Bonus Episode — The Futility of Survival

The "guests" had left like a storm, and silence had returned to the living room. Only the quiet whir of the ceiling fan reached my ears as I sank back into my throne.

On the table sat a half-finished cola and the set of Japanese-made playing cards I had shown Volg and the others, left there carelessly.

"...Phew. Offline negotiations really are exhausting."

I reached out from the Throne of Sloth and picked up the deck. The familiar sensation of the smooth, embossed finish met my fingertips. These were the Bicycle brand from the US Playing Card Company, a favorite of professionals. Compared to the crude parchment cards of this world, the glide, the elasticity, and above all, the "precision for lying" were on a completely different level.

I held the deck in my left hand and riffled the edges with my right thumb. The rhythmic sound of the cards snapping through the air was perfectly consistent.

"Mrrp. (...There you go again. You really like those, don't you?)"

Tama, who had been curled up on my lap, opened one eye to watch my hands.

"You want to see again, Tama? Fine... This is like a piece of armor I wore to survive back on the battlefield of the corporate world."

I split the deck in two and used my thumbs to weave the cards together. A riffle shuffle. The sound of the "bridge finish," where I arched the cards and let them snap into place, echoed satisfyingly through the quiet room.

I was remembering the scenes from the izakayas of Tokyo—I mean, the Capital—filled with cigarette smoke and the laughter of people trying to get on their boss's good side.

Being a Web Director is about being caught between technology and people. You soothe clients who point out contradictions in specifications, dodge sales reps who push impossible deadlines, and motivate grumpy engineers. As a lubricant for those interactions, I dabbled in the skill with the worst cost-performance ratio: "party tricks."

I used the base of my left pinky to create a tiny gap at the top of the deck. A pinky break. I flipped over the top two cards as if they were one. A double lift.

"See? This is the 3 of Spades, right?"

I flipped the double card face-down and inserted the top card into the middle of the deck. Of course, what actually went into the middle wasn't the 3 of Spades, but the unrelated card that had been on top of it.

Next, I cupped my right palm, secretly hiding the top card against it. A classic palm. It’s a high-level technique, held only by the muscles at the base of the thumb and the pinky. From the back of the hand, nothing is visible. With a natural motion, I pretended to stroke the deck, secretly returning the palmed card to the top.

Then, I snapped my fingers.

I flipped the top card, and there it was: the 3 of Spades again. The Ambitious Card. A classic and powerful effect where the card appears to "rise" to the top.

(I remember the look on Volg's face... he looked like he was seeing actual magic.)

I gave a self-deprecating laugh and gripped the deck with my left middle finger, ring finger, and thumb. I pushed the bottom half up with my index finger and swapped the top and bottom using the base of my thumb. A Charlier Cut, the basic one-handed cut. Then, I arched the deck deeply and released it from my fingertips. The cards drew a beautiful arc through the air, sucked into my right hand. A card spring.

I had repeated these flourishes tens of thousands of times in the past—during the few minutes spent waiting for a server to update during late-night overtime, or while waiting for a call from a client.

It was all to fill the "awkward thirty seconds" when conversation died at a business dinner. To draw out a meaningless "Wow, you're quite handy, aren't you?" from a boss and soften the atmosphere. That alone could neutralize several bullets' worth of unreasonable spec-change requests.

When you can't win with logic, you hack their brain by injecting the noise known as "surprise." That was the grittiest survival technique I arrived at as a Web Director.

Using my left thumb as an axis, I fanned the cards out in a single motion. A thumb fan. A perfect arc of white and blue, without a single card out of place.

Then, my fingertips made their "deepest" move. I covered the top half of the deck with my right hand, and in its shadow, I instantly brought the bottom half to the top. A classic pass. It is the most difficult move in card magic, an invisible swap that strikes during a "momentary blind spot." It was no wonder Volg said he saw nothing. It was a visual hack that utilized a physical blind spot.

"How ironic. ...A skill for business dinners that I hated so much has now become the 'guarantor of trust' for a system that rules the world."

Volg had looked at my fingertips and feared "something that wasn't magic." He was right. This wasn't magic. It was a "technique" born of obsession, of wearing down the nerves in my fingertips through the accumulation of "useless effort."

"Mrow. (...You're overthinking again.)"

Tama rubbed her nose against my fingertips. A signal to put the cards away.

"You're right. ...I don't need to please anyone anymore, and I don't need to suck up to them."

I squared the deck and, for the final time, opened the cards into a fan with my left hand alone. A one-handed fan. The beautiful blue fan shimmered for a moment in the moonlight before closing with a sharp snap.

I put the cards back in their box and returned them to the back of the drawer.

Now, I have the Throne of Sloth. I don't need to deceive anyone with complex finger movements; the system brings in points and maintains peace all on its own.

I sank deep into my throne once more and closed my eyes.

The next time I need to pull out those cards will be when the world tries to find a "flaw" in this system. When that happens, I'll show them. I'll show them the rest of this "beautiful deception" I built with my own blood and sweat.

If you find any errors (non-standard content, ads redirect, broken links, etc..), Please let us know so we can fix it as soon as possible.