The Card Game...My Heart is the Wild Card

Friends: The Card Game...My Heart is the Wild Card

"Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; for though I fall, yet shall I rise." Micah 7:8

It's Valentine's Day, so the concept of a "heart" missive seemed to fit, especially that part which came from last night's dream.

Scene I: Card tables fill a massive room, and I'm sitting at a table, surrounded by strangers, to whom I'm also a stranger. The tournament "Leader" from His lofty perch announces that this card game is random, and we each get only two hands. We have already received the first one.

In the shadows of the room ghastly phantoms swirl and sway, laugh and whisper...they are the reason we strangers are all in this room. We had no say in it...we are all effects of amorous and passionate nights of years past. This "first hand" of cards we are dealt is not of our choosing, and judging from the looks of faces, some have received pretty bad hands, others Full Houses, Aces High.

Scene II: I walk into the hospital Tuesday for another cardioversion, knowing that it is a result of an aberrant hand of cards I was dealt 65 years ago. I am placed on a gurney surrounded by electrical devices to which I am hooked. Electrodes cover my naked body, and a solution of demerol and God knows what other poison is about to flow into my veins. Unintelligible utterances are whispered by the nurses and doctor as they prepare for the "procedure". The doctor taunts, "Been nice knowing you", and the nurse pulls the plug mumbling, "Lights out, Pal." The last act before my heart stops is The Finger I give them all.

The electrodes strapped to my chest are connected to a wall socket, and instantly my heart receives a 300-volt charge of Georgia Power's raw electricity. It cannot stand the jolt, so it stops in mid-beat. I'm dead, if only for a micro-second. But my heart can't be killed that easily as they found out, and soon I am coming out of the anesthetic stupor and being rolled out to the car where Leslie, my daughter, is waiting to transport an incoherently muttering and drugged father back to the island for recuperation.

Scene III: I am now back in the card room, playing with the sorry hand I was dealt, when the "Leader" says, "OK, it's time for you to exercise the One Choice you have: you can keep the hand you have, or get dealt another new hand." Sweat pouring from my face, I contemplate, I decide...OK, I'll take one more hand...let’s go for it. Turns out it's not much better, and the cards prophetically reading "ablation procedure in your future." Heck, my chances might have been better down at Sister Angel, the Tarot Card Reader.

I sigh...I will never win this game with these worthless cards, but at least I can play a little longer...and "Longer" is the name of this game we're all playing, that's for sure, since none in this room is going to win in the end.

The last Scene ends with a new day dawning and a combined Longfellow and Micah ringing in my ears:

"Defeat may be Victory in disguise:
The lowest Ebb is the Turn of the Tide;
Though I fall, yet shall I arise."

Deal the cards, light my cigar, another scotch and lets get on with The Game...Double the bet, I'm in !


Bud
February 14, 2008