The Magician

“Jesus, Verone, you’re bleeding again!” Her brother sighed in annoyance. Sitting in front of her brother in the grass area, far from the procession, the little girl’s chubby hands pressed flat on her nose, attempting to stop the red river, flowing rapidly down her nostrils. Her eyes looked sadly as her brother stomped away to get tissues, his coffin shoes getting dirty from the mud.

She didn’t know why she bled. She didn’t pick her nose, she’s never been hit on it, yet no matter the time of day or the temperature of the weather, she suffered a nosebleed. Drops of blood cried through her hands in big rivulets, composed a puddle on the grass. As red darkened her vision, she looked up at the beaming sun and in complete and utter adoration, as if being called, her hands dropped to her lap and she was transformed to a place she had never been, but felt all the while familiar.

The sun was gone and its place, a tented ceiling, of boisterous red stripes and striking, white adjacent lines. A mixture of cotton candy and caramel apples infiltrated her nose as her small body sat in the middle of aisles, surrounded by figures she couldn’t quite see. Only when she looked to her left, a gold stitched smile looked back at her. Her body reacted before her mind as she leaped away, bumping into a face she had only ever seen in her dream. The face made of wisps of clouds and not much else, gave her what she could only describe as a smile before turning back towards the show.

“Here, have some treats,” the teddy bear-like monster said as he extended a bucket of popcorn, sprinkled with candy, at her. She stared at him untrustingly which made him laugh. “Verone, it’s me! Charlie.”

“You're not Charlie,” she retorted back, crossing her arms. “Charlie’s at home. Charlie’s in my bed. Charlie isn’t real-” She stopped as the duplicitous Charlie turned around, showcasing a cut where a little bit of stuffing was falling out. Her mind flitted back to when she was following her brother through the fence, only to have Charlie caught on a rogue piece of wire. For weeks, she had been begging her mother to fix him, but she kept forgetting.

“Now eat some treats, little one,” he coaxed her from the left side of the chair to the middle and gently rested the food on her lap. Hesitatingly, her small hand tunneled through the weird mix, wanting to get all five treats with specks of popcorn at once. But alas, the only thing she could carry was two pieces of M&M’s and a globby, yellow piece.

As the floodlights dimmed and the spotlight focused entirely on the open sands of the area, a tall man with a tall black hat, floated towards the middle, eyes covered. His posture composed and his clothes gleaming and colorful, the magician, Verone thought, faced the audience with a smile. Holding his cane to his mouth, his words resounded around the room.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you all for being here today. From the tiniest flower,”–he extended his hat to a potted rose, whose face bloomed out a smile– “to the largest giant,” he looked up at the Appalachian monster whose fur coat shone with a purple sheen.

The man’s eyes looked up past the rimline of his hat and Verone’s jaw dropped at the sight of the familiar brown. Forgetting the bucket in her lap, she scooted to the edge of her seat and gaped at the man in front of her as balloons soared around the stadium, like a controlled tornado. Immune to the pink and white confetti falling from the air, the magician bowed flamboyantly before disappearing into a cloud of doves.

A sharp gasp flew from the child’s mouth as she stood up, only to be pulled from the ribbon of her dress, back to her seat.

“Shh, the show’s starting.” The magician smiled cheekily, sitting in the seat the cloud once possessed. Without taking eyes off him for a minute, Verone obeyed, the unmistakable scent of detergent mixed with bleach, calming her.

“For our first act, I introduce the battle of the brothers!” Two copies of the magician appear out of thin air, like well paid body doubles. Sporting a fresh face, with no ill complexion or crow lines, Verone looked as the magician and her uncle stared at each other with looks of mischief. A plate of beignets, piled high to the sky, sat in front of them. Their goal: to beat their brother through any means necessary. As the booming voice counted down, at the beginning buzz, they began stuffing the powdery sugar snack down their throats.

Her uncle, fed up with the magician winning, began tossing half-eaten beignets at him, which turned into knives mid air. The magician with the reflexes of a gymnast, dodged every single one without slowing down. It was only until the pile was closer to the front of his face, when the middle of the sand shook. The shake was so heavy that Verone was thumping to the edge of her seat, only held back by the magician, who swiftly pulled her back.

A giant, featured similarly to the two men, stomped in with a look of fury in his eyes. The pit area surrounded itself in fire as the beignets multiplied on each of the men’s plates. Her uncle wasted no time, running to hide, but the magician who looked content on finishing, stuffed a beignet in his mouth and pulled out a sword that quickly transformed into a weapon of balloons, earning a laugh from the crowd.

Verone didn’t find it funny.

The giant, who raised his meaty foot, pounded it down on the magician causing Verone to shriek and cover her eyes. The feeling of tears beginning to heat in the back of her eyes.

She lost him…again.

“Uh, Uh, Uh.” The magician removed her hands from her face and nodded toward the show. As the giant paraded around the pit, tossing his hands up celebratory, his oafish face morphed into a confused expression as familiar stomps could be heard throughout the stadium.

This time a woman with hair rolled up tightly, in contained gray coils and wearing a pink nightgown similar to the one her great-grandma had. The giant whose frown lines showed steep in her expression, glared at the other giant before revealing a rolling pin from the back of her dress and swinging it like a baseball star, into his head. As the giant fell, Verone eyes looked up at the woman’s shoulder where the younger magician sat triumphantly, eating his final beignet.

Verone laughed as he stuck out a tongue to her uncle and the scene slowly dissipated to the next event. Throughout the show, warmth filled Verone’s heart. At the last show, her head laid on the magician’s shoulder, as she’s done many times before.

Her eyes were struggling to stay open.

“It’s time to end the show, little one.”

“No!” Verone fought weakly. “I-I don’t want it to end. What if- what if I never see it again?”

“See what?” Tears were now falling from her eyes, and rolling down her chubby cheeks. She couldn’t find enough strength to lift her head.

“You.”

Slowly, she felt her head being picked up by hands as warm as coal. The magician who faced her towards him, smiled crookedly and placed a chaste kiss on top of her forehead.

“Little one, I will always be with you. Always. There’s nothing in that big mind of yours that could forget me or my stories.”

“But what if I do because you can’t tell it to me anymore? What if I forget or-or get certain things wrong.”

“Then our family will remind you. I’ll remind you. All you have to do is close your eyes and think of me, and I will always be here.” As Verone wrapped her arms around the magician, her eyes opened revealing her uncle who kneeled in front of her, holding a tissue to her nose. Seeing her uncle’s red-rimmed eyes gazing at her as softly as he could, she grabbed his hand, the blood dried to her palms.

“Don’t be sad. We remember him.” A soft smile climbs to his mouth as he sniffs.

“Yeah, we do.”