Empress - III

Section of the Novella from Tarot Blanco

Keystroke after making all lark alleluia

Holding all retread Republican inter splat.

Some time in the ebb of September 2024 - Omaha, NE

The yellow wheat was stiff and golden honey blossomed with a losing drip. Out over the surplus she stared at the assembled audience some of whom were not on her side but wanted to pick apart the words for their companions. It was going to be one of the harder stops on this tour. But no matter, there is blood to be paid though often in colloquial realms rather than through the hard-earned stone.

If one looked at her, one would have seen a gaunt face with a beige complexion. What would have stood out is the determination that she looked in each direction as if she were measuring up each face that came to her and then reached out to shake a hand with aplomb. The dark eyes were penetrating and the dark blue suit was enervating. This was a person with control of her words and phrases. And if you heard her say that she knows the type, you can be assured that this at least was true.

There were no trees nor any trace of hills in front of her, the edge of the Great Plains. She measured herself cleared her voice and began her patterned reach for the stars. Even so, her words cascaded down as if finding the earth. And when her speech and glad-handing were accomplished, she stepped down the smooth-out wooden steps, feeling not like the Empress of performance but as if she were running the race behind a formless orange blob. And he was laughing from the nether regions both verbal and the other place. Perhaps he was right that America was willing to lower its standards.

And with each soul and step she made the motions, taking names and remembering everything that she could for the time when it became important. Which was probably never but almost certainly ever. She always managed to remember not to make a promise that she would not break. at least she was at a small airport away from the noise that expressed the impression of a large city. This was of course gnonsense.

There was no one in the back just the driver, one security guard (whose stance was always at the ready, now more than ever caution), and more plugged into the posse of limousines in front behind, and to either side. It was the Gang of Four only in drag. Donk to the Phant.

She hurried and docked into the automobile, but inside her mind, she mentally smoothed her brow and looked out over the graveled path outside that would whisk her away to the next plot of hell that she had willingly taken up as her chance to ascend all ever upwards. It was a goal that seemed almost unattainable,e especially from where she had begun in the streets of a city which was eclipsed by the spires to the sun a few miles of the placid bay away.

She settled down into the white leather couch and for just a moment she surveyed her position. It was not good she had to admit, because while she had the figures and the facts at hand there was the problem that half were voting for change and half were putting to leave the whole edifice untouched and running as it always has. She knew that this later could not be the case but she had no vision as to what the future would have to the like. She winced as she remembered that in her speech which promised abolition of all restraints but did not square that with a vision that would lead the country there.

She then realized that she needed to turn on her phone. And as she did it the bell chirped up.

It was the habit of placing the rectangular phone up to her face.

“Yes?” There were no other words, this to be the routine.

“I was worried. Have you gotten to the plane?”

“Far from it high just got off the stage and am packed inside my cube.”

“I wanted to go over the speech and recommend a few changes for the next delivery.”

She pulled out a pen which was clean steel. “Yes?”

It seemed to her that everyone who was anyone knew so much more about what came out of her mouth than she did. Dialing for dollars talking for trade and hoping that none of the changes through her off as she practiced the comic lines and the tragic grottoes. It was, in a word, a trapeze act performed by her teeth and lips shaping the tongue ever so gently into a comic Snark. She envisioned the Jabberwock with eyes of claim. Then she settled down into a plush cross which she always flashed in a circle. She looked down at the floor and dangled her pearl necklace. And she kept thinking is this where I want this speech to take them? In fact, she had more than a bit of this distaste for how it crafted her image.

It wasn’t the toughness, because that was hers through and through, but the paleness of what she promised. It did not sit right but then perhaps nothing ever would.

Then she saw the trees which opened up a sluggish river. She knew that she was back at the runway with the jet engine purring to take her to what she had never seen before and probably would never see again. She scanned over the wheat and saw the Golden sunrise taking away herself and giving back nothing in return.

But she snapped back into the reality that she had chosen: “I’m ready for one of the changes. Fire.” Fire because it could be her in the end of the ape media blazing squad.

And with each change, she felt herself grind a bit more to the smoothness that her handlers wanted. Would that she where back in California where the goons were at least polite.

The question however was: “Was this image close to real or was it Memorex played in reverse?”