the magician

about how strange things infiltrade our normal world---

Sweat stands on my forehead, my eyes staring into the half-light of the room. Actually it is not that hot, in opposite, the noisily working air condition of the motel is heavily cooling the room, the night in the lost Hicksville anywhere in Nevada would not be bearable without it. The colored light of the neon sign is painting green and pink patterns on the wall. I don’t dare to close the shutter; darkness would be more than I can stand. I am waiting fort he sleep, a kind of sleep I need drugs for, if I don’t want sink in dreams, I fear those dreams more than hell, because hell is an earthly place, and the devil is a good friend in comparison with ….but I’m too fast, I should tell from the beginning, not from the end.

I’ve always been a very rational man, while my comrades were talking about fairies or dwarfs for me there only existed measurable things, games I could mention physically, like fire fighter or cowboy, but never was I a warrior, a dwarf or an elf. On our school we did play ‚a midsummer’s night dream’ by Shakespeare, and I thought it was good as an image of the human weakness and stupidity, but I hated the whole stuff about supernatural beings, especially as I was damned to dress up as Puck

Visiting church I had to be forced every week, but missing at a Sunday’s mass was like a sin in the small town in New England where I grew up. So I had to be there, but the priest’s talking about god, devil and the legions of supernatural creatures was terribly boring for me. And the time it was modern to be an occultist in the late 80’s I was called an inveterate outsider, because I refused to join various seances, enchantments and meditation trainees, that took place everywhere in the country.

On the other hand my rationalism had something good in it too. While my classmates were distracted because of their superstitious activities and booked courses like >The Tibetan Book Of Dead and its implications on western pop culture< or >devil in late medieval art< I concentrated on technical subjects and I was able to reach an educational level that I got a scholarship at the Michigan Technological University. Besides, my father would have preferred me to follow him to his small lawyer’s office, he was leading together with his partner, but juristic science to me looked as irrational as theology.

To tell it in short, I concentrated my knowledge on equipment for energetic extraction, I received my doctor’s degree with honor, and I had three offers for a job before having my certificate. After my certificate the number of companies who wanted me to work for them raised up to twelve. I didn’t hurry to choose and at last I decided to take a job in California, and sure it was the near Pacific coast that had influence to my decision.

My work there was great, and in only a short time my logical conclusions and my straight patterns of thought had made me an important part of the construction team, and, I may say so, with my help some new technologies could be customized in a way, we started to rule the market with solar units.

I not only had some success in my career, I also wasn’t looking that bad, so I had no troubles in my love life, I could choose freely between various party chicks. Until I met Jocelyn.

How should I describe my feelings. Jocelyn caught my eye, I would have mentioned her if she had been lurking round in a postal bag at a downtown’s street corner. She was tall grown like a young birch and had the movement of a panther. Her skin was a little darker than sun could manage normally and her hair fell on her shoulders and back like a black waterfall. Her eyes in the face like that of an ancient Inca-princess were a little angular like a cat’s eyes and sparkled lightly amused in the lights of the disco as she took a glance over the people. The plain, black dress she wore brought out her grand figure and let her more than else look like a cat of prey.

I can’t tell, why she had chosen me, a look of her eyes would have been enough to make dozens of men being killed only for her, but she took me, and not long after that we were a couple.

Let’s get to the point. Like many couples we had different imaginations about spending our spare time. While my conception was more the way of a nice dinner, visiting cinema and after all a night together, Jocelyn preferred going to the theater, and it didn’t matter to her if she was watching a play or some vaudeville artists who made their show abroad for some reason.

She specially seemed to be fascinated as there came out the poster of a conjurer, who called himself, flamboyant because of his profession as >The Great Yathato<. I tried to hide my disappointment as she returned home with her sparkling eyes and told me she had been able to get two cards for the show at the last moment. I never had been interested in the prestidigitations of the so called magicians, that hadn’t ever been a mystery to a trained watcher, besides most of them hadn’t the perfection because of the mindlessness of their watchers.

So I tried to make a friendly face and let Jocelyn take me to the show, which was advertised in sharp colored posters all around in town. The audience, slowly appearing at the hall was a fine profile of the town’s society. Workmen with their wives and children, students, craftsmen and lawyers, I thought I had seen too one or two local politicians. People chatted, greeting each other, other were looking for their seats, talked to their neighbors waiting for the moment the light, accompanied by a dramatic drum roll was dimmed down and at last shut down fully.

The appearance of the magician was far less spectacular as I did fear, a single spot was lit and showed a man who looked like everyone’s neighbor, about mid fifty, not mystic at all, who was standing in the middle of the stage, wearing a dark suite. His dark hair started getting thin and gray at his temples. The haggard face showed deep shadows under his cheekbones and in his eye holes, so he looked like one who had a long time without any success. He was slim, nearly bony, an impression that was forced by his dark suite and the turtleneck sweater he wore instead of a shirt. His appearance and his overall outfit weren’t that noticeable, but his glance was. His eyes, hidden in the shadows seemed to watch every single one in the audience the same way, an entomologist might have stared at an ant colony; his view went deeper than a human being was able to see, it seemed, he could see the deepest mysteries of everybody’s soul ….. an uncomfortable feeling.

I was a little astonished he didn’t have a female assist, usually dressed in a small piece of clothing, only there for catching the views of the audience to hide her master’s manipulations. However, there were the normal, boring tricks, the disappearing of a cloth, turned into a bunch of flowers in his pocket, card tricks, empty pipes filling with water and coins disappearing and appearing again in small boxes. Then, at one moment he called a girl from the audience up on the stage

He said, he wanted to hypnotize her. So he let her stare on a small crystal ball, he moved in front of her eyes like a pendulum she closed her eyes and it seemed as she had fallen asleep, as he had told her before. The magician now gave some senseless orders to her, she should walk like a model, turn around and jump in the way of a ballerina, and she did it without asking any question, her eyes closed as before. He snapped his fingers and it seemed as she was awaking from a long sleep, and she could not remember what she had done before.

After the girl had settled down again the man looked around in the audience. His view caught me and seemed to hold me like there was a physical power in it. ‘Oh’, he said, ‘there is a person who doesn’t believe in the power of magic. Would you be so kind to come up to me’, he asked

I was not in the mood to make a fool out of myself in front of all the people and folded my arms defiant, but the single spot tore me out of my anonymity of the dark audience and Jocelyn, who was hustling me, caused me to get up with a sigh and to walk to the stage. The man reached out his hand as if it was necessary to help me upon the platform, and I felt in his fingers was more strength one could see. With a wave of his other hand he let clap the audience down there.

He placed me on a single chair where the girl had set before, so the head lamp lighting the stage was blinding me, and I could not see much more than the gleaming pendulum appearing in front of my eyes. You see, I didn’t want to be hypnotized, my mind, my intellect writhed against the imagination this toy should neutralize my free will, but my eyes were not able to look at anything else than the movement of the pendulum, turning into a shiny curve in front of them; breaking my idea of time and reality. The world around me seemed to stand, to be disintegrated, there only was the crystal that seemed to grow and filling whole of my visual field.

Around me it became dark, as if a shadow had moved between the world and me. There were no other feelings, nothing cold or hot, no silence nor noise, only this cursed toy and me. I heard some sound, like distant singing, and I smelt odors I could not associate with the theater, but with a hot, breeding jungle, I suspected blossoms only some scientist did know, and exhalations I could not define. Anywhere in a far I believed to hear some monotone drumming, but that was not sure.

Then there was the voice, in me, around me, everywhere, and it was his voice.

‚Ah, he doesn’t believe in the Other World’, the voice jeered. ‚he believes he can see what is true. He does not know the haze hiding the truth, concealing the real world from the eyes of the inferior. He believes his humble brain is able to fathom the truth, fathoming the veil.’ A laughter seemed to shake the talking man ‘We had chosen him to see the truth, the world existing since eons of time, since earth does exist, the world only people called seer can recognize, just a breath of time away from the world he lives in.’

Then the shining arc disappeared and I started to see. Lord, my mind at first refused to accept, the thing was existing, but it was there and it stared at me with gleaming red eyes. It looked my way in a mean way and jumped out of my sight. Until today I can’t say what it was, I couldn’t find any similar thing in chronicles of human mythologies. It was little like an enormous cat, dark, and tall, full of vigor. It was not the kind of animal, a living human ever had seen. The head with the shining red eyes seemed a little like a dogs, but it has also the imagination of a human face in it.

My view became a little clearer and looked down into the audience. Aghast I blenched. Down there only a few human beings could be seen, an obscure collection of fabulous creatures was down there staring at me. Lord, I thought, they are around us, here in our own world. I saw creatures known from myths like satyrs, dryads, goblins, crooked gnomes and mermaids, there were some werewolves and vampires too, only a few, but their views hit me uncomfortable. There too were creatures, that were not known so well, some like bunches of winding and greasy wires, there were shapeless things forming tentacles and letting them disappear moments later, beings were there, somehow female, smelling like a blossom garden and with voices that sound like paradise, and again others looking like a strange kind of centaurs. And in the center of this witches Sabbath my girlfriend Jocelyn sat, with her perfect legs crossed, looking at me with yellow shimmering eyes looking at me and her parted snake tongue slipping over her wet, red lips.

Looking around for some help I saw the man who had done this to me. He was no more unimpressive. He stood there, tall, covered in a white dress with golden sewing, like an ancient Egypt pharaoh. Around his lips was an evil smile, while his view held me like steel chain. ‘I condemn you to see’, he said, then he was snapping with his fingers and the vision disappeared from one moment to the other. I stood upon the stage and people clapped their hands, I was allowed to get back to my seat.

I shivered a little settling down beneath Jocelyn, I didn’t remember what I did standing on the stage, but I remembered what I saw. She laid her arm around me and kissed my cheek, and I jerked, because I thought I felt a parted tongue tip.

We drove home and we made love to each other as if we had met just a short time ago, and in some kind it was so. Then night came, and sleep arrived too, or better, the time before falling asleep fully, the kind of existence not really awake but not asleep too, the state of mind, elder said one is open for reaching the other world. Again I saw Jocelyn’s true form. Yes, she was beautiful, desirable, dangerous, deadly perhaps, but I felt I had to make love to her again and if it should be for my life. She seemed to feel the same, and while her snake’s tongue was caressing my body and her fingernails or claws pierced my skin I felt a kind of fulfillment far above everything I felt until this moment. My beloved also seemed to be satisfied; she cuddled up to me like a cat and fell asleep.

Night passed by and I awoke beneath Jocelyn, looking normally again, and I wondered if all I had seen before had been a dream. I took a shower, dressed up, drank a cup of coffee and left the house. I don’t know if you ever had the feeling getting out anywhere and feeling to be in an other dimension. So I felt this morning. The town seemed strange to me, no there were no other houses or roads, but I felt like the dimensions had changed, the city’s skyscrapers seemed to be nearby and the road in front of my house looked like leading on until the horizon.

The crude sunlight seemed kind of sick today, and people out in the streets had a strange look, only a few were looking as they did always. The man who sells the newspapers on the corner looked a little more plump than the other day, and he moved like he had troubles with his legs, at every step he took he made a funny little jump. The woman selling flowers beneath him seemed dark and her hair was falling on her shoulders in obscure little curls that were moving like living. As I passed them by they grinned knowingly and I felt like there was their hungry glance in my neck. People passed me by and one was hasting moving like he would float.

The magician was right, I saw. I walked faster, trying to escape this nightmare. I arrived at my office and closed the shutters to get out of the unnatural sunlight. I started my computer and checked up my mails. Harriet, the secretary of our construction team knocked and entered the room, and my heart stopped for a second, in the dim light behind the shutters I saw her real shape. Her bouffant body was wrapped in a leather-looking dress which seemed much too tight for her enormous breasts. Her skin shone green and the scrubby red hair hang nearly down to her hips. The notepad and pen looked a little ridiculous in her big hands. She intimately bent down until her wet shining lips nearly touched my ear. ‘Don’t forget the meeting will start in twenty minutes’, she whispered, turned kittenish and left the office with a kick of her hips.

I prepared myself for the worst case, took my records out of the table and went to the conference room. The shutters were open, sun was shining in brightly and the air condition worked on a high level. I took some coffee while the others entered the room. I took a deep breath as I saw them looking as they always did, also Harriet who had her human form again.

I don’t want to tell you all the boring details of the meeting, surely you know that on your own, one is sitting there and talking on and on while time passes without any work done. Tom, the leader of our team had prepared another boring and needless presentation. Pushing a switch he closed the shutter and it became dark inside the room. It was hard for me to hold back an aghast shout. Tom was a typical supervisor, incompetent but endlessly vain and with the best connection to the boss. And he was a centaur. Beneath him there sat a plump, rough haired fellow, horns on his head and a rough fur, which in normal life I knew as Norman, our customer relation manager.

No one besides me in the whole conference was a real human. Tom closed the meeting and I tried to disappear as fast as possible. To the others it must have looked like the panic escape it was.

I left the firm, hastily running home and locked the door behind me. I sat down and stared at the ceiling. My feelings were chaotic, I didn’t know if I should be afraid or if I should be glad to be the chosen one. Did I want to know more about this other world; at all it was the exact opposite of all the things I did believe in until now. My whole world was turned upside down within a single moment, hell’s gates were broken and I stood in the middle.

Unlocking the door made me frighten, but I calmed down a little remembering it was Jocelyn returning home. Her company becalmed me a little, although I did know what she was behind her human mask. But I knew she loved me and she would stay at my side. With a deep sigh she rested herself beneath me on the sofa, and I didn’t matter what she really was.

Later on the dream came. I was sitting in the center of a circular room with eight doors around the wall. A gong sounded and the doors opened. Figures in dark cloaks entered and surrounded me. One of the figures was taller than the others, evidently he was the leader. Together they started to sing monotonously, and it sounded deeply frightful. The leader waved his hand and the light faded. Then he lifted his hood. It was the magician, I knew although he had the head of a jackal instead of his human head. From my history lessons I knew he was Anubis, the Egyptian god of the dead.

One after the other now moved their hoods, and too their heads were animal shaped, there was an Aries, an ibis, a cat, a crocodile, a cow and some more I could not see because they were standing behind me. At this moment I understood the words of their singing. ‘You are one of us’, they sang. ‘Become one of us again, become what you have been before’, it hummed inside my head as I awoke sweating like I had been running for miles.

I didn’t dare to fall asleep again. Jocelyn had wrapped her arms around me pressing her hot body next to mine. ‘Become one of us’, I heard her murmuring while sleeping.

I jumped into my clothes, entered my car and drove away. Anywhere, no matter where, just away from this insanity. Along the road, into nowhere, and now I am here, stranded in a lousy motel in the middle of nowhere, in Nevada. I’m lying on the bed staring to the ceiling and try to avoid sleep, or better the dreams that will come with it. The air condition hums and outside there is a strange kind of desert wind chasing bad dreams through the empty space, the wind Navajo people are in fear from. I feel sleep is coming. My eyes are burning.

I feel the dream too coming, stealthy like an animal it is sneaking in, settles in my mind, and gnaws my intellect. Reality fades away; I can’t see any difference between fantasy and reality. Is the door really opening even though I locked it? Jocelyn, surely it is Jocelyn, she’s got a key. But this is a motel, and I’ve got the key, or did I give him to her? However, she’s there, with me, and it is amazing to have her around. I think it’s time to change to the other side.