The Walrus and The Magic Man

I grew up in a family reasonable enough to consider magic a frivolous waste. My father only concerned himself with the rigid order of work, and my mother, with the wonders of the laws of the Universe.

They were more concerned with the potential devastating effects of humanity's continued disregard for the global environment. As a child I was enthralled by the unexplained effects those with power could enact on their immediate surroundings. Though of minuscule importance, the disappearance of a card, the reappearance of a ring, the levitation of a person, amazed my simple soul, and I observed the performance of each spell with devotion.

In the recesses between my daily activities, sequestered in my room, I practiced, as my parents argued over the mundanity of 1 or 2 degrees. My success at school, and their mutual obsession, blinded them to my budding ambition. Over a self-taught year, I developed the confidence to seek an apprenticeship, and in my effort, discovered I was a naif, and an odd one at that.

The local master, staged by the docks, scoffed at my careless fingers, incapable of complicated coin work. Dispatching and redrawing, seemingly from the empty air, he assured me, were basic skills I would never satisfy. He formed his opinion with only a cursory examination of my form, but he was correct. I couldn't yet draw objects from nothingness, or send them back into the void swiftly enough to fool him. Yet, I begged a boon, that he would demonstrate a few simple tricks for my edification. He laughed and presented a few paltry tricks, and I frowned. I knew his initial evaluation was faultless. I would never recreate his deceptions as he enacted them.

I would improve them, with a skill he would never understand, not cunning, but concentration. In his showy deceit I'd discovered disappointment. The magic of the gaudy entertainer consisted entirely of illusion, contained no substance. In spite of this revelation, I persisted on my chosen path.

The lairs of popular magicians are popularly portrayed as littered with debris and accentuated by a single ostentatious machine, the centerpiece of the performer's act. Yet I disdained, and did not require such frivolous implements to distract my audience. I had no audience, and I preferred my situation. Nights I toiled in blackness, which I believed the optimum environment to practice the basic elements of my craft, the drawing forth and the dissipating.

A year of study, and I returned to the Walrus and The Upturned Hat, where I expected to be met unrecalled and indifferent. This particular meeting left a singular mark upon my memory, and I remember the new location, the original mooring had been claimed by the sea, and I remember the difference between the original location's shabby appearance by the sea side, and this new, resplendent temple. The encroaching disaster, the sole topic at home, already impinging upon the minds of the people, had encouraged the destitute to spend money more casually on escapist entertainment.

Without a flicker of recognition, the Walrus himself, forlorn over his removal from the shore, drew me in, as if I were an unshucked oyster, and offered tricks and toys for my amusement. I played with his obliviousness, pretending to prefer the playthings, when I only wanted to proffer my new skill. At last he said, of course, he whose fingers shall always fumble the coin, can attempt any trick which pleases him.

And abashed at my revealed pretense, I dropped my quarter onto the floor, where he snatched it, inspected it, and returned it, snorting with great huff of discontent.

Without another word, I squeezed the quarter between my two sweat slicked palms, and made a single turn in space, nearly tumbling in anxiety, and he snatched the silver coin from betwixt my hands as easily as one flicks on a light switch. He laughed one deep grunt, and began to turn, but without reply I began again.

With eyes seeing only the action, blind to the world, I spun again, and when he pried apart my clasped fingers, the Walrus fingered only space. He stumbled in astonishment, and as he composed himself, I repeated the action in reverse, revealing the quarter in the hollow of my hand. He inspected its face, recorded the date (2035) wrote his initials on it, and made me repeat my achievement three times until he was satisfied. Each time, I moved with more determination and less hesitancy, until under his precise eyes, I acted with complete confidence.

I've never seen anything like it, how does it work he asked, and I begged his forgiveness, for though he'd shared his simple tricks freely, I needed to deceive him. My need was greater than he could imagine.

But while I might forbid him my knowledge, I could not withhold my act. He insisted on my perpetual presence at his theater, and every night I performed for real coins which he embezzled gluttonously from my remuneration. I forgave his transparent greed, which seemed to be the only object he couldn't hide, for I wasn't searching for wealth. At the time, I was only capable of a single trick, my Divine Miracle, my master promoted it publicly, or the Damned Mystery, as he put it personally, privately.

My hope, my quest, was to use this singular ability of mine to draw out a true magician. One capable of not, paltry deceptions, but true wonder. My naivety, shaken by my initial contact with my master Charlatan, had not destroyed my belief that someone performing for the crowd must be a wielder of arcane arts. In retrospect, I should have realized that anyone capable of miracles or demonic phenomenon (depending on one's perspective) would hardly waste their time on inanities, but my youthful belief held so fast to my soul, it deflected any reasonable argument.

Eventually the Walrus demanded an expansion of my skill, and I found I could alter for the eye, the ear, the taste-bud, and the touch, a number of objects, to the astonishment of the increasingly despairing public. My twin obsessions, my search and my dedication to my craft, insulated me from the outside world, as the once stable international structure splinted under the ever increasing stress of sea level rise, increased temperatures, and too few resources for a multitude of people.

A war began, somewhere, distant and detached from my attention. Somehow nothing seemed to touch me, not the draft notices, nor the hunger creeping through the bellies of a nation wrestling for the first time in centuries with crop failure and rationing. Then one day, my brother was returned from the remote front-line, and I realized I hadn't even recognized his departure.

In the last decade, I'd drawn a exponentially expanding crowd of admirers, who I didn't disdain, rather I paid them no mind at all, and a continual line of challengers, all of whom I proved as frauds.

The day my brother's body returned, was the day I first looked up and out, at my surroundings. My quest had devoured my attention, my conscious, and my family in the meantime. I looked at my father's haggard face, my mother's aged anxiety, and I found my eyes were still capable of shedding tears, though I could have vanished them if I'd wished. I hugged my parents, and offered them a bounty which the greed, the ignorance, the apathy of the people and the world, and my inattention had denied them. In that moment I swore a solemn vow in their presence, to forgo my fruitless search, to dedicate myself to their care.

Then, in the span of seconds, we heard a knock on the door, and I couldn't recall my pledge swiftly enough. For it was the Magician. The Master of Masters, represented by his messenger. Would I travel to accept his challenge? In an attempt to offer restitution, I prepared my parents for my departure, and left that night.

Though its only been a month since my departure I know I shall never see them again, and that is a burden I must bear, along with many others.

And as the audience to my final act, you've witnessed the result. I stand before you tonight the Champion, the Victor, but also the Fool, the Scoundrel, and the Defeated.

Audience, I have vanquished, embarrassed, the Magician, the man who inspired a multitude, with his grand mysteries, which I have revealed to be as simple as pencil sketched compared to my cinematic marvels. Yet, in this triumph I have concluded my quest in failure. I have demonstrated to myself a simple truth, which I should have realized long ago. Though I know not why, I am the only man capable of Magic, the true marvels, not the sleight of hands and mental machinations, the pitiful contrivances these men are capable of. And failure is compounded by humiliation, abomination, and mortification. For I recognize in myself, a deplorable deceit I've practiced against my potential. I have been capable of so much more, and until this moment, I've squandered it behind the shelter of others.

This was my final public act. Tonight I venture out to enact the ministry I've been capable of for over a decade and work for a better world.

But before I go, those of you who remain, who hear my words, must act as if there is no hero, no Magician waiting just out of sight to set all the vices of malignant people right. There is no hope in searching for another, but in recognizing the only strength resides in I.

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