Campaign Magic by Brett Pribble

Everyone in the audience but you is wearing designer clothing. A magician prances on to the stage. He wears a gold-plated suit, a gold-rimmed top hat, and twirls a golden baton.  “I need a volunteer,” he says, and you shrink into your seat.

“You there,” he says, pointing at you. “You—in the decrepit outfit.”

You aren’t sure if he is talking to you since you are only wearing jeans and a t-shirt, nothing torn or dirty. He keeps pointing at you, so you crawl along the seats attempting to hide.
“Looks like we have someone who doesn’t believe in magic,” he says, causing the audience to break out in laughter. “Fetch him will you, darling?”

The magician’s female assistant strolls down the steps off the stage and wades through the crowd. The laughter is booming, now. She grabs your arm. “Come one, honey. The show must go on.”

“Must it?” you ask.

She shakes her head and shoots you a stern grin, so you follow her on stage. The magician taps you on the head with his baton.

“For my first trick,” the magician says, “I’ll make this poor soul disappear.” He grabs your hair and pushes you into a small box. Your body squishes into a ball, your legs snap, your neck bends backward. He opens the box, and you’re still there but smaller, broken. “Close enough,” he announces to rapturous applause.

You pick up your broken limbs and step out. The magician waves his baton in front of you. “There. Now, you are real.”

Smiling at your shattered body, he flashes a long saw before the crowd. “For my next trick, I’ll cut this leach’s problems in half.”

You squeeze into a long and narrow casket.

He cuts into the wood, cuts into your flesh, rips through your marrow.

As you bleed out, you say to him, “I thought this was just a trick.”

He winks at you. “I know you did.”

# # #

Brett Pribble’s work has appeared in Aquifer: The Florida Review Online, decomP, Stirring: A Literary Collection, Saw Palm, The Molotov Cocktail, Crack the Spine, The Airgonaut, Bending Genres, and several other places. He is the editor-in-chief of Ghost Parachute. Follow him on Twitter @brettpribble.

Photo: Gage Walker

prev
next
Your Comments

Leave a Comment

Name*
Email*
Website