The Tower

On the table was laid out cards that were turned upside down. They were all in a row, it was hard to tell how many of them were there as it looked like they stretched out in all directions and the size and shape of the table surface was changing in rapid concessions. Judging by the laid out cards one was supposed to pick one. I assumed that what ever lay on the other side would contain some sort of image or detail that would help me figure out what I was doing in such a place. At least it would do no harm to take a peek, who knew it might be my way of such a place, a door back into reality. When one as no discernable hands it is difficult to pick up a card and turn it face up. I thought for a while, staring at the card that I had set my eyes on picking up. How does it work? The frame changed like when a scene is edited or the lights go dim for a second. When I looked at it again it was lying face up.

It was an image of a tower.

Not a good card to pick up. Actually to pick up such a card was damn right freaky. Though I was no expert when it came to tarot cards, I knew such a card did not forebode well, and not a card that anyone with a little insight in reading the cards wished to get. It was a tower constructed with stone, turrets lined the top of the tower, two windows that were barred lay directly over each other. I saw no possible means of entry. The tower was positioned on a little hill that was surrounded by rocks and shrubbery. I couldn’t really tell what the measurement of the structure was but it looked as if it reached to the perfect wide blue sky. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, the scene seemed calm, there was nothing to warn of a coming judgement or marauding troops. All of a sudden the card came alive as a flash of lighting flew through the sky and hit the tower. The sound that followed was so deafening that it seemed like the sound was inside my mind. All of a sudden I saw the top half the tower crack off, a man with an orange beard, flew through the air, beams and bricks started to fall, as the sound of screaming people mingled in with the sound of the structure complaining as it cracked.

I did not like the sound, it seemed to have a life of it’s own as if the sound was growing, undulating into a mighty monster that would take hold and strangle everything in its way.

The scene then froze. The cracked top of the tower suspended in the air, the falling man, the sound of the scene echoing in a prolonged boom.

What did a tower signify? I went back to early civilisation and the Biblical mention of a tower called the Tower of Babel. This contains similarities to such a scene where God destroys a tower built by mankind to reach Heaven. I thought about this, about seriousness of such a card, and how it symbolizes failure, ruin and catastrophe.

I was one unhappy camper.