The Institute for Magical Mishaps
Michelle looked around the waiting room again. She had no idea this place was here, wasn’t even sure how she got here, but here she was.
Yeah, she remembered the trip to the hospital. They looked at what had happened, but, due to the circumstances, they told her there was nothing they could do. That’s when the woman approached her and told her to come here.
She had to look around, not sure if she was really seeing what she was seeing. The guy across from her, at least she thought he was a guy, had a bird’s head and looked at her kind of annoyed. “What?”
That wasn’t even the most unnerving thing here. She saw what looked like only the lower half of a woman, sitting there, waiting for her turn, as if nothing was out of the ordinary. There was a guy who had something sticking through his neck, she swore was a knitting needle. The woman who just came in, though, was carrying her head.
She looked at the card again. The Institute for Magical Mishaps. How did she even get here? She had no idea, but here she was.
The nurse called her name and she went back for what she thought was triage. She barely noticed the line that was around the nurse’s neck until they sat in the room and the nurse asked her if she minded if she got a little more situated.
Michelle shrugged, and then the nurse ripped her head off. Michelle gasped, recognizing the sound of Velcro. The nurse sighed and placed her head on the desk. “There. Much better.”
Michelle got her nerves together. This wasn’t the weirdest thing she’d seen today. The nurse’s eyes pointed in her direction. “Now, what brings you in today?”
Michelle shook a little as she lifted up her shirt. The nurse needed to pick her head up to take a look, then she tsked a little before signing her in. “It happens more often than you think my dear. Now, let’s get you back there.”
The nurse picked her head up and put it back in place, shaking it a little as she got used to it being in place. She stood, guiding Michelle back to one of the rooms. Michelle fully expected to have all sorts of things injected into her, like at the hospital, but all the nurse did was take her blood pressure, then tell her that the doctor would be in soon.
Michelle thought it’d be a while, so she turned to sit. As she turned back, she nearly jumped out of her skin. “What can we do for you today, Michelle?”
The doctor had come out of nowhere, she was certain of it. She simply appeared. Michelle stammered, “I…I was in a magic show…the magician was going to saw me in half…and…well…”
Michelle lifted her shirt, showing what the triage nurse saw. At her waist, there was a clear gash, almost a quarter of the way across her body. There was no blood, but the cut was there.
The doctor looked at her a moment, then prodded the cut, prying it open to find skin covering where there should be blood. “What happened to the magician?”
“They said a heart attack. He was pretty old.”
The doctor nodded, looked at her again. “Assistant or volunteer?”
Michelle shrugged. “Volunteer.”
The doctor sighed then. “It’s a case of incomplete magic. The magician was clearly trying to saw you in half but died before he could complete the act. Do you feel any pain?”
Michelle shook her head. “I did at first, but it’s gone now.”
The doctor nodded. “Well, all I can really recommend is to wear tops and shirts that don’t show your midriff. I’m afraid that your condition might be permanent, because most magicians have their own fingerprint of magic, meaning it can’t be duplicated by another magician or we’d just complete sawing you in half and put you back together again good as new. But, even if we were to try it, your gash would stay.”
Michelle heard the news and nodded. She figured that was the case but had to know something else. “That nurse who brought me back here. Was she a patient here?”
The doctor laughed. “Most of the staff were once patients here. You may have noticed it. Sometimes spells go wrong. Sometimes magic tricks don’t work out exactly as expected. Sometimes what’s supposed to be a simple separation and reattachment doesn’t work, and that can lead to permanent magical damage, but we try to do what we can do here.”
The doctor leaned in, winking. “You ever hear of Velcro? We invented it here to help keep separational accidents a secret.”
Michelle looked at her gape again. “Would that work for me?”
The doctor thought for a moment. “Maybe. I don’t think we’ve ever tried it before. Would you consent to trying it?”
Michelle sighed, then nodded. Anything.
The doctor instructed her to lay back down, then she produced what looked like a complicated laser saw. Michelle nodded again and the doctor powered it up. A moment later, the laser powered down and the doctor helped Michelle to sit up. Only she didn’t.
She was separated by more than a foot. Michelle didn’t scream, wasn’t even surprised. She just looked at her bottom half with some curiosity, noticing that she could still feel it and move her feet. The doctor had the nurse come back in with a patch of Velcro, which she placed on her cut portion. Then she had Michelle place the other patch on her upper half.
So, yeah, Michelle was able to return to her normal life, but she had a secret.
Anytime she was alone, she’d smile as she felt the pull of the Velcro, ripping herself in half again.