Death stared at the Fool with grinning menace, the scythe leaning on the bloody soil amongst the talking body parts. The Fool was filled with dread. He couldn’t read the skull’s facial expression. Was he to die now? Was Death just waiting for the time to come?
Raindrops started falling from the sky and onto the gory rows of piled dirt. The drops hitting the skull of Death didn’t bother Death at all, but the Fool was disturbed by the cold rain. The drops were icy and heavy.
It’s spring, a severed head wearing a crown said. There is still a bit of winter in those raindrops.
The message here is that everything dies, thought the Fool. There is an end to everything, so the idea of expecting the permanence of anything is just silly. He hadn’t really thought of his own mortality that much. Someday his wanders would end, and he would just not be. That thought brought more panic.
Death pointed to the sky and the Fool looked up into the rain and saw a giant heart floating in the air. Three swords were stuck through it, and blood dripped down to the ground from the wounds. The blood was thick and hot-looking, almost black, and the ground greedily absorbed it.
The Fool felt an emptiness that he hadn’t felt before – or, at least, he didn’t think he had. He felt heartbroken and started remembering a shepherd boy that he had known at one time. They were no longer together, and it made him so sad. He thought about the Lovers and about the Two of Cups and felt so utterly alone. Why couldn’t someone be there with him on this journey?
The heart was beating slowly. Blood dripped out with every pulse. The Fool could feel his heart try to match the rhythm of the giant heart. Every heartbeat brought more sadness for the Fool.
The One Who Can’t Be Named sliced his scythe down in front of the Fool and into the ground. The Fool suddenly wasn’t so sad anymore. He was standing in a tilled field littered with body parts that were speaking to him, or each other, with Death itself standing a few feet away from him. He was no longer in grief. It took as long as it had to take.
You’ll feel it again as well, a lonely eyeball said, it will come in weaker and weaker cycles and it may never end before you join us, but it will at least pass for a bit.
People try to forget, a head added, but why would you want to forget love?
The Fool didn’t know. He was in the camp of forgetting everything behind him. He was only interested in seeing the next thing, so the idea to dwell so sadly on someone he once knew didn’t make sense to him. There was a little bittersweetness in those memories. While the world without the shepherd boy was almost devastating, the Fool was somehow happy that he was still able to remember him.
The nameless one’s jaw started clacking, bringing the Fool’s attention back to the skeleton with the scythe. The rain did stop, though.