The end

I thought about the predicament I was in. While the symbol of a tower could be translated as the tower of Babel it meant more than that, it meant that my world and everything that was in it was going to come crashing down. Not that it already hadn’t happened, the death of my father put my world in a spiral, wasn’t that enough of a violent tumble? Wasn’t the falling body a metaphor for my feelings? Wasn’t that enough of a blow? I realised that there was more to the card then predicting my present unlucky situation. The popular story surrounding such a card was that a fool who wanted to stamp his mark on the world built monuments and structures. Perhaps such an idea was a haphazard one at that, in the end his ambitions came to nothing. The false structures that were viewed as great and structurally sound were light and flimsy. The card stood for false structures and beliefs that would be crashing down and it wouldn’t be like a little scrape it would be a violent gut-wrenching crash that would change things for ever. The death of my father was a catastrophe if there ever was one, and by the looks of things more was to come.

There were different meanings –it signified change, a shake up, a surprise wake up call. It also signified a humbling, suffering a blow to the ego, falling off ones high horse, a financial downturn, a complete and utter falling down. A nervous breakdown? I never had the pleasure of experiencing one. Then there was the sudden spark of the angel, a revelation, a moment of truth where one was given the answer and everything that was unknown became known.

What was the truth? Such an in depth question required an in depth answer. I could come up with no answer for such a complex question. If I was to know the truth I probably wouldn’t have been looking at such a card or even wondering what such a card meant.

So I thought about the truth for a second and thought of the word illusion instead. What were illusions, what was real anymore? I could not think of illusions in my present unknown state because I was having problems with such a term, but I could think of my previous state when I was matter, when I was flesh and bones, when I could view my arms and legs and think of myself as an entity. I could define myself through what others saw and what I saw of me through them. Was my life an illusion? It couldn't be. It was not possible.

Nothing built on a lie, on falsehoods, can remain standing for long. A poorly built building will suddenly fall; a house built on a deck of cards will not last long. What was the truth I thought, if the structure was a lie, a building made out of falsehoods and pretenses? I looked at the scene, the falling tower, the rubble with bodies wedged here and there. The ground, the only thing that remained permanent and constant was the hill that the tower had been built on. Better to tear it all down and rebuild on the truth. It was not going to be pleasant, painless or easy, but it was all for the best. But what was I to tear down, and rebuild. It was real and what was fiction, what was the truth and what was false? It was too much to think on. I assumed that such an image was more metaphorical than a real falling down of a building though such a possibility could be likely. A literal meaning could not be ruled out.

9/11 popped into my thoughts. Such an occurrence might have been a literal interpretation on the tower card. The falling down of the towers were literal but metaphorically the falling of the towers symbolised the waning of America, the failing values, a ‘look how the mighty have fallen’ statement may have been a good caption underneath the photograph in the paper. Such an image of the twin towers was a literal, real-life tarot card if there ever was one.

Everything went white again, not even a line or a dot in my view. I felt very down all of a sudden -a toe pulling, eye scratching type of down. Maybe this was my falling down, my complete and utter end.