Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Happy Halloween 2016/The Carousel: Missed Direction

We've made it to October! That can only mean one thing (as far as this blog is concerned), Halloween!

I visited the Sloss Fright Furnace attraction last Saturday to give myself a little kick-start on the ghoulish cheer. And I had a lot of fun there. I wasn't blown away by it, but I really did enjoy woods trail with zombies and the maze house with zombies and the slide without zombies. The furnace tour even had a memorable 3-D section (because even though you're actually there, it's not 3-D until you put on the glasses).

So I've been thinking for a while about what I wanted to do with my blog for this year's Halloween celebration, and I got the idea to model it after something like Sloss Furnace, with hopes of turning it into something more akin to Universal's Halloween Horror Nights. I kind of did this last year, but why not build on the theme?

While I'm figuring out what new attractions to add, feel free to come on into the main hub, grab a hotdog from a vendor (like, after paying for it), and check out the $53 t-shirts I have for sale. My MTV inspired spook house from last year is open, in case you missed the walkthrough, as is the video game survival horror homage, The Twelfth Toll. Over to your right are the exhibits from the Saw franchise and the tribute to The Simpons's Treehouse of Horror series. Our main stage is showing the original Rocky Horror Picture Show with commentary by yours truly, just in time for the remake on FOX this year. And you'll also want to pick up the live recording of the Alice Cooper concert in the gift shop.

Oh, and while you're waiting, check out that tent over there. I brought Zel over from The Carousel to do fortune telling. For entertainment purposes only, of course.

Missed Direction

Zelphina huffed at the intruder's entrance, refusing to take her eyes away from her handheld platformer. "What do you need?"

"I was hoping you could help me," said the young man.

Zelphina ran her eyes down the alleged and back up, saying nothing.

"I have a problem," he tried to continue before she cut him off.

"This is a fortune telling booth," Zelphina snapped. "I deal cards, I tell you what you need to hear, I show you the door. I don't solve problems."

The young man lead himself to the chair on the other side of Zelphina's card table, earning a glare from her. "They say you're the real deal."

"Well, they'll say anything won't they?" she grumbled, reluctantly setting the device on the floor next to her.

"I'm confused. Isn't this how you make your living?"

"This is one avenue, yes."

"Well, you're not like any psychic I've ever been to."

"Of course not," she locked her gaze onto him. "I tell the truth."

"And what truth is that?"

"The truth that doesn't matter."

"Which is?"

Zelphina took in a deep breath and leaned forward, setting her impressive bust down on the table's edge. "Ten dollars."

The young man struggled to look her in the eyes. "So you'll tell my fortune?"

"If you're going to waste my time, I'm happy to waste yours."

He handed her two fives. "I thought you only charged eight."

Zelphina folded the currency and slid it down her cleavage. "Gratuity," she sneered. "Now pay close attention."

She produced a stack of seventy-eight cards and proceeded to divide and mix them together. The young man had to admit to himself that Zelphina's ability to handle cards was legitimately skillful. She had an arsenal of flourishes, none of which she repeated. And she demonstrated enough control to create the illusion that the seventy-eight large cards were in a synchronized dance.

Once the performance was over, Zelphina took a professional pause, which gave him time to realize his eyes were still wandering to the wrong place. He'd busted countless phony psychics before, and it had been two years since one had gotten anything past him. But damn, she was making it a challenge to focus.

"Eight cards," she said. "The message will appear."

"Or I get my money back?"

"I dare you to reach for it."

Zelphina flipped over eight cards as promised, in perfect succession; each one facing him with the French name written underneath:

Diable
Un de baton
Monde
Bateleur
Soleil
Huit d'epee
Imperatrice
Temperance

And she stared at him silently.

"Well?" he said.

"Well what?"

"Don't you interpret them or something?"

"What is there to interpret? Your message is staring you in the face in black and white."

He'd never once thought this about a psychic he was trying to debunk, but her personality was actually getting under his skin. "No offense, but you're not very good at this."

"On the contrary," Zelphina snarled, "I'm exceptional at this."

"Prove it then," he countered.

"You expect me to prove something to you?"

"Yes! For ten dollars prove that you're not just randomly flipping cards over."
Zelphina stared at him. He'd seen many 'psychics' give the same stare, but only after he'd revealed how they were scamming their clients. The woman across the table from his was honestly intimidating.

"Seventy-five percent of the cards facing you," she hissed, "are Major Arcana. Does that strike you as the result of random flipping?"

He nodded silently. Her point was correct, and he'd noticed that immediately. That was going to be his lead-in argument to debunk her, but she'd beaten him to it.

Zelphina fanned the seventy remaining cards out and instructed him to select one. He drew the seven of cups. She set the deck in front of him and told him to place the card anywhere in the stack he chose, and to shuffle the cards as much as he liked. As soon as he was finished, she retrieved the whole stack and did a one-handed shuffle so fast his trained eyes couldn't follow what exactly she'd done.

"Top." She thumped the top of the deck so hard the first card bounced up in the air and flipped over. The seven of cups.

In a blink, the card was being shuffled again. "Bottom." With the back of her hand she pushed the entire deck to the side leaving only the bottom card face up. The seven of cups.

And before he could react, the cards were being shuffled one last time. She thumped them down on the table equidistant between the pair of them. "Now it's exactly where you want it to be."

He refused to let his eyes glance down at her breasts again, although that would have been an impressive trick. Instead he chose seven from the top.

Zelphina rolled her eyes. "You're worthless, you know that?"

"Excuse me?" He couldn't decide if he was offended or entertained.

"You think you're smarter than everyone else. But you're no different than they are."

He grinned. "I take it you guessed wrong."

"Just get out."

"Admit it, you're a fraud."

Zelphina turned her attention back to her handheld device, refusing to even look at him anymore. "And what claim have I made to you that I've not fulfilled?"

"Well, to begin with you never provided an answer to my question-"

"No fortune teller ever has to provide an answer," she interrupted. "If a man comes in wanting to hear that the cosmic energies suggest he quit his job and pursue an unrequited love, that's what he will hear from the encounter. People bring in their own answers. A psychic is merely the excuse they use to make the wrong choice."

He was about to respond, but Zelphina cut him off again. "And in the case of someone like you who comes in without a question, it's inevitable you'll walk out as blind as you were when you came in, even more convinced that you somehow have vision."

About a minute went by where the only sound was the character sprites on her screen dodging fireballs. He clearly wasn't getting his money back, but he was at least what the seventh card from the top was. He'd counted six down and turned over the Hermit when Zelphina informed him that the seven of cups wasn't in the deck.

"I didn't say it was where you decided it was, I said it was where you wanted it to be."

Without looking up, she reached down her top and pulled out his card, dismissively tossing it on the table. He stared at the card, not sure what to make of it. Then he had a spark of insight as to why Zelphina, who was clearly in control of the deck, had laid out the eight cards the way she had. And sure enough, there it was. The message, from her to him.

He wanted to laugh with her about it, but she was done talking to him. And he left the tent without another word.

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