Sunday 5 October 2014

The Magician - Part 4

"About time you showed up back here, boy." The old man lounged back into his seat and grinned a black toothed grin.

"How did I? Where?" Spinelli held back the urge to throw up.
"Sir?" said the driver.

Spinelli spun his head around, he was still in the car. He blinked and he was in the abandoned house and the old man was smirking at him.

"You're doing this, aren't you?" Spinelli heaved drily.

"Doing what, sir? Mr Spinelli are you all right?" Spinelli looked at the driver and with one eye he could see him, with the other it was the old man.

"I'm...I'm fine" Spinelli fought back another wave of nausea, "just a...just a...dream, I fell asleep there for a moment."

"Do you want me to drive you home?" asked the driver, with just a hint of professional reproach.

"No, no. I've got to see this through." Spinelli saw the old man guffawing in his left eye.

"That's a good one, 'see', because the eye thing." The old man slapped his knee cheerfully. Spinelli closed his eye but it did no good, he could still see the old man.

He fumbled for the door handle.

"I'll be back in a few minutes." Spinelli said as he exited the car. He lurched forward haphazardly, his legs out of rhythm as his brain insisted that he was standing still, as was the case in the vision of his right eye.

"Come on lad, I don't have all day," the old man looked pointedly at his watch, and then back up at Spinelli, "Well, no, that's actually a lie, I do have all day, and so much, much more. Twenty four hours in a day? It's a wonder that you lot get anything done thinking that."

"You're having fun here, aren't you?" Spinelli sighed as the handle of the front door rattled uselessly in his hand and the door remained firmly shut.

"Of course, of course. It's the highest, noblest virtue, there is, being faithful and true to one's self and it is true that I like to have fun, so...."

The door flung open just as Spinelli charged it with his shoulder. Spinelli fell down face first.
"Really," Spinelli grumbled, "slapstick humour, vaudevillian pratfalls?"

The old man shrugged.

"The thing with humour is that you'll never make them all laugh because it's subjective. Which is why the good comedian only ever tells jokes to himself, that the audience enjoys them is merely a happy coincidental side effect."

"So, you're a comedian then? I thought you were a magician? Or an old man who was bored of what was on television? Who are you?" Spinelli pulled himself up the stairs. His vision split between the derelict hallway and the old man.

"Oh ho, my name is it that you're after, do you think I was born yesterday? Having my name would give you real power." The old man stood up and walked across the room. Spinelli's disembodied eye followed him.

"Tea? I know you'll be here in a moment and I do wish to be a gracious host if nothing else."
"A host who won't even tell me his name?"

The old man laughed a sharp, bark of a laugh.

"I knew I liked you for a reason. You've a cynical wit, a good thing to have." The old man turned around, holding two cups of tea and returned to his seat. He put them down on the coffee table.

Spinelli opened the door of the flat. In one eye he saw it as he remembered it the last time he'd seen it, various moulds plastered the walls and ceiling. A dead family of pigeons quietly decomposing in the corner. The dilapidated couch behind the broken coffee table. In the other eye, he saw it as it was when he first saw it. The picture of the old man when he was young and at the jazz club was on the fire hearth. The couch was worn, but well looked after. A rosy, glow permeated the room, helped, no doubt, by the cream wallpaper and soft forty watt bulbs in the chandelier. He looked with his other eye and saw the chandelier festooned with long abandoned spider webs, a sad little graveyard of insects.

"You have to be told to drink your tea every time you come here?" The old man's voice cut through Spinelli's reverie. Spinelli looked at the coffee table and saw it as both broken and whole, but the cup of tea was the same in each eye. He picked up the cup and sipped.

"You know, not too bad, mould aside."

"It's all about how long you let it brew. That particular cup has been there for two years now."

A dark suspicion came over Spinelli.

"This is...is this my cup of tea from when I was last here?"

"Waste not, want not."

"But I saw it, chipped cup, stuff growing in it, how could it be back like this?"

"Really, all the things you've seen in the past two years, in the past twenty minutes alone, that's the thing that sticks out in your mind? I'll never understand you humans."

"Then...you're not..." Spinelli struggled to think of a more delicate way to ask.

"Human? Certainly not! Well," the old man laughed a short laugh, "Maybe I was once, long ago. I've forgotten, to tell you the truth. I've lived an exceedingly long time."

"Then, what are you?"

"Mostly, I'm a me. I have fun, going around, mucking up people's lives, making other's lives better, staying hidden, living in the limelight, doing everything at once and nothing at all."

"Why?" Spinelli's eyes widened. As he asked the question, the old man seemed to flit between a number of shapes. Some barely human, others embarrassingly so. When it was over, the old man simply shrugged.

"It's what I do. Would you ask the sun why it burns?" The old man suddenly looked much older and careworn.

"Then why me?" asked Spinelli.

"Why you what?"

"Why did you pick me for whatever this was, this experiment?"

"Experiment?" The old man chuckled, "You think science has anything to do with this? No, this is magic, real magic, real grab you by the boots and make sure you damn well know what's going to happen magic! There are no reasons, there are no rules, or experiments, there is simply what is and what is not. I picked you not because of some grand plan, or because you had some intrinsic character quality. I told you the truth the very first conversation we had, you've even brought it up today. I picked you because there was nothing on the telly and it would amuse me."

"How would it amuse you? I've became a major success, the world adores me, I have fans, money, I have-"

"Yes you do, and so then why are you here?!" The old man stood up quickly. "I can control what you see, you don't think I can't see past your words, your lame and feeble protestations of love for a life that is bleeding you hollow because the one thing you want, to be a real magician, to have the world love you for your tricks and sorceries is nothing but a trick in itself? Your one trick, a simple trick, so simple you don't even know how you do it, gets you plaudits and praise from all and sundry and it eats you up inside, doesn't it?!"

Spinelli flinched and took a step back instinctively.

"So you come here, looking for the man who made it all possible, half hoping it was just a dream so that everything you've been able to achieve was on your own steam. However, and this is truly the part I love most, because as capricious as life is, magic is far more so bear that in mind when you make the choice I am about to give you."

"C-c-c-choice?" Spinelli stammered.

"Yes, choice. By now you've probably wondered why I split your vision, well, take it more broadly, not just vision, it's your perception, or rather, the world's perception. Half of you in one world, half in the other. Do you pick the grimy world, the broken world, where your integrity is intact and every little gain you make or fail to make is attributable only to yourself and the vagaries of society. Or do you keep my gift, not knowing how you do the things you do, and live a lie. Now, since this is the most momentous question you've ever faced in your life, I will give you a very generous ten seconds to answer."

"Ten seconds?"

"Nine now, well eight, actually seven, well actually six-"

"Wait, wait, wait!" Spinelli shouted.

"Yes?" said the old man serenely.

"One question, please, one question."

The old man nodded, then cocked his head to the side and smiled, a wolf watching his prey.

"What choice will I make?"

The old man's smile disappeared.

"Nice try kid, the whole 'logic defeats magic thing, oh I can't guess the right answer, I am defeated and must disappear forever more' shtick, that's just showmanship, can't really defeat magic like that. Anyone who appears to lose like that is just doing it for the drama so they can return just as, if not moreso, dramatically later. Now please, make your choice."

"Either one will give you satisfaction won't it?"

"Yes."

Spinelli gulped.

"Then I choose neither." Spinelli turned and walked away. Half his vision remained on the old man, who looked apoplectic. His form shifted several times, those were definitely not human.


A year later:

Spinelli hoisted the crate up onto the pallet.
"Take her up, Jim." He called out to the forklift driver.
"Right you are, Frank." Jim called back.
Spinelli wiped his brow. It took the world less than a week to get over the mysterious disappearance of Frank Spinelli, magician extraordinaire. Most people couldn't even remember why he'd been so popular in the first place and couldn't describe what the trick was or rather, they could describe the trick precisely, but it was so underwhelming that that couldn't have possibly been it.
From the shadows of a stack of crates, the old man peered out, a look of hatred etched on his face. Spinelli looked over and saw him, with great care that the old man, and no one else could see him, he then took two coins out of his pocket, flicked them in their air and caught three coins.
He looked at the shadows, but they were empty again. The old man would never leave him alone now, he was sure of that, but it was almost worth antagonising him just to see the look on his face. Magic couldn't replace that feeling.   
  

   

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