The
Awful Vista of the Year
Now that you have learned of all the dreadful things that have
overtaken your friends and relations during the past year as scribbled on the
inside of their Chirstmas card, don't you want to know what dreadful things lie
in wait for you? To this end Madame Groeda Weyrd (a nom de gare; her true
one is known to few this side of the grave) has consented to have the fantod
deck printed here.
Madame Weyrd, who is of mixed Finnish and Egyptian extraction has devoted her life to divination, and is the author of, among a shelf of other works, Floating Tambourines, a collection of esoteric verse, and The Future Speaks Through Entrails . Her Career as one of the most celebrated trace mediums came to a close when she lost two and a third fingers as a result of a contretemps during a ectoplasmic manifestation. She had long since been persona non grata to many of the rich and famous because of her fearless predictions of disaster. She know makes her home on Staten Island (the one that's part of Tierra del Fuego) and is writing what is hoped may be the definitive treatise on the Mystic Bean.
Of the Fantod Pack itself, Madame Weyrd will only say that its origin may not be divulged, but it is of incredible antiquity.
Interpretation of the card must always depend on the character and circumstances of the person consulting the deck. What might portend a wipe out for a teenage hot-dogger at Yokohama, might warn an octogenarian spinster in Minot, North Dakota, of a fall in the bathtub, though, of course, the results might come much to the same thing.
The day of the week or Month of the year given for each card should prove particularly calamitous.
The meanings given are selective rather then exhaustive, and hints rather then assertions. Lastly, you must rely on your own temerity and "imagination of disaster" (Henry James) to gain full meaning of the cards.