Parable of the Fool

Before the fool set out on her journey, she asked her mother why she was forced into existence.

“We are the center of all the roads,” her mother kindly replied, “For a wanderers’ outlook is never certain. Time is a shadow on the minds of Man– they cannot function if they are forced to acknowledge that their heartbreak echoes that of a ticking clock. I am sorry you had to be born, but you are the beginning of all things. You are meant to define life.”

The fool listened to her mother as she stood at the crossroads of life and death, and of love and loss. There were centuries behind her and there were eons ahead. The road stretched in opposing directions: North, South, East, West.

The Northern path was clear, as if it contained only sky and led to nothing. The Eastern path was inlaid with cobbled stone that grew further apart, until branches and brambles obscured the horizon. The Southern path was slick with clay and rippled with promises of a river. The Western path mirrored the path east, except the vision West apparated like a mirage; revealing its own branches and brambles behind viscous air.  

The fool considered the path North, then turned East, pivoted South, passed West, and settled back to North. Uncertain, the fool began to ask the crossroads for guidance, but her mother’s words once more rang out in her mind, “You are the beginning of all things.” 

And the only way to begin is by beginning.

She begged the air around her for its pardon, and removed from the earth a knife, a wand, a chalice, and a coin. With her knife, the fool carved a quarter-inch incision stretching from the tip of her right index finger to the crook of her elbow. She pulled two cards from her shallow wound: the Moon and the Lovers. She turned to face the North road as it glistened before her. She lifted the Moon and read the first of two prophecies of what she now knew to be the Path of Glass to the air around her:

“The Moon and her shadow have inspired you to unveil your beautiful form onto the  reflective path you travel on. This path will leave you shallow; unable to sink into the  depths of your potential as you walk along the shimmering surface. You and your  mirrored shadow will be undistinguishable; an illusion protecting you from the conquistadors who are cursed to chase your refracted form. You are free, but you also do not exist.” 

The fool paused, but eventually shared the prophecy of The Lovers to the same air: 

“Your Lover will implore you to fulfill the desires that chain your body to the glass.  When you are chosen, you will kneel. As you place your perfectly sculpted brow onto the translucent surface, imagine it was on the other side of the painted glass. As your  bloodied forehead pierces the cool ground you will begin to drown in all that is not water.  To survive, you will guzzle the shards of mirrored glass until it satisfies you, fills you, and flows out of you. You will taste the iodized and acrid sting of liquid iron bubbling in  your torn throat, but as you choke and vomit into your palms all you will see is rubies. You are a gift, and you will give.” 

The fool reached for her coin, and promised the air that heads would lead her down the  Northern path should it decide. With a flick, the fool released her coin and watched it tumble to the ground and fall silent. The coin bore tails to the sky, and quickly sank back into the earth.  Relieved, the fool carved the same line in her left arm, and pulled out a single card. She  examined it like the coin and read both sides, for the one was two: Star and Death. She turned  East, and eagerly told the tale of their tango to the air: 

“The path of stone will leave you the happiest, and those you find along this path will  share in the commonwealth of ecstasy at the trail's end. You will bask in the stinging cold and bristled pine that lightly eviscerates the uppermost layer of skin as you pass by; raw, naked, unencumbered. You will be weighed down by the heat of the sun. Through the sinews connecting bone to bone to earth you will channel this heat- sole to Gaia. This is the path of no return, for those who walk it must forget about all that lives and dies left behind the first stone that lay on this path. If you continue down this splendid path you will achieve all that it is to be alive and attuned to all that exists. If you stray, turn back, or take pity on those who have yet to pass the first stone you will find out all that there is to be human. You will be cursed, and every stone henceforth on this path will turn to ignited coal as your un-calloused feet kiss the embers. Ever moving.” 

The fool was so enamored by the prophecy of stone that she turned East to follow the  rocky path and the promises it boasted. The air stilled, saddened by her imminent departure.  Having felt this apprehension, the fool gave the air of the crossroads one last gift. She placed her left knee on the dirt, and slit her right ankle. She positioned the chalice against her achilles wound, and new blood filled the cup. The fool’s precious water brimmed over and flowed towards the southern path, mingling with the slick clay. She pulled from her wound the card of the Empress, and turning South, gave her words once again to the air: 

“The path of clay follows the stream, and will lead you to the basin of all human emotion, creating within you a well of compassion, integrity, and love. All of the joys and pains of those who shed tears before you overflow this well, and it will take all of your power to hold down the geyser that yearns to burst out of you. Your throat will seize and burn, and a river of mucus will accompany the waters of the well as your lungs fill with blood. You will contain within yourself the power of all humankind and creation in all of its agony. You will begin and end in the cycle; always moving, never leaving.”

The fool took the knife and the chalice and laid them in the center of the crossroads for  the air to keep. Her words stayed with the wind. This was her final gift. 

The fool’s journey continued east, until the westward winds turned her back to the  crossroads. Her heart was heavy for Moon and Lovers, for Star and Death, and for poor  Empress. She wanted them to share in the joys of the Stone Path; She wanted them to share the  feeling of smooth stone under bare feet and the rough embrace of brambles on bare skin.The fool foolishly turned her back on the Eastern path- forgetting the fate of the eastward deserters. Her left heel suddenly stung and became slick with blood, and from a new wound she pulled her final card. Every stone on this sublime path turned to coals. Burning embers stretched further East than she could have ever hoped to go, and West. West passed where the roads first crossed, and further still. The fool turned to the path of the damned, and read the curse of the Tower to thick unfamiliar air: 

“The path of embers is laid for the bane of the path of stone- cursed to wander always and forever. You will walk along the fallen Tower- still burning from the divine lightning that struck it down. Every time you lay sole to earth you will be forced to pick it up again– unable to bear the heat beneath your naked feet. This path is as endless as the catastrophe you wrought upon yourself and the World. You are destruction. You are liberation.” 

The fool reproached the rusted earth, and felt the nakedness of her form for the first time. Despite this, she turned to the Moon and to the Lovers with no regrets. She took the cards of glass, dipped them into the embers, and walked on. As they lit and warmed in her palm, she  stretched her right arm towards the earth with her index finger outstretched, and placed the burning cards back into her still open wound. The once beautiful red line cracked, blistered, and closed as the flames engulfed her arm. She took Star and Death, and through the same fire she folded them within her left arm. Again, the fool alighted. At last, she embraced her Empress. Like Moon and Lover and Star and Death, the fool allowed her Empress to retire in burning grace; a mercy granted by The Tower.  

As the damned fool approached the threshold of the crossroads once more, she bowed with her wand in both hands until it too was burning. She entered the place where all roads meet while holding the wooden candle’s tip facing the earth. As she reached the center, she struck the wand into the ground until the hilt was buried. The flames ignited all the paths she could no longer follow until glass, stone, and clay turned to ash. All the paths receded to embers, and her mother void was satisfied. The fool continued on her journey, and wanders still.