Up In Smoke

Yesterday, if you'd asked me how long a minute was, I would've said "60 seconds" and then gone about my day as minutes slipped by, one after another with no clear start or end.

Today, I'd tell you that one minute is all it takes for a life to change.

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I’m almost never on time. If you ask my girlfriend or my mom, they’d probably tell you that it’s my greatest flaw. Normally, it doesn’t really matter. I run from room to room at work, hop from meeting to meeting and can smile, calm my heart rate, and join the flow of conversation like I’d always been there. The spark of magic I gently and lovingly tend to each day certainly helps – in today’s society, magic and mages have mostly disappeared, but there are generally at least a couple people in each family that have the gift. The great mages of ages past could bend the fabric of reality, but as time went on and the world became more peaceful, those born with a spark mostly were able to produce little more than party tricks. The ability to fix a stain on your clothes or control the temperature of your coffee so it never goes tepid isn't exactly rare, but it is getting more uncommon. My favorite spell is simple: I produce a bit of light from my fingertips and use my hands like a flashlight. It comes in handy when I forget to change the broken lightbulb in my bathroom for 2 weeks straight. Most people don’t really understand why I bother at all, but I quietly love the feeling of creating something or fixing something. It’s a tiny bit of power that’s just for me and those I choose to share it with.

Today, there’s something in the air. I get to work 10 minutes early. It’s 8:50am, and I’m already at my desk. My morning routine went as usual: I kissed my girlfriend good morning and doomscrolled while I waited for my bagel to pop out of the toaster. After a particularly heinous article on how mages are ruining society, I decided to put my phone away and take my bagel to go. There were no red lights on the way in, and I didn’t get stuck in any traffic. By 8:53am, I was logged in and clicking through my emails, and actually kind of enjoying the dim lighting of the office and the calm that came before the storm of my boss and colleagues crowding into the relatively small floor.

The calm feeling faded quickly, and glancing at the clock I saw that I had five entire minutes to spare – just enough time to practice a new spell. Glancing around one last time, I closed the door to my office and pulled the blinds on the window. Opening YouTube, a video titled “I Found a Grimoire and You Won’t BELIEVE What Happens In Only 4 Steps!!! (NOT CLICKBAIT!!!)” stares at me. It’s only 7 minutes long, and the first two to three minutes on these types of tutorials is just a long winded intro that has nothing to do with the actual spell itself. Most of the time, it’s just a stupid #fail video that ends up being a waste of time and leaves me feeling more than a little bit embarrassed, but on occasion I do actually learn something. It was a similar video that helped me perfect my little light spell, and the tease of a Grimoire is more than just a bit intriguing. It’s 8:55am, and I decide to hit the play button.

I skip the first two minutes, and just as I thought, the woman in the video is only now saying “okay, so! Now that the obligatory warnings are out of the way, let’s get started! Today, we are going to try and summon an actual flame. Not just heat or light, but real fire!!”

A cutesy neon-pink pop-up in the corner reads “remember! Whenever working with heat or fire spells, have your water and a fire extinguisher ready just in case :) we are not responsible for any harm to yourself or others :))” I can’t help but roll my eyes and skip through the next minute of safety talk. It’s all the same, and it’s all boring. I pride myself on not being an idiot, so I do mentally remind myself where the fire blanket and the extinguisher are located. I’m pretty sure they’re down the hall, next to the kitchen. Good enough.

It’s 8:56am, and the girl in the video is finally opening a large book. The cover is a faded purple with dark scorch marks on the front, and the pages shift and release some dust as it is cracked open. She keeps up some form of chatter throughout but helpfully lists the steps on the screen next to her so I can kind of tune her out and focus inwards.

Step 1: Picture the sensation of warmth between your palms. Easy enough. That’s how I start the light spell too. This time, though, instead of gathering energy into a visual, I let it remain as the energy of heat and feel the temperature of my hands start to rise. I envision holding a warm mug of coffee between my hands and funnel a little bit more intention into the potential energy that is raw heat, instead of light.

Step 2: Transition the sensation of warmth into real heat - move the energy from your palms to the space between your hands. Okay, that would be harder. I’m a tactile person, all the spells I’m best at involve touch. This one takes a little longer for me to tackle. It doesn’t help that my attention is somewhat divided - the clock just changed to 8:57am. I let my eyelids drift closed as I picture it first: heat and warmth lifting off my palms, and creating a sphere between my hands. The energy within me doesn’t exactly know what to do. The funnel of intention spreads a bit and I grasp back at control, but I feel myself lose it and gasp as there’s a flash of heat against my palms. It fades in a second, but it was enough to make me lose focus. I pause the video and feel that the space bar was actually a bit warm to the touch. I must have been close to getting it, but I’ll need to be careful this time. Take two. I shut out the distractions around me and focus my energy on my mind’s eye. I summon the heat and warmth to my palms, then picture it as a soft golden glow. I push my energy towards the glow of heat and turn it up like I would increase the flame on a stove. Just as it starts to turn uncomfortable, I mentally peel the golden heat off my palms and into a little ball between my hands. The discomfort immediately fades and all that’s left is a slight, residual warmth. I open my eyes and see the golden flame has manifested into a little translucent orb between my hands. Awesome.

I press play again. It’s 8:58am. Step 3: Speak a word of power. This is individual, but the power word for fire in the book is “IGNIS.” As you speak it, allow the magic to attempt to ignite, like a flint and steel makes kindling catch fire. Now this is interesting. I’ve dabbled in power words before, but they take up a lot of energy and leave me feeling drained, like I’ve run a couple miles. I mentally run through my schedule for the day, and it’s pretty light. I could do this. This time, I keep my eyes open and on the faintly glowing and shifting orb. It’s not taking too much focus or effort to keep it maintained, but I am starting to feel the heat increase against my hands as my mind wanders. Once I focus back in, I can reign in the temperature a little bit better. I mentally picture the flint and steel as I whisper “ignis,” a couple times, but nothing happens. I glance at the video and see the girl’s fingers twitching as she attempts it herself, and get an idea. I funnel a little bit of intention into my right hand that burns, but I grit my teeth and tolerate it. My left hand spreads to control the glowing heat that is steadily burning hotter, and I quickly snap my right fingers together as I emphasize the word this time. “Ignis!” The effect is immediate. The little translucent glow flickers and sparks, before the light gets brighter and flame eats away the phantom warmth into an actual, glowing, flame. My heart is racing and I can actually feel the sweat dripping down my face with the effort it takes to control this. The flame is tiny, like the tip of one of the wood-wick candles my girlfriend loves, but it’s still a lot to manage. I risk a glance at the clock, and with some relief note that it's 8:59am. I’ll have to stop soon to catch my breath and actually do my job.

Step 4: Dispel the flame - once you get comfortable with step 3, you can play with the size of the flame. This takes a lot of practice! Don’t feel bad if you lose it a lot the first few times. Picture feeding kindling into a fire and repeat the power word to increase the size of the flame. To put it out, smother the flame with a clapping motion and the power word “exstinguere.” On the screen, the girl is also starting to sweat, but I can see that she’s trying to expand the flame she managed to conjure. My curiosity gets the best of me, and I figure I have enough time to at least try it once.

My world narrows to the tiny flame between my hands. My breath is coming in short pants, and my makeup is definitely ruined by the sweat beading on my forehead. If the girl in this video can do it – and she can, the small flame has turned into a little ball of fire – I can do it, too. I keep my eyes open this time, gaze fixed on the fire. It’s taking a surprising amount of energy to control the size of the flame. Fire wants to consume, and its fuel is the very air around us. The oxygen I’m desperately sucking in at this point is also feeding the flame, so most of my effort is actually going into keeping the fire small. I gently pull my hands further away from each other and allow the tiniest bit of control to slip away. The fire immediately triples in size.

“Shit, shit, shit!” I can’t help but exclaim as the heat of it singes my fingers and leaves a scorch mark on my desk. Shadows bounce around the room as the ball of fire is now flickering at the size of a baseball and slowly growing. I fly to my feet, chair falling over behind me, and desperately try to tighten my control over the flames. In the video, I can see that the girl is having the same issue. Her fire has clearly gotten out of control, and between one second and the next, the small flame explodes into a fireball around the room. The video cuts immediately before cutting to footage of her camera crew running around with a fire extinguisher.

Fuck. I happen to glance at the time. I watch, helplessly, as the clock flicks from 8:59am to 9:00am. I can’t move, can’t even breathe wrong right now, or the increasingly tenuous grasp I have over my own fireball - now grown to the size of a basketball- is slipping through my fingers. The heat is overwhelming, my face feels dry and sunburnt, and my hands ache terribly. I can’t stop my fingers from trembling and I have to try three times before any sound escapes my mouth to form the power word to put an end to this.

Before I get the chance, my office door swings wide open.

The brief distraction is all it took. Three minutes to create and summon something from magic to make it real and beautiful. One minute for it to explode in my face.

The next minute of my life proceeds now in slow motion. The flame licks across my arms and spreads around the room, and the pain and brutal explosive sound it makes hits a second after. Someone is screaming - me? Is that terrible noise me? - and there is yelling coming from further away. Flame dances across my desk and climbs over walls and curtains, burning everything in its path. The screaming is still going. I don’t think it’s me–or, rather, it’s not only me. My back hits the floor and my breath is stolen from me as I see the fire surrounding my boss as well. Smoke is rapidly filling the air and making the scene even more chaotic. Mind scrambling, I desperately search for the power word between the pain and the noise blocking out all other rational thought. It takes longer than it should, the shock numbing my fingers and smoke closing my throat. My boss rolls on the floor and gets hit by the chemical foam of a fire extinguisher, and a light goes off in the back of my mind.

“Exstinguere!”

My hands are in agony from where I clapped them together in front of me, and the world is suddenly dark again. Straining, I manage to lift my head off the floor and see that the fire has gone out. The ringing in my ears is still happening, and my head falls back to the floor with a thunk as my vision swims. There are people rushing in now, and the sprinkler system finally decides to start up. Of course. Too little, too late. Damage already done, and now soaked to the bone, I can only surrender to the pull of unconsciousness. My last thought is that I hope my boss will be okay, and that I’ll be given the chance to fix this.