There once was a Queen
A wiseman's magic trick.
A long time ago in a faraway land (literally like 20 years ago in India), my grandfather was keeping me entertained on a random hot summer day. I remember sitting on the bed with him and he had a deck of playing cards, and proceeded to show me a 'magic' trick that, at least at that age, was mind bogglingly awesome and entertaining.
Grandpa showing off his magic and wisdom.
It starts with a story using the cards themselves. He tells a story about a Queen, while showing me the Queen face card, and goes on to tell her tale about her two sons. It was a very short tale and basically had no plot line to speak of, but a story told with cards was intriguing enough to ignore such things.
It goes like this. In the year 387 (cards 3, 8 and 7), there once (Ace) lived a Queen (Queen). Who was 64 years old (6 and 4), and had 2 sons (2), Jack (Jack) and King (King). Jack was 19 (1 and 9), and King was 5 (5). This little biography very much resembled 'The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.', which a lot of people know as the phrase that encompasses every letter of the alphabet. The Queen's story is similar in that it encompasses all 13 cards of a suite.
Queen of Hearts; a biography.
At this point I was amused enough by the story, but it was barely the tip of the iceberg. Things are about to get deep.
After he tells the story, he tells me to look at his face as he precedes to close his eyes and speak. He starts to spell out the 13 cards of a suite in order. "A, C, E... Ace" as he shuffled randomly through the deck. And as he announced Ace, he would flip the card over to reveal that he was holding an Ace, with his eyes still closed.
Ah okay, that's kinda cool. Well done Grandpa. But then he continued, "T, W, O... two" as he flips over a two from the randomly shuffled deck. I'm still processing what he is trying to show because he never really prompted this part of the trick. "T, H, R, E, E... three" and flips over a three without hesitation. I start to understand what he is trying to demonstrate and becoming increasingly impressed that he is pulling out random cards from a deck in order still shuffling while blind.
He did hands me the deck of cards and tells me to do the rest. "F, O, U, R... four" and out comes a four, as expected but still amazing. I continue this way all the way to ten. Then, "J, A, C, K... jack" and out comes a Jack, then a Queen, and finally I have only one card left in my hand. He stops me and keeps the card facedown and asks me, "How confident are you that this is a King?" "I'm completely confident. It has to be a King." I reply. "Good. Even if you can't see the King, you know that it's there. And it's simply because you did the work to make sure it was there. No shortcuts, no doubting yourself and checking the cards. You don't have to see the result to know that the work itself is the success. *pause* Good work, however simple, creates Kings."
Thanks Grandpa.
Dice & Playing cards tell long tales.