The Tarot Speaks – The Fool

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Years ago, I wrote a whole series of features in which I allowed characters from a tarot pack to speak in their own voices. The features were added to a website that has now folded and I never saved or got to recover the articles, so I am now writing them again, from scratch. Only the basic concept of the article remains of the original. Here goes. The Fool You lost all that work, and dare see me as the Fool? I see no need for such baggage or recovering, and resurrecting that which has gone. I have my life, freedom and wit. You give me no number on some packs bearing my image while on others I am marked 0 – a big zero. Thank you so much for under-valuing the wisdom of a Fool. You capture me here as a vagabond, untroubled by a dog snapping at my ankle or the cliff edge I am walking towards in my apparent poetic daydreams, but does life not dog you too? Is your life not also destined for unknown ends and obstacles, many of which you see not coming? Do you not still dare to dream? The sun shines on me. My tunic is a fine one. I dare make fun of kings and presidents. I bear a flower in my hand. Do you have beauty in your hand right now? I doubt it. If my card is turned, is it not you the reader is declaring the true fool, not me? I am just an image on card, not real at all. You try to draw meaning and value from my image and base your life on what I know to be random shuffling around. Should a tarot card be dealt upside down they say its fortune is reversed too. Does that mean that when upside down I am wise rather than foolish? If upside down, I would not fall from the cliff, but I would fall skyward head first, right into space along with the dog, which is surely worse. I am free, and uninhibited, uncaring what you or others make of me. If you try to be like me, does that make you fool or free spirit? Is there a difference? I cannot linger on. I must venture forth towards whatever fate awaits. If you come with me or not, more fool you. Arthur Chappell