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Random people ask random questions, and yet, this doesn't mean they will get random answers, because it is not the way answers are meant to work.
Humankind, however, devised systems just for this. For looking somewhere beyond logic and rationality and, to be fair, any sense.
But celestial maps require maths and equipment; augury – keen sight and weather good enough for birds to honour the oracles with their presence; other ways are resource-demanding too in one way or another, but all of them lack the simplicity and contingency that Tarot have.
Seventy-eight cards – relatively easy to get your hands on and carry in a pocket, fun to watch at – are enough to get millions of unpredictable answers, even if you only start with three.
Will they be true? Does it matter? Do we need answers to these two questions as well?
A sunny winter day. Our heroes are sitting on branches of a bare tree, dangling their legs and enjoying it as much as would anyone who was warned about youth eventually going away.
Today both of them feel sudden discomfort at the thought of the future.
"Look what I bought at the market yesterday. Or a month ago, I don’t remember," one of the young men says, taking out a card pack out of his bag that has been dangerously hanging on the much weaker twig the whole time.
The other fellow looks at the pack with interest first, then with slight disappointment.
"It's Tarot," the first one smiles.
"I don't know any card games, Ros," the second replies plainly.
"They are not for playing, Guil, they are for fortune-telling."
"Oh," Guil realises finally. He has trouble thinking clearly, because he is the one of the two more discombobulated by the first thought that came to them this morning (the thought was the same for both, it was the interpretation that differed).
"Could they tell us…" he starts the sentence in a normal voice and switches to careful whispering, "what comes next?"
"Why are you whispering?" Ros whispers too, but in a stage sort, too loud, enough to wake the thing Guil avoids waking.
Neither of them know what this thing is, but they feel its cold gaze on their napes.
Guil just shrugs.
In his eyes there's a silent but obvious plea for an embrace and consolation, and Ros's show the urge – unexplained for him too – to embrace and console, but they are on a tree, and it took minutes of climbing and quite a few scratches, so they do nothing except keeping their stares locked at each other's pupils.
"Alright," Ros says cheerfully to break the spell, whatever it is. "Draw three cards."
Guil reaches forward, but his counterpart suddenly shakes his head.
"Wait," he corrects himself and starts shuffling the cards, paying attention to change the orientation of some. "You have to ask a question.”
"Hm," Guil pauses to think. "What will…"
"Stop! Don't say it out loud!"
Guil repeats the inquiry in his mind, and his nerve strain is visible.
"Wait!" Ros exclaims again. "I need to know what you want to know to know what the cards say."
Guil doesn't say anything but Ros could easily read "do you have a single idea what you are doing?" on his face - that is if he paid any attention. At the moment, he is more concentrated on his task as a divinator.
He offers the pack, a bit dishevelled from intense shuffling and spread in a fan-shaped fashion.
Guil braces himself.
"What will the next year bring?" he asks after two unsuccessful attempts that consisted of opening and closing his mouth like a desperate fish out of the water.
"Is this your question?" Ros wrinkles his nose.
"What's wrong with it?"
"Couldn't you come up with anything more unusual?"
"No, I couldn't. This is the question I want to ask your stupid cards."
Ros smiles slyly, and Guil starts slapping his chest before he says the first "one-love" of the day.
"Stop, I'm going to drop the cards," Ros giggles, and somehow it slightly lifts the blanket of stress they are under.
This stress, a guest too familiar in their mind palaces, has unique forms for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The former often has a lingering suspicion that something might be wrong but can't confirm it and anxiously uses every single thought as a muffler for his mind (which many see as empty and dim, and they are wrong). The latter is keenly aware that something is indeed wrong but doesn't know what exactly, so he channels his own anxiety into a struggle to dismantle the puzzle.
Now, however, Ros's mind is full of thoughts, flying and ricocheting against the walls and each other. Guil's mind is empty, except for laughter, meaningless in its best sense.
"So," Ros holds out the cards again, "shall we?"
"Is my question good enough?" Guil tries to make sure.
"Is this what you want to ask the cards?" Ros raises his brow and Guil responds with rolling his eyes.
"Alright, I'm just kidding. Come on, pick a card."
Guil reaches out for the middle of the pack, stops and takes the very top card instead. It takes some fumbling to pull it out carefully enough without making Ros drop the rest.
Ros looks at it.
"Uh-huh," he says with uncertainty. "Another one."
This time Guil goes for the very bottom, and the cards are safe thanks to the earlier practice. It's as if he wants to deceive fate by being unpredictable. His approach may be called rational – by its definition only, because trying to rationalise the irrational (which Tarot definitely is) is even more irrational than the cards themselves.
Guil hates himself for thinking all these things. The discomfort rises again. Their experience with chance doesn’t make it easier.
"The last one," Ros nudges him quietly, swallowed by the suspense.
Guil hesitates before pulling one more card from the very top again.
The cards, now clinging magically to Ros’s knees, portray: a sword piercing a chaotic X formed by eight blue-and-red lines that are clearly supposed to symbolise something else; a couple whose intimacy is disturbed by a cloaked figure and a cupid, both unwelcomed; and finally, six goblets divided in threes by an adorned staff, which makes them look like red-ripe fruits on a tree.
Ros prepares to give a thorough interpretation: he first winces with worry, then exhales, having remembered which card is first and which is the last. He squints to make out how many there are swords on the first one (they are indeed swords). The middle card makes him blush briefly and throw a glance at Guil with a soft smile. Guil smiles back, confused. The last card widens the divinator’s smile.
“So,” he says giddily.
The pictures on the pieces of thick paper turn into words. The first card unfolds apathy, burnout and weight of distress that came in the past. But the past is in the past, isn’t it? The second is called The Lovers, and there’s no much need to elaborate. It’s the present, naturally. As wise men say, the present is the only time that exists, hence it’s infinite, and what can be better? The future is represented by the third card and is to grant calm, solitude and happiness.
This all even makes sense.
It envelopes Guil in anxious incomprehension, because there are too many variations for results to make sense. And this is actually the thing Ros reads on his face successfully.
"You know what?" he says slowly, not to cut off possible ways to redirect or end this particular branch of their dialogue. "Each card, apart from having a divination function, also can represent a person. According to my research, I'm the knight of cups, and you are the four of cups."
"Why are you a knight, when I’m not even a person?" Guil asks with indignation (the weight of existentialism is no more) and, upon seeing Ros's devious face, yells, even more exasperated, "this mysterious look of yours doesn't count as a question!"
"Is it a statement I hear?" Ros giggles again. "I forgot how many times-love."
"Why would it count?" Guil demands but only receives one more mischievous look in response.
If Guil analysed his current state of mind, he would have to admit that however much he hates the game, it does manage to make him feel better. But he will never let Ros know that.
"Admit this game does manage to make you feel better!" Ros keeps laughing, and Guil wants to kick him but leans forward instead.
Whatever he is going to do is interrupted most unfortunately. Both young men fall from their respective branches, the cards scatter over the snow, Ros's bag is only held up there by the grace of God.
"Dammit," Ros says mournfully.
Only after a few seconds do they realise that they are not in the snow too, and not on the ground at all, actually.
Other branches broke their fall, and they are now hanging among the boughs, pierced by dozens of prickly twiglets. Their clothes are probably ruined for good, but it's better than broken bones.
The other thing they notice is that their faces are very close.
The last time they were this close was but two hours ago, when they just woke up and greeted each other with a smile. Yet, the familiar warmth of the other's breath, the tiny, known-by-heart details of the irises and sheer proximity mixed with the excitement of the fall, once again, alleviates whatever was looming over them today, and they finally feel free.
"I'm going to kiss you now," Guil warns Ros, who grins, his eyes a bit skew.
"Hold tight on these branches, then. For safety."
And they are safe.