Solitaire is a lonely concept. I have been trapped with these cards for so long, but I know they are the only friends who can’t backstab you here. I did this to myself; I put myself in solitude, a safer alternative to the prison. I haven’t left in so long. I can Go Fish whenever I please, although I’d never catch anything. I know I can stir War, but in good faith, I cannot kill myself. It is a load of Bullshit when your best dreams are of Bridges and Peanut Butter and Jelly. Most people would go Crazy before 8 days here; I think I have been here 8 years. I had been here so long they knew my hand, they would never Whist them away from me.
The deck spoke, “You know if you actually opened me the first card I would be quite the Joker, maybe you’d laugh for once Prisoner Number 279172.”
Funny was its allure. The lies that were dealt all over its package and it was not the kind that would deliver me anywhere. I had never been to South Beach Miami; to me it didn’t even exist. I grimly fiddled with the tab. Except on these cards, it was the closest and safest thing to a holiday I’d ever receive. I was afraid to wear the picture, to smear my picture of so many escapes. The empty buildings stared me down, as if the deck had finally decided to club me over the heart, find a spade, dig a hole, and leave me to die-a-man-d in the sand.
So for this assignment I instantly saw the lonely picture of Miami Beach, a paradise with no happiness in it. It was quite striking. Of course I had to open it and the first card in the front was a Joker. So the emphasis of all the bad Card puns was based on the Joker. Also since I opened it instantly I thought the character should have some restraint. Sorry for all the bad puns again, I like puns.
ReplyDeleteLove the first line. And I think the puns are an inventive first approach. I also like what you've tried to do with the Miami image. Ultimately, not quite sure all of this holds together, but as an early draft you've packed it full! You mention suicide and getting stabbed in the back, and that, of course, makes me think of Suicide Kings, and the various other icons of the face cards. Maybe there's a way for this narrator to explore the implications of these characters, the repetitions they represent, another kind of isolation and solipsism. While still in the punning mode, a "reading" of the cards, as representative of some central themes in the narrator's life might be just as satisfying, but more nuanced.
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