For My Next Trick, I need a Volunteer

“For my next trick. I will need a volunteer.” The magician asked as he walked across the stage. The spotlight focused on the oblong box at centerstage. Smiling, he looked out past the bright spotlight to see if anyone have volunteered, but he did not see a single person with their hand up.

“I just need one person to have the courage to come forward.” He spoke into his microphone. Behind him was his poster set on a tripod, “Mekong the Magnificent.”

“Chris, we have someone.” Mandy the stage manager signaled to him.

“Ah, we have a volunteer.” He smiled. Turning, he waved to the young lady standing next to Mandy. After some hesitation, she walked out on stage, “Wonderful, and what is your name, miss?”

“Alma.” She answered as her face turned red.

“Alma, I am so happy to have you volunteer for this. Have you ever volunteered for a magic trick before?”

“No.” She speaks into the microphone, but her voice can barely be heard even with the mic.

“Alma, just relax, alright.” Mekong opens the oblong box. “I want you to come and lay down in my magic box. You will lie on your back, alright?”

She nods her head.

“After you enter this magic box, I will cut you in half.” He explains as he holds up shiny slab of metal.

“Will it hurt?” She asks as she takes a step back wishing she had not volunteered.

“Not one bit.” He shakes his head. There is a spattering of applause. “Now, let me help you in.”

Alma takes his hand and lies down on her back. Once she is in the box, Mekong puts the sides down and locks them in place. He takes the piece of shiny metal, holding it up so the audience can see it. There is a slot in the box.

“Are you comfortable?” He asks.

Alma nods with a smile.

Mekong takes the metal and forces it down in the slot about midway where her stomach would be. There is a slight gurgling noise, but Mekong faces the audience and bows.

There is a gasp as Mandy runs out on stage. Turning around, Mekong sees a pool of blood gathering beneath the box that is getting larger by the second. When he looks at Alma, he sees her brown eyes have glazed over and realizes…

His alarm clock sounds and he sits up in his bed. Looking around his cluttered room, Jasper Kladophin is relieved that the horror was just a dream this time. He gets up and heads into the bathroom to take a shower, but he still feels the shock of seeing Alma lying dead in the box, cut in two.

His magic books that he has been studying for the past nine months are crammed on top of his desk. He had been reading one of them last night when he decided to go to bed.

“Hey Jas, it’s time to get up, you loser.” His older sister May sticks her head into his empty room. There is no sisterly love in her. She moved back in with her parents and brother after her marriage failed. She sees her brother as another living soul who has been put on the earth to make her life unbearable. “What is all this crap.”

She sees the books on his desk and picks up one of them.

“Dark Arts for Dummies?” She shakes her head despondently, “He is such a creep.”

“What the hell are you doing in my room, May?” He walks in with a towel wrapped around him.

“What are you doing with all this crap?” She holds up the book she was flipping through.

“Leave my stuff alone.” He grabs the book from her hands.

“Are you practicing satanic rituals?” Her smile is wicked and accusatory.

“No.”

“I’m telling mom.” May threatens.

“So? She and dad know. I want to be a magician. I have a name.” He raises an eyebrow.

“What is it?” She begs him for the poop.

“Mekong the Magnificent.” He says with a flourish.

She burst out laughing, “Are you kidding me? Mekong? That is rich.”

“Hey, it’s who I want to be when I get a booking.” He shrugs.

“Are you serious? No one is going to pay you to do magic.” She laughs, “Magic is lame.”

“You used to like magic.” He taunts her, “You read all of the books about happily ever after.”

“I read the Grimm Brothers and lemme tell ya, they were as grim as you can imagine.” She shakes her head, “You are my brother. My only sibling and I want to make sure you won’t go making a fool of yourself and embarrass me.”

“How can I embarrass you?” Jasper tilts his head knowing his sister is just trying to get under his skin.

“My friends will ask me, ‘Is that your geeky brother?’ and I will have to say yes. And they will tell me how lame my only sibling is.” She says sarcastically.

“Why don’t you move out?” Jasper is becoming very irritated. “You are almost thirty.”

“I am twenty-eight, I’ll have you know.” She is tempted to slap him, but she restrains herself. “I am looking into places uptown, but the rent is just too expensive.”

“Do you still work at the burger place?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact I do and I’ve been promoted to assistant night shift manager.” She snaps.

“Minimum wage won’t pay for a place.” Jasper baits her.

“I got a couple of my friends from high school who are willing to go in on an apartment with me smart ass.”

“Listen May, don’t make fun of my dream and I won’t bust you chops on your dream.” Jasper closes the door and drops his towel so he can get dressed.

The Ritz Night Club is located in a rough neighborhood, but people line up at the door an hour before the doors open. Nightly entertainment includes some local talent, but every now and then a studio musician who has back a rock star will appear claiming to have played with Cold Play or Guns N’ Roses, but every Wednesday night they have open microphone where amateurs can come and try out their acts.

Jasper comes and watches hoping to get up the nerve to try out some of his magic tricks. He has one where breaks two eggs in his magic hat and then waves his wand over the hat before putting it on top of his head. The trick is the top of the hat moves. He lets the raw eggs escape into a hidden container under his top hat so when he put the hat on his head, the eggs won’t ooze down his face. The first time he tried it, the eggs ran down his face anyway and everyone laughed.

“Hey kid, you got some egg on your face.” Someone called from the audience.

He spent his time reading about how to do the big tricks. When he read a biography of Harry Houdini, he was inspired to do some escape magic, but when he put the trick handcuffs on, he had to have one of his buddies use an electric saw to get his hands free.

After he graduated from high school, he enrolled in the Community College in a course about séance and fortune telling. His first séance freaked him out, because there were strange things that happened.

“What happened?” Professor Adlin asked him when Jasper went to him for advice.

“This apparition appeared.” He explained.

“What did he look like?” Professor Adlin asked half listening.

“His face was covered with sores, and he spoke of a horrible disease he contracted that eventually killed him.”

Aldin leaned forward on his desk, “You have the power, Mr. Kladophin. In my years of teaching the dark arts, I rarely come across a student with the gift.”

“It doesn’t feel like a gift.” Jasper whined.

“It is and if you take the time to develop your gift, you will become a powerful wizard.” He smiled.

“I don’t want to be a wizard.” Jasper rolled his eyes.

“You may not have a choice in the matter.” Professor Aldin purred with delight. “We must be aware that magic comes from the dark side. It was once part of the forbidden fruit in the garden. As soon as the fruit was tasted, the forbidden secrets were released.”

What his professor told him creeped him out. He began having nightmares. The blood would flow from the hapless volunteer. He would wake up struggling to breathe.

“Hello.” Jasper answered his cell phone.

“Yeah, is this Jasper Kladophin?” The voice asked.

“Yeah, who’s this?” Jasper asked as he sat at the foot of his unmade bed.

“I’m Mario Castellani from the Ritz Night Club.” He replied in a monotone, but when Jasper heard “Ritz Night Club,” his heart began to race. “I was wondering if you could be at open mic this Wednesday?”

“Yes sir.” Jasper stood up at attention.

“Great.” Mario chuckled, “You are a musician, right?”

“No sir, I am a magician.” His voice was shaking just like the rest of him.

“Whatever.” Mario snapped, “Just be there at seven o’clock Wednesday evening.”

“I will be there.” Jasper said as Mario hung up. Suddenly it seemed his knees would no longer support him. He fell on his mattress. “Oh my God!”

May heard him cry out in ecstasy. Poking her head into his to find out what he was up to. “Whacha doin’?”

“I am going to be doing Mekong the Magnificent this Wednesday night at the Ritz Night Club.” He said with a smile.

“Oh no, that’s my hang out, dweeb.” She was horrified that he was going to open mic night. Her friends loved to go and make fun of the people who actually thought they had talent. If one of her friends found out Mekong the Magnificent was actually her brother, she’d never live it down. “I’ll be there.”

“Great. Glad you can make it.” He sat up.

“No, no, I don’t want you to be there.” She made a face as if the odor in his room was overwhelming.

The next day she flooded social media with posts about the poor quality of her brother’s magic act. With the flood of precautionary posts, came a flood of reactions thanking her for the fair warning. Jasper got some of the fallout however as his page was inundated with negative posts that were cruel and hateful.

“What did you do?” He asked May while she was on her laptop computer.

“I simply told the truth and the truth is, you suck.” She said without looking up at his washed-out facial expression.

“You had no right to post those hateful posts.” He slapped the table where she was working on her computer. He knew she was taking online courses to get her dental hygienist certificate. He closed her laptop before she could react.All his life, May had bullied him because as she told him, she was older and smarter. This was the final straw as far as he was concerned.

“What did you do that for?” She screamed, “I was almost finished with that assignment and now I have to do it all over again. I HATE YOU!”

“And I hate you.” He said without raising his voice. “I want to do magic on stage, and you ruined it.”

“Magic is lame, but you are lamer.” She was seething in anger. What she didn’t know was he was also extremely angry, but his anger had a slow burn. He would go up to his room and come up with a scheme to get even with his older sister who through her whole life was to make his life a living hell at times.

When he built a birdhouse for a school project, she put in a cherry bomb and blew his project into kindling. She was the one who found his stash of dirty magazines under his mattress and turned the magazines into her parents. It was she who met with his potential prom date to give the poor girl the dirt on her brother. After May got through with all of the dirt, the girl called Jasper to tell him she didn’t want to go to the prom with him. At every turn, it was May who made his life miserable.

All he had to do was get a decent audience and he’d be able to get her out of his life. He thought he’d have a shot on Wednesday at open mic at Ritz Night Club, but now that had become a joke as he scanned through his timeline.

You are such a loser.

I cannot believe you are even trying to do this.

If I were you, I’d dig a hole and bury myself.

Are you for real? You will be the biggest flop of all time.

How on earth do you believe you have talent.

This is a joke, right?

The more he scrolled the worse the comments got. Tears flooded his eyes. He would have to get revenge on her, but how.

That night he had the dream of asking for a volunteer from the audience. Placing his volunteer into his box, he would insert the piece of metal and once again it would produce the gory effect he dreaded.

He sat up in bed. His eyes were wide as an evil smile crossed his face.

The next day he spent the entire day in the garage. First he worked to make his box inescapable using a system of springs and hinges that would lock someone into the box with absolutely no way to get free.

SNAP! BANG!

The box shut tight allowing so the person inside would have no means to get out once the box was locked.

Then Jasper sharpened the separator so that it was as sharp as a sword. He grabbed the apparatus by the handles, put it into the slot and let go of the separator.

BANG!

It slid contacting the bottom of the box without any resistance. He had prepared his device just like he had in his nightmare when he cut Alma in half. He would remove May’s bloody remains from his box and place each piece of her in the furnace. And then he would take the hose and wash off her blood which would be soaked up by the dirt floor.

When everything was in place, Jasper took a step back as he went through the entire act in his mind. Just like his nightmare of Alma, May wouldn’t have a chance. He smiled, satisfied that it all go according to his plan.

“May, do you think my magic tricks are a ruse?” Jasper asked as she sat with her laptop.

“Yes, I do.” She answered, “Now leave me alone so I can finish this assignment.”

“I was wondering if you could do me a favor?” He tilted his had as he leaned against the table were she was working on her assignment.

“What?” She said through her clenched teeth.

“I was wondering if you’d like to prove to me once and for all that my magic is fake.”

“Would you leave me alone if I say yes?”

“Absolutely.” He nodded.

“Alright, let’s get this over with.” She rolled her eyes.

“I have it set up in the garage.” He told her.

“Fine.” She stood up, “But you’d better leave me alone for the rest of the evening.”

“I promise.” He held up his hand in their sworn oath.

“This is going to be the dumbest thing I’ve done all week.” She followed him to the garage. She opened the door and saw the box resting on some folding chairs. “I was wrong, this will be the dumbest thing I have ever done and I’ve set the bar very high.”

“Have a seat.” He held out his hand to the only folding chair to sit in inside the entire garage.

“Are you serious.” She shook her head. “You’re not going to do strange things to me, are you?”

“Absolutely not.” He shook his head as he walked over to the hook where he had his coat and cape hanging on a hook. “I must practice this if I’m ever to get it right.”

“Good luck with that.” She rolled her eyes again.

Jasper cleared his throat and looked at his sister.

“Ladies and gentlemen.” He waved his wand as she shook her head.

“You are so pathetic.” She uttered.

“I am Mekong the Magnificent, and for my next trick, I will need a volunteer.”