The Deck of Comets
Sketch my eyes across a deck of cards, the king said to his artists. The royal optics, contractions of the iris and elevations of the celebrated eyelids were etched across 52 zinc plates.
(The king had an irrepressible habit of eating spoonfuls of chestnuts dipped in lavender honey while in the bath. He would step out naked and view the stars through the telescope on the marble veranda beyond the tub, then return to finish his soak.)
The king hadn’t been specific. Three artists failed to capture the entire royal eyeball, each structure visible to the un-doctored eye, and were lashed.
(One evening, as honey dripped onto his leg, the king spotted a bright dot in his telescope.)
The mistake mortified one of the artists so gravely that, alone, he etched 52 zinc plates with 52 versions of the king’s smile.
(It was a comet.)
The king was so taken with the artist’s initiative and craftsmanship that he granted the artist an estate and studio containing every conceivable tool and material in the land.
(The king watched the comet until he caught a chill.)
The artist celebrated by hosting a fantastic card tournament. He used both the deck of smiles and the deck of eyes. He lost everything on a single hand. The king interpreted the misfortune as an extension of his spreading power. He declared that on the fifth of each month, landowners must play a winner-takes-all card tournament with half their holdings on the line.
(The king sat naked on the cold marble. The honey spoon balanced on his knee. Goosebumps raised down his thigh.)
In the first tournament the king began to grasp the math he’d unleashed against himself. Soon a landowner would control half his kingdom. Luckily a fight broke out. A page caught a duke with four aces up his sleeve.
(The king called his scientists. Is this comet heading for us? he asked. You must keep our kingdom from the drawer, he shouted.)
For a moment the king set aside his anxiety. He wanted to know how the cheating duke acquired four extra aces at all. None of the decks were missing cards. Both sets of zinc plates, eyes and smiles, were heavily guarded. The artist had long since disappeared.
(The comet will pass without incident, the scientists said. Imagine the wingspan of a hurricane and it contains only two grains of sand, what are the chances they collide?)
The king was certain that if he thought long enough, he’d figure out what happened.