First Illusions

I was under the spell the instant I walked into the old theatre. The room was small and dark, forcing the watchers to crowd tightly together on the weathered wooden benches, which were barely wide enough to balance precariously on. They were stained and aged by the adamant passage of many memories to look almost the same as the well-trodden hardwood floor. The curtained walls muffled the already hushed whispers of the audience, but could not contain the intensity and mystery that resonated from them like the unstoppable tide softly hissing secrets on a strange shore. It seeped into the shadows cast by the dozens of torches lining the aisle and stage that flickered wild patterns on the ceiling. The curtain covering the front of the stage like a veil hung in thick waves of a dark crimson, and as the shadows and light played tag across its face, it almost look like a live creature, slowly breathing in time with the ever more anticipating audience.

A startled gasp ripped through the crowd as a white rubber ball flew from somewhere in the back. The overfull benches were jostled even tighter as those standing in the way tried pushing out of the path of the fist-sized ball bouncing down the aisle. It started to lose steam as it neared the stage, but the ball suddenly took a tremendous bounce and tore another surprised gasp from the lungs of the riveted onlookers as it never touched the stage, but hung as if frozen in the air. My eyes went round as the ball in delighted shock.

A man came out from the curtain on the side of the stage and walked deliberately to the rubber ball, plucking it from where it hung suspended like an apple without a tree. He was simply dressed, calm, and quiet, with no air of flashiness or power. Yet I knew right away that he was the one the room had been speaking of in subdued tones moments before. His eyes, flashing a blue more brilliant than any sky I had ever seen, with a light in them as if he had he had captured a star and eaten it gave him away.

I was totally enamored, locked onto his every muscle twitch and blink, without him having even said a word. I do not remember moving, or even breathing for at least two hours of his mesmerizing act as he pulled pigeons out of thin air, threw water into the air to have it freeze in animated suspension like the rubber ball, juggled full decks of cards, tossed seeds into the crowd that turned into ripe apples over their heads, and countless other wonders.

Breathing became a priority again, however, as soon as the gunshot rang out from the back of the theatre. The room was silent except for the sound of the air whooshing out and being sucked back in in one synchronized struggle for breath. The entire audience shifted to look behind and see the smoking pistol in the hand of a large, wild looking man with wilder hair and beard contradicted by an overly calm demeanor still pointing at the stage. All attention immediately turned back to the magician clutching at the red stain spreading through his shirt. He stumbled forward and lurched off the stage as the panicked, screaming crowd surged in every direction at once. No sound of his body hitting the floor could be heard over the chaos, and the braver members of the audience who had rushed forward to rescue the wounded magician found nothing but empty clothes, still warm with blood.

Sobs continued to intersperse the lessening hysteria as the mob was herded out by police as quickly as possible. Soon, I was the only one left seated on the bench as a detective questioned the others who had stayed behind. It was hopeless, they would find no clues. And only I was calm. Only I knew. For as the magician fell off the stage, our eyes had locked, and my scared ones were comforted when his star-like ones smiled.