The Fool

A Ritual in Five Steps

He chose a path. But the path had already chosen him.

She laid the cloth with brittle hands,

Her eyes like ink inside the sand.

Three cards turned – in crooked light:

The Thief. The Fool. The Judge in white.

"This is your path," she said, then laughed.

"Not a choice. Just aftermath."

The Fool stood grinning, off the line.

The other two would bide their time.

The sky grew flat, the air grew thin,

As something vast pressed further in.

He felt no voice, but something stayed,

A pressure where his thoughts had prayed.

Not gods of warmth. Not gods of law.

Just watching things with mouths of straw.

Too far to hear, too close to flee,

But in their stillness: certainty.

He walks the path the Fool has drawn.

No crown, no light, no breaking dawn.

He walks and learns. He learns and sees.

He sees too much, he cannot leave.

The house was stone, the door was sealed,

The circle carved, the tools revealed.

The alchemist wore hands of glass.

The priest of bone let no one pass.

They called him "Seeker," gave him names,

They etched his skin with seven flames.

Each night he read. Each night he knew.

And still, they said: "You're passing through."

The truth was soft. It entered slow.

It dripped from words he shouldn't know.

Each symbol peeled his memory back,

Each rune a step, each phrase a crack.

He dreamed of salt. He bled in thought.

The questions answered what he's not.

The Judge returned, but did not speak.

The Thief just smiled, and kissed his cheek.

He walked the path the Fool had made.

No road, no end, no price unpaid.

He begged for silence, begged for grace.

But knowledge, knowledge carves a deeper face.

His hands obeyed before his will.

The others watched. The others knelt still.

One drank poison. One turned black.

One turned the blade and never came back.

The book burned blue. The gate unlocked.

His bones reshaped with every knock.

The mask grew in where eyes had been.

And then, the gods began to grin.