ILLUSION

 

ILLUSION

It was Jimmy’s big treat – a visit to the Town Theater, to see the Magician. He always looked forward to it, had ever since he was taken for the first time at the age of eight, and even now he was thirty it was still the brightest spot of the year.

But this time it looked as though there might be a problem – his Pa had had a phone-call from the Base where he worked, where they monitored things. Jimmy was never sure what monitored meant – he’d been board monitor in school, which meant he wiped it clean, and made sure Miss Mahoney always had something to write with – His Pa told his Ma that they’d found some unusual signals, some traces that they couldn’t explain – Jimmy had asked if his Pa had to go in to clear them up, and his Pa had smiled and nodded. And his Ma had said that Jimmy needn’t worry, they’d still go to the Theater.

“What about Pa’s ticket?” Jimmy had asked. “Can we take it along, and see if someone else wants to go, who doesn’t have a ticket?”

They got there early – Ma didn’t like driving on her own, and always set off earlier than needed – and they even saw the Great Marvo having a cigarette outside the stage-door. Jimmy ran up, and asked him for his autograph, and Marvo smiled and signed his autograph-book with a big flourish.

“Are you a real Magician?” asked Jimmy.

The Great Marvo stood for a moment, thinking. “Mostly,” he said, “I’m an illusionist – but sometimes, if I’m lucky, and the stars are right, I can do real magic. But we can’t stand here talking, Jimmy, I have a show to give, and the people will be getting impatient.” He dropped his cigarette on the asphalt, ground it out with his foot, and went back inside.

“How did he know my name, Ma?” asked Jimmy. “Was that real Magic?”

“You told him. When you asked for his autograph, he wanted to know who he had to make it out to.”

“Oh yeah – let’s go in.”

But they didn’t – not right away – because Jimmy saw a man in a big coat, collar up, hat pulled down, so you couldn’t see his face, just hovering on the square outside the theater, near the fountain.

“You want a ticket, mister?” he said, running up to him – and the man took what was offered to him, looking at it, as if he didn’t quite understand. But Jimmy grabbed his arm, and steered him towards the foyer, and Jimmy’s Ma didn’t interfere, because she liked it when people treated Jimmy well.

The man sat on the aisle. He didn’t take off his coat or his hat – but that was OK, the theater wasn’t full, everybody could see, nobody complained.

Because he was sitting on the aisle, where Jimmy’s Pa would have sat, who always sat where he could get out quickly, in case the Base needed him urgently, it was only natural that the Great Marvo should pick him for the Vanishing Trick that was, as always, the climax of the show.

And of course the audience, small as it was, used to the show that they’d enjoyed these many years, still responded with enthusiastic applause to the sight of the empty cabinet.

If they’d been able to hear what the Great Marvo said to the occupant of the cabinet, then they might have applauded even louder. But they didn’t – and to tell the truth, it was unlikely they would have known what he was saying, because the Great Marvo was a Navaho, and was speaking in his own language – though more for his own benefit than because he expected to be understood.

“I never believed the tales my grandmother told, that her grandmother told her, and her grandmother before her, about the creatures who came from the stars. But she taught me what to do, and because I loved her and wanted to please her, I remembered. I remembered the signs by which I could recognise you. I remembered what I had to do to change you. And I still remember. I never had a chance before. I never believed. I thought I was only an illusionist. Now I know better.”

That was what he was still muttering under his breath, as he advanced to take a bow, with his right hand, Jimmy noticed, clenched across his chest. But when he took his third and final bow, the hand burst open, violently, unexpectedly, and Jimmy, who was sharp at these things, saw something fly out of it, and carry on flying towards the back of the auditorium, where he lost sight of it.

The audience was dispersing.

“Where d’you think that man went?” Jimmy asked his Ma, looking at the still empty seat beside him.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, putting her scarf on. “He probably had things to do.”

They walked across the square, on their way back to the car. As they passed the fountain, Jimmy spotted something struggling in the pool, under the spray. He was sharp at seeing things like that. Before his Ma could stop him, he fished it out, held it in his hand and looked at it under the street-light. A big black beetle walked around on his flattened palm, shaking the water from its legs and carapace. It turned and looked up at him, and gestured with its antennae. Then it rose with a whirr and flew away into the darkness, towards the desert.

When they got home, Jimmy’s Pa was already there. The Base was a lot closer to their house than the town was.

“What about the alert, Ted?” asked Jimmy’s Ma, as she took her scarf off.

“An unusual signal, right enough, as if something was coming in,” said Jimmy’s Pa, “but while I was there we saw the same thing again, as if whatever had come in was going away again, which didn’t make any sense. So we just wrote it off as illusion.”

He turned to his son, and helped him out of his jacket.

“Was it a good show?” he asked.

“It was magic!” said Jimmy.

Riverside Writers on Zoom, inspired by Rory’s Story Cubes, 10.53 to 11.30, 18.i.2021

Here are six of the nine story cubes thrown to produce stories on that morning... You can see the alien, the beetle, the theatre, the magician, the arrow for the Native American, and the fountain on the square.