”

“You are your guidance. And so am I,” Her finger, still lightly dusted with dirt, wipes her daughter’s cheek Earth dry. “It is your intuition and perseverance that builds your transport through hardship. You cannot rely on outside forces to clear your path because your way forward will always be treacherous. Do you see? It is up to you to navigate it.”

About the Author

As a recent transfer from the University of the Arts, Allison Hendershot took Quiddity's History Now! contest as an opportunity to explore her writing style in a new environment. She experimented with grammar and form to foster a more interesting reading experience and to brighten up the overall dark tone of the poem.