Chapter 111: The Magic Show

One day, the season of which I have since forgotten, upon viewing several amateur attempts at illusion by the likes of David Blaine and David Copperfield, I took it upon myself to create a magic trick so delightful that the viewers of it would question their understanding of the universe.

I began to create tricks and perform them on the street under the pseudonym Darius Haystorm. I would cloak myself in mysterious yet luxurious velvets and silks and prowl the streets, making ladies swoon and grown men cry of shame and jealousy. Some of the tricks were simply illusions, and the others were demonstrations of actual magic that I had learned from the witchdoctors in Haiti when I was inadvertently sold into slavery some years before. I became so good at the magic that I no longer called them tricks, opting instead for "presentations" or "demonstrations."

Finally, after over 3 days of practice, I was ready for a show. I made a deal with several television broadcasting companies and the city of Washington, D.C. that I was to perform a live magic show which would be broadcast all over the world. Some even argued that the show should be broadcast into space so that if aliens existed, they would see my great powers and flee in fear.

My show began with great pomp and circumstances. Pyrotechnics roared across the stage and out into the open park in downtown D.C. I stepped out onto the platform in my wondrous flowing silks and my mysterious mask of mystery and began an intricate dance. Onlookers and viewers, which I was told included literally every single person on earth-- even the homeless and the blind, were mesmerized by the undulation of my hips, seeing in such sensual and pulchritudinous movement a truth that was truer than they had ever known.

My hips do not lie.

My movements shocked the entire world into silence, much like the tantalizing movements of a snake-handler taming a cobra. For several moments, I was the only human on the planet capable of movement. When the dance ended, the entire world exhaled. Many fainted. It was time for the magic to begin.

My first demonstration was to saw a man in half. I chose a man out of the audience. He had curly hair and wore women's acid-washed jeans and a pleather jacket with some bizarre and vaguely effeminate markings. He excitedly ran up to the stage, exclaiming that he knew exactly what I was going to do and how I was going to do it.

I slapped him across his face. "Shut up," I said to him. He cowered at the power of my voice. "I am going to cut you in half."

The crowd cheered. Apparently the gentlemen was not well-liked.

I ushered him into a coffin and closed the lid, but before I closed it entirely, I lifted my mask of mystery to him, exposing who I really was. He began to scream in terror, for you see, it was Dr. Bobblehead that I had brought up on stage, and it was he who I was going to cut in half, and never reassemble.

The magic show was all a trick, a clever ruse to get revenge on my enemy.

"This will teach you never to try to drug me, kidnap me and sell me into the Haitian black market again!" I exclaimed, slamming the coffin and locking it.

With that, I signalled the OK for the crane above the stage to drop an older, unattractive green Porsche directly on top of the coffin. Curly hair, blood-soaked denim and cheap pleather flew all over the stage.

When the smoke cleared, I disappeared from the stage and reappeared far away in a safe haven. From there, I could hear the crowd chanting madly, "Hay-storm! Hay-storm! Hay-storm!"

I hung my head, shed my luxurious cloak and mask of mystery, and began the long walk home. The deed was done. Dr. Bobblehead was dead. And Darius Haystorm would never be able to perform magic ever again.