The Fool found himself at the feet of an elaborated dressed Asian woman. She sat on a gold bench with silk and her crown ornate and dazzling display of wealth. To her right, large tall sunflowers bowed ever so slightly towards her. She looked at the Fool with a stern and critical stare.
I am the Queen of Wands, Fool, the Queen said with a flip of her hand, you are here to be suited with your celestial tasks. I have no patience for your space brain and wanderlust, I just want obedience and to trust you to do your job.
The Fool felt himself bow until his nose almost touched the rug. He also felt his old bones creak and crack. He didn’t want to serve any queen, he wanted to rest for an eternity.
You have rested enough, the Queen said, you have taken enough time for your self-care and wanders.
The Fool was surprised by this statement. He thought that self-care was important and needed.
It is time to do for others, the Queen continued. You are a tool of hope and a messenger.
The Queen stood up and floated across the tiled room towards an enormous columned balcony that overlooked a city. The Fool recognized the tower of the Hierophant off in the distance. Swirling around the top of the tower was a tornado of swifts. Around the bottom, the swifts were thick and many and thinned out towards the top. He could hear their chirps in quick repetitive staccato.
The Queen and the Fool watched the birds for a while. The sun was low on the horizon behind the tower making everything before them a silhouette. The swifts became black dashes in the orange and dark blue sky. The chill of evening settled on the Fool’s shoulders.
A peregrine falcon dove from the sky above and took one of the swifts in its talons and swooped to a lower roof to enjoy its meal. The quick violence of the raptor shook the Fool. He felt helpless as the swift became sustenance for the small falcon.
The swifts do almost everything on the wing, the Queen said, they eat, mate, and sleep in flight. They only stop to lay their eggs and feed their young, and that is in shortstops in hollow trees or hollow towers.
They eat like whales, the Queen continued, they swallow insects and spiders that float up from the ground in the evening air.
The swifts further up are sleeping, the Queen said, but always on the move. Slowing down is death for them. Them to land on the ground is never flying again.
There were so many swifts in the vortex above the tower. Thousands probably. They stayed in a constant state of flight. He could see some diving into the tower and minutes later flying back up to the box of birds. The peregrine falcon stayed perched on the roof satisfied with its meal and was probably just biding its time until it felt hungry again.
While most predators took the weak, this falcon only took the unlucky.
The sunset and the darkness set in and bats began flapping sporadically around clearing the air of flying insects. They could no longer see the swifts. Lights started lighting up in the houses and building below including the Hierophant’s tower. The Queen floated back to her throne.
Go now, Fool, she said sitting down, go back to your journey.
The Fool walked down the dark boulevards of the town passed the open windows letting the cool summer breeze in. He saw people eating dinner and could hear the clanking of plates and glass. He could smell the cooking of meat. He could smell the flowers that hung in baskets that hung along the road. He was on his way.