An Alphabet of Desire

He saw it at the end of his morning run. He initially thought it was an oversized phone or small tablet in a black leather case. He was surprised to discover that it was a book; one of those small black notebooks favored by luddites who still prefer the feel of pen on paper. With the virus floating around and him being unvaccinated, he was hesitant to pick it up but curiosity got the better of him. Despite the chill in the air, the book was warm to the touch. He turned through the first couple of pages looking for proof of ownership but came up empty.

He flipped through the book and noticed that it was only about three-quarters filled. He went back to the beginning and flipped through it again. Each page was a dense mixture of geometric patterns, letters and numbers. He flipped through a few more pages and stopped when he saw a drawing of a woman shutting the jaws of a lion. The drawing was placed in the middle of the page, about a quarter of the way down and the text began on the right hand side of the page. Upon closer examination, the letters, the ones he could recognize, were taken from various alphabets and were actually little caricatures drawn bending and twisting into the shape of letters. And although math was never his strong suit, he could recognize a formula when he saw one. Before he knew it, in his mind’s eye he saw thick, wet, red, slightly parted lips, and he physically felt the sensation of another’s body pressing against his own. He felt warm all over and he could feel himself begin to swell and twitch, however, another sensation, the sensation of being watched brought him out of his reverie. An older woman walking her dog looked very concerned as she cautiously walked past him.

That was embarrassing, he thought as he walked home. There was nothing overtly sexual about the text, he couldn’t even understand most of it, yet, somehow it had impressed the sensation of lust into his mind. He found the page and looked at it again to rule out the likelihood that it was just an odd coincidence. It wasn’t. He flipped through the book and stopped on a page with a drawing of coins spilling out of a pouch in approximately the same place as the other drawing. It looked very similar to the other page but upon closer examination he detected subtle differences. And it worked just like before except this time he was presented with images and feelings associated with wealth. He wouldn’t describe the feeling as carefree but he felt confident that he could handle whatever life threw at him because, in return, he could throw money at it. He flipped around the book. Not every page produced a positive feeling; one left him with a sense of dread and another gave him a blinding headache. Was this a new genre of literature? The internet will know! he thought.

Search engines aren’t very helpful if you can’t describe what you’re looking for. He turned to social media; he posted pictures of the book’s exterior and a few random pages. He used the hashtags “lostandfound” and “lost”. He included when and approximately where he found it in the caption. Comments and likes trickled in over the next few days. As usual, the comments were a mixed bag but the words “cymatics”, “sigils” and “chaos magic” were referenced several times. He replied with his customary prayer hands emoji to the more helpful comments and edited his post to include those hashtags. Now, he at least had something to type into Google. Cymatics lets you see the physical shape of sound when it is passed through a receptive medium. Searching “sigil” led him to the work of the British, artist-magician Austin Spare. He couldn’t believe the number of people online proudly calling themselves magicians and witches without a hint of irony. The various methods of charging sigils was a popular topic of discussion. He shook his head and thought, Do people really believe this stuff? But then again, he couldn’t dismiss his own recent experience. He quickly learned that Quantum Physics was a buzz word used to explain just about any and everything. One forum post conceptualized magic thusly, “in a universe that came from nothing anything is technically possible, however, unlikely. Therefore, magic is the willful manipulation of probability in your favor to bring about the desired outcome.” This jibed with him and it could also explain the math bits in the book. If any of this was real, someone else had already done the heavy lifting and all he had to do was charge the sigil.

One of, if not the, main tenet of chaos magic is that the subconscious is the true magical engine but in order for it to do its work, the task must be completely removed from the conscious mind. However, this is easier said than done. Some practitioners recommended everything from amphetamines and electronic dance music to whirling like a dervish for hours on end, while others favored more traditional forms of meditation. Charging the sigil with orgone, or libidinous energy seemed to be a fan favorite. From what he could gather, there were a lot of wizards out there attaching higher purposes to self-gratification. He flipped through the book and found the page he was looking for, the page with the bag overflowing with coins. He figured manifesting a few bucks would be a good start and wouldn’t hurt anybody. Youtube had playlists with frequencies close to the ones he was looking for. He didn’t have any amphetamines but he did have some pretty strong caffeine tablets on hand; he was so excited! He also had about half a bottle of whisky that he planned to sip on as the night progressed. As he spun, he thought, this is fun, I should do this more often!

The following morning, his head throbbed and there was a disgusting taste in his mouth, and his stomach lurched every time he breathed. Across the room he saw the unopened bottle of Gatorade and the two Advil he was supposed to take before falling asleep. He saw his phone lying face down on the carpet in front of him. He logged into his banking app, nothing. According to the forums, it could be days, even weeks before anything happened. He logged into PayPal, nothing. Possibly months. Finally, he opened Cash App which informed him that he had $20,000 in his account. He couldn’t believe his eyes. He stared at the number for a long time, admiring its beautiful roundness. Why so much? He was hoping for a few hundred at most. But then again, why not more? Was $20,000 part of the, he felt silly even thinking it, spell? Or was it taken from his own subconscious? Probably the latter because $20,000 felt just right. He’d still have to work but he could pay down some debt, buy a respectable used vehicle and move into a nicer apartment. His modest daydreams were suddenly interrupted by the panicked thought, I have to delete that post!

But somehow he knew it was already too late when he saw the notifications indicating that someone had liked a post, someone had commented on a post, he had a new follower and a direct message. The like, comment and DM all came from his new follower. There was no profile picture and the username looked like a random combination of letters and numbers. The comment said, “Check your DMs.”

The DM was curt and vaguely threatening, “That is my book. I know you recently used it. Do not do that again. Kindly return it to me or I will be forced to retrieve it through other means.”

Did they mean magical means?, he wondered. He didn’t see any point in lying to someone who somehow knew when he used the book. He replied, “Sorry. Where do you want me to send it?”

They replied almost immediately, “I want you to bring it to me here, now.”

The message included a pinned location. It was a strip mall downtown, about a five minute drive from his place. What if he ignored them and didn’t go? Could they really take it or were they bluffing? Was he willing to gamble with his life? He replied with a thumbs up emoji.

“Don’t keep me waiting.” came the response.

It felt like the longest five minutes of his life. “Here,” he messaged and waited in his car. He felt like he was suffocating and needed to get out of the car. He didn’t mean to pace, but he ended up pacing.

“Hey,” said a flat, slightly nasally, feminine voice from behind him. With his heart racing, he slowly turned around to face his fate. He just stared at her dumbly, eyes wide and mouth open. She was only about 5’3”, mid-thirties, spectacled, brunette, and the contrast with the deep shade of red on her pouty lips probably made her skin look paler than it actually was. She was a little on the plus-size but he doubted anyone ever complained because she wore it well.

“Ahem.” The sound of her clearing her throat brought him back to reality. She looked at him and then down at her own outstretched hand. “Right,” he said, as he pulled the book out of the back of his pants and handed it to her.

“Gross,” she said. “Was this in your pants?”

“In my pants but outside my underwear,” he replied matter of factly.

“Well, thanks,” she said as she turned and started to walk away.

There was something he had to know and he couldn’t let her walk away without asking. “Hey! Can I ask you something?”

“It better not be for a reward or a finder’s fee because we both know you’re flush at the moment.” She said in an annoyed tone. “And by the way, you’re welcome. If that money would’ve shown up in your bank account, you’d be having a very awkward conversation with an IRS agent instead of me!”

“Thanks.” he said sheepishly. “Do you need that back or can I?” he didn’t finish his question.

“Unbelievable. No, you keep it. Plenty more where that came from.” she shook the book for emphasis. What do you want?” she asked.

“How could you lose something like that? If I made something like that, I’d never let it out of my sight.”

“I didn’t lose it,” she said and mumbled something else under her breath.

“What?” he asked.

“I said I didn’t lose it, it ran off! I forgot to tether it properly and it ran off! Ok?” her cheeks were flushed.

“You mean, it’s alive?” he whispered.

“Hmm, kind of. I put so much time and effort into it that I think I may have imbued it with some of my essence and it’s starting to develop a will of its own. But that doesn’t explain how you were able to use it.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

She sighed. “I mean this is my magnum opus, it’s a reflection of me and my life up to this point. Theoretically, the only way another person could use it would be if,” she trailed off.

“Would be if what?” he stepped towards her.

“Would be if our personal frequencies were so similar that the book couldn’t tell us apart. But that’s, that’s impossible,” she said as she shook her head.

“Why is that so impossible?”, he asked.

“Because that would mean we’re essentially soulmates or damn close! And that’s ridiculous! What are the chances of us meeting like this?”

He took another step towards her. He smiled and said, “You mean it’s like someone nudged the numbers in our favor? Like magic?”

She laughed softly and said, “Yea, like magic.”