What is a shell but a little lie made solid?
Three of them. Three!
And under one, you say, crouches the little pearl of fortune—
that pale, ridiculous pea,
round as a moon and twice as smug.
There it sits, perhaps, beneath the left,
unless beneath the middle,
unless—ah!—you have been clever enough to move it
while my eye was upon your hand.
Do you see me watching?
You flourish your fingers like a priest blessing fools.
You smile.
You lean across the board with that hungry little smile
which men wear when they believe they have discovered
some crack in the walls of eternity.
Go on.
Move them.
Left to right.
Right to left.
Round and round they scuttle,
three blind little coffins for a dead man's hope.
You think I am impatient?
No.
I have waited longer than your bloodline has had a name.
I have watched kings wager kingdoms on a word,
bishops wager souls on a promise,
lovers wager everything on tomorrow.
And you—
you bring me three shells and a pea.
A pea!
How beautifully small is the machinery of your deception.
How proud you are of it.
There—
you lift the first.
Empty.
The second.
Empty.
And now you pause.
Ah.
There is the trick, isn't it?
The pause.
That tiny hesitation in which you imagine yourself master of the universe.
You look at me as though you have caught me wondering.
As though the hood conceals confusion.
As though these old bones have never seen a conjurer at work.
Lift the third.
Go on.
Make me laugh.
You cannot fool Death with concealment.
I am what waits beneath every covering.
Under the shell.
Under the skin.
Under the name.
Under the clever hand and the clever tongue.
You shuffle the shells because you cannot bear the stillness.
That is your true game.
Not the pea.
Not the coin.
Not the poor little spectator whose pocket you mean to empty.
You are playing against the silence.
And now you have begun to understand
why I find you amusing.
You have spent your life learning how to make men look elsewhere.
I have spent mine waiting for them to look nowhere.
So shuffle them again, little fox.
Hide your prize.
Cross your hands.
Lie to me.
Tell me the pea is there.
Tell me it is here.
Tell me it has vanished.
I promise you, I shall play along.
I shall even pretend to lose.
For a moment.
For one delicious, miserable moment,
you may believe that you have cheated me.
And then I shall lift the shell.
Not the one you expect.
Not the one you marked.
The other one.
The one beneath which there is nothing.
And when you stare at it,
wondering where your precious little miracle has gone,
I shall lean close and whisper:
It was never the pea I came for.
Epitaph
Death loses…
Empty.
Damn you.
You moved it while I watched.
No—worse. You made me think I watched.
Three shells. One pea.
And for the first time in an age,
I have been made a fool of by something smaller than my thumb.
Do not smile.
I have swallowed emperors whole.
I have waited beside battlefields until the crows grew fat.
And yet here I sit,
defeated by a traveling cheat
with a pea and three little cups.
Very well.
You win.
For tonight.
Keep your coin. Keep your trick. Keep your life.
But remember this, my friend:
You may fool Death once.
You may even fool him twice.
But sooner or later,
someone forgets to hide the pea.
And when that day comes—
I shall not bother looking.
I'll simply wait.
I have time.
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