Silence.
There was nothing around but total silence. No discernible light, shadows, colors. I can’t even tell if the only thing I’m seeing is black or white, just that it’s… There. As I focus on the lack of any identifying features around me, trying to find just one thing to see, hear or even feel. I don’t feel warm or cold which is worse than one or the other when I can’t see or hear anything. I start to lose track of time with no markers of movement, only thought.
In the maddening absence of sensation I cycled focusing on the senses I know countless times. The air tastes like…. Well, air. I couldn’t even pinch myself. I had to push that horrifying revelation to the back of my mind. I had to assume I simply lost track of where my own body was in relation to itself, any other possibility just isn’t going to work for me.
I had to question whether I was even awake or dreaming, but because I couldn’t do anything else, not even sleep, I had to assume that I was actually dreaming. One of the most boring and yet terrifying dreams I’ve ever remembered. It’s like my sleep paralysis demon evolved and is on a power trip, enjoying the new level of fear being brought out.
Eventually in my cycle of focusing on my senses, as my thoughts started to feel cloudy, I caught a faint whiff of something. I sniffed again, focusing with a renewed alertness. It smelled familiar, like I’ve smelt it countless times in the past but wasn’t noteworthy before. I focused harder trying to place where the smell is from, why it seemed so familiar, then it clicked. It smelled like a brand new deck of cards. As I focused on the only sense I could use, I noticed the smell getting stronger and stronger until I started to hear it. A deck of cards being folded together in a bridge shuffle, over and over. As the sound got louder there was also the addition of footsteps, walking at a slow but deliberate pace.
Tap, shuffle. Tap, tap, shuffle.
Tap, shuffle. Tap, tap, shuffle.
I started to see a figure emerge from the near distance. He wore a cheap suit, not tucked in, with the top button undone. He had short salt and pepper hair, a light layer of wrinkles and a large mustache. As he got closer I could also start to make out a rectangular tattoo on his face with a pair of theater masks inside, his eyes a light brown.
He suddenly stopped 15 feet away from where I…. Existed, flashed a toothy grin and then spoke.
“I honestly didn’t expect you to last more than a year before you finally drew dead. Had you been better at counting cards you would have known that you really could not have won that hand. Even with a flush.”
“Thomas? What are you doing here, wherever this is… and how did I get here?” I started to panic a little more at the confusion of it all. If I could, I would be hyperventilating right now. Someone I knew and trusted shows up in an entirely unfamiliar place and scenario, the lack of senses from the room I’m in. If I wasn’t so suddenly sure that this was real I would think I recently ate some bad sushi.
“Griffith, my youngest draw yet. A young man of but 19, down on his luck decides to play a game betting everything for pretty much nothing in return. But I suppose you really didn’t know the truth about the matter did you.”
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“The truth? We played a game that was win-win no matter the outcome didn’t we? I get a job, you get an eager employee, and I get to fix my car at the same time.”
“Hmm, I can see how you would think that. But you seem to forget how you got to my shop in the first place. As I recall you had just been in a terrible accident. One usually turns when they see a tree in front of them but you seem to have stepped on the gas pedal. Maybe your foot slipped, maybe you fell asleep.”
Thomas resumed shuffling his cards as he began to pace.
“Regardless of how it happened, the fact is, it did happen. An accident you should not have walked away from, yet there you were. A second chance in life, proof of your astounding luck. The game we played was a trade. Your luck for a third and final chance at life.”
I blanched, or at least I think I did. It’s a little hard to tell the facial expression I make when I can’t feel anything. I barely even remembered that night, and now that he brings it up I don’t even remember anything from that night to when I showed up at his shop. Was he right? Should I have died in that accident?
No. That's not what’s important. “What do you mean I traded my luck for a third chance at life? Are you saying there's another time I should have died?”
Thomas stopped pacing and shuffling the deck. “Not quite. I took your luck and in return I simply altered the course of your next near death experience. Instead of barely making it out with your life, you’d lose this life.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. How can you grant me another chance at life, but take it at the same time?”
Thomas looked puzzled and a little hurt. “I didn’t take your life. You made that bet yourself. Instead of letting you get out by the skin of your teeth, crippled for life after spending months in the hospital recovering and jobless on top of all that, I’m giving that outcome to someone else. Someone far less lucky.”
“So someone else is getting my body? Wait, if they get my body, does that mean I’m not actually in my body?” I mean that does explain the lack of sensations, but not how I can smell, or see Thomas, or even why he has a card tattooed on his face. “Wait, what am I? A ghost? Some sort of demon? Am I going to go to hell for doing drugs or something?”
“Now now, just relax. What you are right now doesn’t really matter all that much. What does matter is you’re about to be dealt a new hand, and it's going to be up to you whether you are going to fold early or play it to the end.” Thomas suddenly became focused as he stopped shuffling the deck and split it. He then proceeded to draw 3 cards and presented them face up to Griffith, one at a time. “It’s time for a new deal, instead of just being another player this time, you’re going to have the house advantage.”
I looked and saw the Jack of clubs, an ace of clubs and a four of spades sitting in front of me. “Not a terrible hand but this four of spades seems a little useless without knowing the house cards.”
Thomas’ eyes glinted like once before in the shop with a small smirk. “Griffith my dear boy, you ARE the house. Now go and make the best of an unlucky situation.” As he said the last sentence he clapped his hands together on the last syllable, and as he did, everything disappeared.
It wasn’t like I got knocked out or anything. There was a growing feeling of nausea and the beginnings of a headache. Before these sensations overwhelmed me into truly blacking out, the last thought that went through my head was ‘what the hell do all these cards mean?’ picturing the hand he was dealt and the card on Thomas Buckwell’s face that definitely wasn’t there before.