By Bella Majam
But it was no use. She kept fingering the loose fibers of her scarf. I spread the cards face-down on the table, careful not to topple over my latte. Pick one, I said, but she wasn’t listening. She touched her nose ring and bemoaned the state of her eyelids, which looked like they’d been drawn on with Sharpie. That’s what you get for never sleeping. She laughed, like a printer coughing out a resume.
Pick one, I said, but my depression was busy chewing on a muffin, crumbs on her chin, asking me if I’d ever been in love. Once. Introduction to Chemistry. In a classroom full of secondhand pianos, my roommate would press keys that sounded like Chopin, or maybe Debussy. After dinner, she’d ask if I wanted to go mix soju and milk with the girls next door, taking drags from a vape the size of the vibrator kept in her makeup drawer. No thanks. I had enough trouble breathing whenever she’d stumble into my bed, piss-drunk, mistaking it for hers.
Have you picked yet? I asked. My depression shrugged. I don’t know what to pick. Anything, really, so she studied the plainness of their backs and, gingerly lifting one, said, I don’t know why you like these. She took a sip from my latte, flinching.
It was my turn to shrug. I bought them at sixteen, on a trip to Quiapo, in search of something to ingest that could put me to deep, permanent sleep. Nothing painful, I’d explained, nothing that will make me look like shit when it’s done, but the ladies manning the stalls only gaped, offered rosaries, abaca chairs, herbal abortifacients crushed into thumb-sized bottles. I decided to settle for a deck, only fifty pesos, enough change so I could afford the ride home.
Have you got it? My depression gestured to three cards, each stacked on top of the other, so I took them and said, now, your reading. Card number one, like a child peeling off a bandaid: The Lovers, upright. Card number two: four of wands, reversed. And the third, which I tried to flip with as much bravado as I could: The Magician, upright.
I opened my mouth to declare my verdict but realized I no longer knew the meaning of anything before me. I prepared to say sorry, or um, give me a minute, or can you pass me the box so I can look at the premade list of meanings brought to you by the Society of Actual Tarot Readers?, but my depression was leaning on her elbows, gaze fixed on the counter where college students played poker and downed pints of Corona. She was gazing at them the way my mother glanced at the rearview mirror when she thought I couldn’t see, brows scrunching at me and then the distance, as if she was pretending not to know my fate.
Bella Majam is a writer from Metro Manila, Philippines. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Gantala Press, Ice Lolly Review, Nebulous Magazine, and others. She also edits for HaluHalo Journal, a youth publication which seeks to uplift Southeast Asian voices. You can find more of her work @beelaurr on Instagram.
