Card Tricks
M A Davis / Miko


       Tamayo's video camera was rolling.  Sakura wore her cat-
motif battle dress.  Nearby, the Fly was terrorizing three clowns.
With smiles painted on their faces they screamed in abject horror,
as their balloons sailed up into the evening sky.

       Sakura sighed.  She'd been looking forward to the carnival
for two weeks.  Now she would be too busy dealing with clow
card monsters to enjoy any of it.

       "Hurry," Tamayo said.  "It's got Beppo trapped against the
cotton candy stand!"

       Sakura flipped through the pile of cards in her hand.  Which
to use?  Which to use?  She discarded the Old Maid as useless.
The One-Eyed Jack had depth perception problems, and as for the
suicide king, well, she didn't want to repeat _that_ scene again...."

       "Boardwalk?" she said to herself, holding one card up.  "I
wonder what _that_ would do?"  She dug through her collection
again and held something else up.  "An Elvis stamp?"

       "Yeah," Kerachan said.  "It's the YOUNG Elvis!"

       "You stupid Cerebus!  That's not even a card!  It doesn't
count!"

       Sakura held up another offending card.  "What's this?  A
business card?  Haruki Ishigawa?"

       "If you want an insurance quote," Kerachan said, "he's your
man!"

       "Kerachan," Sakura said, "these are without a doubt the
lamest clow cards I've ever heard of."

       "Probably because they're not clow cards," Kerachan said.

       "That's my whole point!"

       "Hey," Kerachan said, "they're the best I could do on such
short notice!"

       "Maybe," Sakura said, "if you hadn't gambled away all of
my old clow cards, I wouldn't be trying to win them all back."

       "Sorry," Kerachan said again.

       "Besides," Sakura said, "strip twister?  What were you
thinking?  Not only are your arms and legs too short to reach
different colored circles, but you're already naked!"

       Kerachan blushed.  "I was too drunk at the time to realize,"
he said.

       "The clowns are down!" Tamayo called out.  "Better hurry,
Sakura.  It's coming this way!"

       Sakura sighed and stared dubiously at her odd collection of
cards.

       "Okay," she said.  "Better use two."  One at a time, she threw
the cards into the air and swung her wand at them, pinning each
of them in midair with the wand's bright red beak.

       "COLONEL MUSTARD!" she called out as she pinned the
first.

       "O. J. SIMPSON, RUNNING BACK!" she called out as she
pinned the second.

       She glanced at the two men who appeared before her, one in
a safari suit of mustard yellow, and the other in a Buffalo Bills
uniform, circa 1972.

       "See that bird-like monster behind you?" she said.  "I need
you two to take it down, quickly!"

       "Not a problem, Miss!" Colonel Mustard said.  He shuffled
his feet.  "Only, I could use a weapon, I think.  You wouldn't, by
chance, have a candlestick handy?"

       "I could use a knife," O. J. said, "and some gloves, if you've
got them.  Small would be fine."

       "I don't have any weapons," Sakura said.  "All I've got are
more stupid cards."  She held out the collection in her hand to
prove her point.

       O. J.'s eyes lit up.  "Oooh, is that a 'get out of jail free' card'?
I'll take it!"

       As the two men began to battle the strange clow monster,
Sakura muttered, "You couldn't bring me a Pokemon card, at
least?  An anime card perhaps?  I could do with Lina Inverse
right now!"

       From somewhere Kerachan produced a colorful cardboard
square.  "Will Fancy La La work?"


FINI