A tale for Christmas

The few people who know me EXCEPTIONALLY well know that I have wanted nothing more in my entire life than to be a grifter.

I'm not even ashamed of this. Grifting is terrible, but also so fucking cool. Someone told me once that I was far too kind to be a grifter. He didn't know me well enough to say that with authority, however. No, it isn't kindness or morality that keeps me from a life of complex and interesting swindles, it's the fear of getting caught. I've pulled a long con or two in my day...nothing to write home about. But I'm less kind and more talented than I think people give me credit for. Bordering on the sociopathic, really. And I'm just fine with that. It's who I am.

The point of all this is to tell a story.

I wanted to be a magician when I was around my son's age. That's it. I bought magic books, and trick books, and watched magicians on TV, trying in vain to do the exact same tricks. These are not things I did with any amount of success. I attribute that to thinking magic was a real thing; all I had to do was have the right stuff, say the right words, and say them correctly, and I would be the next great name in Magic. My great aunt Pat came to visit me one year, fairly close to my birthday, and she took me to my childhood mecca: Toys'R'Us. Fuck yeah. I wandered up and down the aisles, holding two things of Gak in my hands, looking for one more big toy to go home with. And then I saw it. The 100 trick Magic Trick Kit. It was EVERYTHING I was missing. It had a hat, a cape, a stuffed rabbit, a wand, and 96 other bits and bobs that make up the most rudimentary of illusions. I didn't even have time to drop my splatter-shaped plastic containers full of fucking disgusting goop...I tried to hamfist that box onto my chest, with Gak coming along for the ride. I told my aunt Pat that THIS was what I needed. That I had to be a real magician, and this was my ticket in. And she bought the box for me.

I'm not delving into detail for the sake of being flowery...I remember this vividly. I got home, said a very hasty goodbye to my aunt, ran into the house with my prizes, and slammed myself into my room. I cleared my bed of all of my stuffed animals, of which there were several, and greedily opened up my magic box. Everything was there. I unfolded my cape and lovingly wrapped it around my shoulders, then I turned it around so the cape was covering my front. And I belted it at the waist, so it looked like I was wearing a magic dress made of cape. I found the wand, and unwrapped that next. Next came the top hat, which was disappointingly masculine to me, even at such a young age, but I put it on, anyway. I donned my magical attire and pranced around my room, waving my wand and bowing to an invisible (but massive, mind you) audience that was trilled to be watching me perform. I stopped peacocking around and dumped the rest of the box onto my bed, and there was the instruction book.

I'm going to spoil the ending for you and tell you that the instruction book kind of killed my childhood. That was when real magic disappeared, and it would be years before a different kind of magic took its place. I was crushed the learn that the rope tying trick was just a spring coil. The rabbit in the hat was just a hidden compartment. Making the plastic flower disappear from the delicately painted box was just a perspective trick that used mirrors. Magic was an illusion, and figuring that out depleted my tiny little spirits. I cried and cried and cried and cried. I must have looked ridiculous, with my cape turned around and belted, and my top hat askew, and my wand hanging limply at my side.

My dad later explained to me that the kind of magic I was interested in was a trick, yes, but there was real magic in other places.

My dad meant magic like the brilliance of the universe, and the kindnesses people show each other for no reason. Magic, the hyperbole. I thought he meant magic like mermaids and fairies and unicorns and other things like that, and being quite honest, there's a part of me that isn't wholly sold on the idea that those things aren't real.

In an infinite multiverse, there's no such thing as fiction.

I've adopted that quote as my own and used it to rationalize a lot of things I believe that could easily be termed ridiculous.

But you know...somewhere, out in the vastness, nine year old me is practicing really real magic. The kind that we write about in stories. And she's damn fucking good at it.