Vision of Tarot by Piers Anthony
On the way to the campus they chatted about inconsequentials, getting to know each other. David was a senior student, on leave to serve in the Admissions office. He was not satisfied and planned to complete his degree, then seek employment elsewhere. His program at the college, appropriately, was just twenty years later than Paul's. Here, in certain respects, was Paul—twenty years ago. Half his life ago! He was glad David was likeable for this purely private, selfish reason.
The college, he learned, had grown from less than a hundred students to almost two thousand, though the majority did not reside on campus. And that campus had expanded; what had been forest to the north was now a collection of dormitories. It was to one of these unfamiliar buildings they came. Paul knew the college had changed, yet he felt disappointment to see it changed. Change was a vital aspect of life and of the universe, yet an emotional countercurrent wished it were not so.
They were issued meal tickets for the cafeteria—and this was in the Community Center where Paul had eaten for four years. This building had hardly changed; it remained a converted barn. The cellar he had helped dig out was now a dining room; he and Carolyn ate there, and he met the other program participants there. It was strange, being in this place that he remembered as the depths of the earth; it resembled a fantasy room, the kind that was not really there.
No faces were familiar; the turnover had been complete except for Will Hamlin, who was not at supper. But these were educated, compatible people, centering around his own age—which had, as it were overnight, doubled. He had jumped from twenty to forty, from student status to instructor status, though inside he felt the same. He was as much of a rebel as he had been. At least he liked to think so. The outward manifestations of it had merely changed.
Carolyn was eating with excellent appetite. She had two glasses of chocolate milk and was in partial heaven. That made him realize, with a rush of feeling: he had changed, for now he had his daughter. From the moment of her birth, his life had been metamorphosed; her existence was the single most vital aspect of his existence. He had diapered her as a baby, he had watched her put her foot in her mouth the first time (so many people never outgrew that!), he had helped her walk and talk and read; since she came into existence he had never slept without consciousness of her whereabouts, the assurance that she was safe. Not graduation, not marriage, not the God of Tarot Himself had transformed him as significantly. When she was born, he was reborn. He could not conceive of the scales on which she could be balanced, in terms of the meaning of his life, and found wanting; as well to balance her against the cosmic lemniscate, the ribbon symbol of infinity. This was why he had brought her here; she was part of him. Eight years old, nine in three months (oh, my—another birthday coming up!), precious beyond conception.
This was not a thing others understood or ever needed to. They thought he was the original Paul aged by two decades, though they had not known the original. Yet did anyone know anyone! A philosophic question, unanswerable.
He talked with these others, planning out aspects of the program. Paul knew Tarot; one of the others knew I Ching: common ground of a sort. "I threw the yarrow sticks for tomorrow's program," the other said. "The answer was: 'The Center is empty.' "
Paul laughed. "That could be literal!"
The man nodded soberly. Much student interest had been expressed in this program, The Future of Revelation, but it was uncertain how much would manifest when the hour came. In Paul's day some excellent programs had foundered because the students simply couldn't be bothered to attend.
They finished the meal and went upstairs to the Haybarn Theater. They passed the site of Will's old office, but the office was gone. Doubtless Will rated more than a niche, today, if less than a silo. Paul sniffed —and there was the odor of distilled Old Grandma liqueur still permeating the hall. After twenty years? Impossible...
The Haybarn was as he remembered it. Carolyn was thrilled, running about the stage, trying to act like an Actress. Here Paul had painted scenery, here he had wrestled with stage fright. Public speaking had not come readily to him; hesitancy and a soft voice had been formidable obstacles. Finally during one session the drama coach had gotten through: "Say it again, exactly as before, but just two point three times as loud." Paul had done so—and it had worked. Never again had he been faint on stage. He still spoke softly in life—but he knew the technique of projection and used it consciously when it was required. Armed with that mechanism, he had found that stage fright itself faded. Now he could speak extemporaneously before an audience of any size and come across well. In fact, at times he had a better stage presence than he had a personal presence; private conversations could be awkward.
"We won't use the theater," David White said. "We'll go out on the lawn; more pleasant there." Translation: not enough audience to fill the barn.
At dusk they sat on the gentle hillside behind the Haybarn. Carolyn ran off to explore other portions of the campus. Paul assured himself she would be all right; no one would molest her here, and she knew where to find him. Part of raising a child properly was giving her rein; she had to discover her own horizons in her own fashion.
Each person introduced himself, but the names sieved out of Paul's mind as rapidly as they were uttered, for names and dates were not his forte. Not since he got off mnem! They chatted amiably as more people filled in. When there were about thirty, the main speaker arrived, lay on the bit of level ground at the foot of the slope, dispensed with his notes, and delivered a rambling discourse about his experiences in the political maelstrom of pre-exodus Earth. The entire period of the exodus had fit within ten years, those years fitting within the score of years between Paul's departure and return to the college, but already it seemed like medieval history. People called it the "Fool" period, and indeed it had been mad; the whole of Earth's culture had been shaken in a fashion that was difficult to believe. But the exodus had not sprung from nothing; Earth had been near the explosion point before matter transmission had provided the apparent relief valve. The speaker made this plain, using salty vernacular to spice his strong opinions. It was an interesting discourse, but not at all what was listed on the program.
Paul had pondered what he would find, here at the college of his future. It had been regressing when he left; his own suspension had been only a symptom of the deeper malady. In the interests of growth and acceptability, it had been clamping down on personal freedom, sacrificing the very qualities that had made the college what it was. Now it had achieved that desired growth; did that mean it had become obnoxiously conventional? It was too early to tell, but the preliminary signs indicated that it had not. If this speaker were typical of the new breed of professor, the present college was even more liberal than the original one had been.
As darkness closed in, still more people manifested, dotting the hillside. So did mosquitoes. A young couple sat down before Paul, seeming more concerned with their whispered dialogue than the words of the speaker. The girl kept breaking wind and giggling. There was a murmur of other conversations scattered around the slope. Three dogs cruised about, playing tag around the seated figures, doing the things canines did. Some people left. Evidently this was not considered to be a program to attend from start to finish, but a temporary stop, a kind of low-grade continuous entertainment to be absorbed in shifts. There were some questions to the speaker, reflecting quite individualistic viewpoints.
Paul marveled, internally, as he worried about the dampening grass staining his good habit. He should have worn blue jeans. No doubt about it: the swinging pendulum of conservatism had long-since reversed course. This was the way programs had been in his own day.
At last the program broke up. Paul moved on to the next location where he was scheduled to read a paper. The subject was the God of Tarot, of course. His was the second of two; the first took well over an hour. It was quite interesting—but this meant it was well past his normal retirement hour before his turn came. By this time Paul was not at all sure his material suited t
Then Will Hamlin entered. He was older, grayer, but immediately recognizable. On two levels: the role-player was Therion. Paul jumped up to shake his hand. That was really all there was time for; it was the middle of the program.
Paul read his paper, explaining some of the astonishing ways in which the God of Tarot had manifested, and at last the program ended. There was no particular comment; the others were surely as tired as he was. He located Carolyn, and they found their way to the dormitory room. It was of course much farther past the little girl's bedtime than Paul's own, but she never went to sleep an instant before she had to and was enjoying this.
Too bad there had not been more opportunity to talk with Will, even in the surrogate mode of Animation. Twenty years—the whole world had changed about them both, yet circumstance had granted a mere handshake. It was not that Will had been much in Paul's thoughts during the long interim, and surely Paul had never figured fundamentally in Will's thoughts (fundamentals being prime concepts to Will); this just happened to be the juxtaposition of frameworks that time had caused to diverge widely. Twenty years ago, the chances of Paul's eventual success in life and Will's continued tenure at the college might have seemed equally improbable—yet both had come to pass, and this present meeting was the realization of this. The more appropriate unity of conscience hardly showed overtly—"
"Daddy, are we going to read?"
They normally read together at night, and though it was very late, Paul thought it best to maintain the ritual. He tried to give his daughter a supplementary education by this means, as well as enhancing that closeness that was so vital to them both. She was a sensitive, hyperactive child; she needed a constant supportive presence, not the grim imperatives of forbidding parental figures, but loving help, and this was part of it. He had read her the entire Oz series of books, a complete story-adaptation of the Bible, and was starting in on an unexpurgated translation of the Arabian Nights with the works of Lewis Carroll and Don Quixote to come. There were those who did not consider this to be proper fare for a girl her age, but Carolyn was a very bright girl. He explained things carefully, and they both enjoyed the readings. They were good books, all of them, and more similar to each other than many people chose to believe.
"Of course, sweetie." In his suitcase was the book he had packed for this purpose: an old fantasy about a griffin that came to life, having been a stone statue, and took a little girl flying. For these readings he did not eschew conventional novels; anything that seemed worthwhile and interesting was fair game and had been so since she was two years old, ready to graduate from Mother Goose. Paul had thought this griffin story would complement the experience of the airplane flight, relieving possible anxiety. Actually it did not; Carolyn had enjoyed the flight, and the book did not reach the flying part this night. But the story was interesting.
After that, Carolyn lay on her bunk and read the book she had brought for herself while Paul read the one he had brought for himself. They were very much a reading family; he felt that a book was one of the most versatile educational and entertainment instruments available to man.
Reading, however, tended to put Paul to sleep. It relaxed his mind which otherwise was prone to continuous charges here and there that prevented sleep. He had hardly started his reading before Carolyn trotted across in her nightie, took the book from his hand, kissed him good night, and turned out the light as he nodded off. He heard her little feet pattering across the floor in the dark, quickly to avoid possible monsters on the floor, as he faded out. Was he taking care of her, or she taking care of him? It hardly mattered.
Paul woke at dawn. It was too early for breakfast, and he didn't want to disturb Carolyn, so he dressed and walked out around the surrounding campus. This was, as it turned out, a co-ed cooking dorm with kitchen and laundry facilities. Such dorms had not existed at the college in Paul's day, and there had been no indication that the institution was moving in that direction. Surely the Vice Squad would have moved Heaven, Earth, and participating students (yea, right off the campus!) in its frantic efforts to balk any such development. What had happened? Paul had known the members of the Squad reasonably well; one had been described as "as shallow as an empty bathtub" and another as a "medieval moralist." They must have been grossly out-maneuvered!
No, he had to be fair: he might not have known them well enough. Perhaps they had come to accept what they had rejected in his day. It was always dangerous to judge any person's character or attitude as fixed; new aspects often appeared.
There was a chill to the morning even in this summer, and Paul was inadequately dressed. He had to keep moving to generate heat. That was fine; he liked running anyway. The environs were lovely. There was a small lake behind the dorm where four ducks dwelt; the moment they spied him they waddled over with loud quacks, hoping for food. Alas, he had none. A canoe and a kayak were at the edge for the use of students. Elsewhere was a volleyball court. Packed-dirt paths led in various directions. Beyond these items, the forest closed in closely. There were birds in it and no doubt deer and porcupines: Nature returning. It was all very pleasant, this enclave of higher education on the brink of the wilderness. Would that the whole world were the same!
He returned to Carolyn. She took after her mother in this respect; she slept as late as she could and stayed up as late as she could. Paul was an early bird, she a late bird. But they didn't want to miss breakfast. "Up," he murmured in her cute little ear. "Chocolate milk." She stirred. "Ducks."
"Oh, ducks!" she cried joyfully. Waking up might be a fate hardly better than death, but here were four new friends to make it all worthwhile! Before they left the campus, Paul knew, she would be on close terms with every duck, dog, cat, and child on the premises. This was the nature of little girls, bless them!
Together they walked the path to the main campus. The route took wooden steps up a steep hill, meandered by a solar-designed building still under construction, through the barbell-shaped Arts building, past the modern new library, and through a pleasantly dense pine forest. Only the pines had existed in Paul's day.
"In the pines, in the pines," they sang together, "Where the sun never shines, And I shiver where the cold winds blow." And there was a chill little breeze, and they shivered. He pointed out the huge bull spruces to her with their myriad spokes radiating out, easy to climb, but the dirt and sap got on the hands and never came off. "So don't climb," he finished warningly. "I don't want the people to think I have a dirty daughter."
"I won't, Daddy," she promised, eyeing the spruces appraisingly. Those spokes were just like ladders...
On through a fair field full of flowers, reminding him of the alliterative opening to the epic poem The Vision of Piers Plowman, wherein there was a fair field full of folk, representing mankind, going about their petty pursuits, heedless of the promise of the Tower of Truth above or the threat of the Dungeon of Wrong below. Carolyn of course wanted to pick the flowers, all of them; but he begged her to let them be beautiful in life instead of killing them by picking them.
Finally down to the main campus in time for breakfast. O joy! Carolyn found several kinds of cereals, sweet pastries, and of course chocolate milk. Paul found dishes of nuts, sunflower seeds and yogurt; he settled for the skimmed white milk and two fried eggs as well. All paid for by their typed meal tickets! Carolyn loved those tickets; they were like magic. Just show one, and the best of food was yours.
When Paul had been a student here, there had been no particular consciousness of h
Paul glanced curiously at the students in the dining room. The males were almost universally bearded, the females braless; most of both sexes were in blue jeans. In Paul's day there had been fewer beards and more bras; otherwise the aspect of the student body had hardly changed.
Before the meal was over, Carolyn had made friends with the ladies of the kitchen. "Daddy, can I stay here this morning?" she asked brightly. Paul checked; children and animals were not necessarily welcome in kitchens. It was all right with the ladies. So he made sure his daughter knew where to find him and let her be. Actually, David White had arranged for a student, Susan, to keep an eye on Carolyn while Paul was tied up in the program. Susan had a head full of ringlets and seemed like a nice girl; he was sure it was all right.
On to the morning program. The center is empty, he remembered. There were to be three discussion groups, each cohosted by two people. Sure enough: only six people showed up. The six co-hosts. No students. That aspect of college life had not changed at all; theoretically students came to get an education, but in practice any program that began first thing in the morning was doomed.
A quick consultation; then the three groups merged. They discussed which topics to discuss. A few other people wandered in, as though accidentally diverted from their routine pursuits, temporarily caught in this eddying current, until at last there were some fifteen people.
Paul shook his head inwardly. This, too, was exactly the way it had been in his day. The students wanted the degree—the piece of paper that authenticated their education—without actually having to participate in the drudgery of classes. This happened to be the first really nice day in some time, and everyone was out with his girlfriend appreciating nature. Which was no bad thing. Paul well knew that growth could not be forced. Had his own transcript reflected his real educational experience, it would have listed the whole of his classroom participation as perhaps one third of his grade. And that would have been a higher classroom ratio than the average, for he had an intellectual bent.