Card Tricks to Rekindle an Old Flame

He looked over at me with a twinkle in his eye, and asked if I wanted to be shown a card trick that wasn’t really a trick.

“It really isn’t a trick. Just for fun. Want to see it?”

“Sure,” I said, nodding my head.

We were in camp, with time to kill. I always found my friend’s beliefs in new-age mambo jambo to be very interesting, and had no reason to believe that whatever he was going to show me would be otherwise.

“Now, think of a girl. Any girl will do. But preferably somebody you like — everybody’s got somebody they like — it more interesting if it’s somebody you’re in love with.”

“Okay. I’m thinking of her,” I said, recalling images of a girl whom I was once very serious about.

He handed me the cards in his hands to me, and said, “take this deck of cards and shuffle it. Then cut the cards into three stacks on the table.”

I did as he asked, shuffling the deck, then separating the cards into three stacks in front of me, from right to left.

He went through the three stacks of cards, removed some cards from each stack, and put the remaining cards back. Then he combined the three stacks of remaining cards and told me to shuffle them again, after which I would cut them once more into three stacks.

This process was repeated two more times.

“Okay, this is the last one,” he said, combining the three stacks and laying them out one by one on the table.

“Wow,” he said, “interesting. Interesting and complicated. This King of Spades represents you. This Queen of Hearts, her. The Ace of Spades represents your ‘heart’ or ‘love’. It is your love. The Ace of Hearts is her love for you. This Queen of Clubs here is…”

He went through with me what the rest of the cards meant, as well as explained to me what the positions of each of those cards showed.

His final analysis showed that our hearts were close, and love strong, though physically we were far apart. He was a little puzzled by our hearts being “far apart” part — he didn’t seem to get it much, so he mentioned that perhaps it might have been due to my being in the army.

He also mentioned that another girl seemed to be fighting for my attention, while I had a ‘Jack of Clubs’ rival, who is physically closer, but lacking the kind of connection the girl I was thinking about and I had.

My friend then laughed, and asked me how true it was.

“The cards are only accurate the first time. After that they don’t seem to work anymore. So, how accurate was it?”

I looked at him, and smiled. Then I replied, “not bad. The girl I like’s in Australia! But I didn’t expect, and still don’t, expect her heart close to mine, nor our love to be strong. Strong, perhaps on my side, but hers? I don’t know… The other girl seeking my attention, don’t know of any other girl who would warrant it, perhaps it’s subconscious? And about my rival in love, I wouldn’t know that either but it’s likely, her being in Australia and all that.”

“Hey guys! Last parade,” a voice from outside shouted, and we put down the cards, and made our way down.

I enjoyed this. It made me wonder if perhaps, just perhaps, she might still be thinking of me.