What I'm writing doesn't even describe half the experience. There's not any real way to put it onto paper. Regardless, I'm awake, back in my room, without any overlay. My mirrors are still here. My desk sits sturdy with this journal atop it. My rug lays flat on the black tile as it always has. If nothing is lost, why worry about it, right? Not that you can really LOSE anything here anyhow. Only gain. But for now, I think I'll save these pages for another entry. Something looking forward instead of looking back, I guess. That's the wrong direction, but I have nothing else to say.
Hello again. I'm sorry for immediately breaking my promise, but I found something worth mentioning in the drawers of my desk: a deck of cards. Unopened, still in the shrink wrap, just sitting in a drawer. I know that doesn't make sense, but it's all I can really say about it. How long have these been in there? The cards inside nearly cut me along their straight edges and have a scent of shredded wood. Yet when I put my hands against them, they feel worn down and sink into my hand in a familiar way. I almost started shuffling them before I caught myself and dropped them all in a flutter.
They can't be anything else but cards. I've felt cards before, so have you. I'm in awe of myself though, at how ridiculous I've been. This all needs to be put away for now.
Four
Flip, flip flip. That makes twenty five thousand flips of the card. Twenty five thousand times I've rubbed my knuckle on the carpet picking and twisting. Would you believe that out of all those times I've flipped cards, I've only won four games of Devil's Grip? Only four. The rest I would only land on five before I couldn't go further. Five times five times five... that's too many cards to count.
Let's talk between games. I think that will help me win, somehow. Like a nice back and forth to keep all my cylinders firing... That sounds kind of cool, actually. Cylinders firing. Running back and forth in a chamber to the rhythm. Where have I heard that before? Somewhere, I guess. Ugh. Time to flip some more cards. Another game lost.
I don't think I'll ever get tired of looking at these things. They sort of lock together in a way through the tiling in the background. Most cards that are printed always have some sort of issue with them when you look really close. The pattern feels blurry or poorly inked, but these are perfect in their design. Putting them together also makes an incredible mosaic. Of what, I can't really say. Just seems like a lot of shapes stacked nicely together. Maybe I'll draw them in case you don't have the cards. It's a shame you can't see them while you play the game. The other side comes around with a flip after shuffling the deck again.
There are kings, queens, jacks (whatever those are), and aces (again, what are these?) I see every game. We stare at each other with perfectly shaped eyes. I wonder what they're thinking of right now, wherever they are. What kind of rulings they have to make today, choosing whether or not someone needs to go into a comfortable place. Something like that. Oh, but what if the kings and queens are all in here, just like me? That's a trick question of course, they're already folded within the deck. And now, they will face away from the mural. Game over. What the fuck.
Something has changed about the cards within that last sentence. There's more to what's being played here, maybe some sort of story in each card. There is a faint narrative that I'm not quite getting here. I swear though, it's as familiar as the daydreams I go through when I sit here at this desk. There's no word for that feeling that this has all been done before. The game is now changing, the order of cards does not, and what's behind them is something I don't get. Four Kings above everything, Four Queens just under them, Four Jacks below that, Four Aces in between...
And five Jokers that will never be used.
Zero cards left.
Five:
Layer One: Infinite Intuition
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