The Burglar

by Vaughan

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Jen is a burglar, who has been captured by an elderly magician, Trevor Phillips, with a shotgun. He persuaded her that he would not turn her in to the police or shoot her if she alloweed him to perform some illusions on her.

He has sawn her in two and restored her. Then he vanished and reappeared her middle from neck to knee. after this, he fed her, he showed a trick with cards and another with silks.

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After a pause for thought, Jen asked, "Can you teach me something that I can do?"

Mr. Phillips considered this, then said, "Yes, alright. You have been
very pleasant and cooperative and seem interested. And despite the opportunity
you haven't tried to escape or go for the gun."

This was the first time since letting herself out of the disembodied cabinet
that she had thought about the gun, which still lay on a box three or four steps
away. She was slightly surprised that he mentioned it now, as it would be easy
for her to pick it up and threaten him with it.

Seeing Jen look at the gun, he said, "I wouldn't bother if I were you.
You see, it isn't loaded."

Jen felt such a fool to be suckered by an old man in shabby pajamas and an
unloaded shotgun. Her face showed her disappointment in her judgment of the
initial situation.

"Don't look so downcast," Mr. Phillips consoled, "it was
loaded when we first met. I took the cartridges out when I went to cook
supper."

"I didn't see you do that," remarked Jen.

"I used the magic, moving solids through other solids is part of a
magician's stock in trade."

"Can I really believe you?" asked Jen.

"It doesn't matter much, because you'll never know one way or the other.
But we were talking about teaching you a trick."

"I love to be able to show some magic to others, but can it be something
small, because it seems that you need someone to do the magic to you in the big
illusions."

"That's OK. Go to the bottom drawer and remind me what's there."

Jen went back to the chest of drawers and, kneeling, opened the bottom
drawers. "Let's see. Well there's a bunch of metal hoops, they look a bit
tangled together."

"Ah, the traditional Chinese linking rings. I don't think you are quite
ready of those, they require quite a bit of skill and even more imagination. I
don't suppose that imagination is a quality you find useful in your, erm,
occupation."

"There's a whole bundle of rope here. Maybe you could teach me a rope
trick," Jen suggested.

"I don't think so, somehow. What else is on there?"

"Erm," Jen murmured as she dragged some ropes aside, "There's
a square wooden tube, painted yellow."

"AH-Ha! that's the very thing. Take it to your table over there and then
we can check that all the bits are present and undamaged."

"Right," replied Jen as she lifted the tube and found it was
heavier than she had expected. She immediately discovered that this was due to a
pair of short wide metal blades stowed in the tube. On the way back to her
table, Jen looked the tube over. The tube was about three and a half to four
inches square and fourteen long and one end was blocked leaving only a slot with
a piece of dowel across the middle. About five inches back from the slot end,
there was a break in the tube so that the ends were completely separate and held
together by a hinge on one side and a small catch on the other. The blades were
solid with red plastic handles and just large enough to cover the end of the
tube. Jen had a feeling she knew where the blades would end up; through the slot
between the two halves of the tube. As she sat down, she asked, "So what's
this trick called?"

"It's called, 'Touching your Left Elbow'." replied the magician.

"I can do that already," said Jen. She demonstrated this by raising
her left arm until the upper arm was horizontal and placing the first finger of
her right hand on the bony point of her elbow.

"With your left hand?" queried Mr. Phillips with a smile.

A quick try showed Jen that her hand was not long enough to reach her elbow even
if her wrist had been flexible enough to allow her hand to lie against her fore-arm,
which it was not. Jen looked at the equipment on the table and saw all too
clearly what he was going to ask her to do. She hoped he was a good teacher,
because she did not fancy the prospect of this going wrong.

"Presumably, I shove my arm into the tube. Should this be any particular
way up?"

"You want the hinge underneath and the catch on top. Then I suggest you
take off the glove, before inserting your hand. Put it all the way in, so that
your fingers come out of the slot. At that point it is usual to wriggle your
fingers to confirm that they are real and yours." While Mr. Phillips was
giving these instructions, Jen stripped the glove from her left arm and
carefully introduced her arm into the tube. It was quite a tight squeeze, but
with her thumb tucked under she managed to put the remaining four fingers
through the slot at the end with the dowel between her ring and middle fingers.
The fit near her elbow was tight enough that she knew she would have to pull the
tube to get her arm free. As suggested she wiggled and felt her fingers, despite
not having the slightest doubt of their genuineness.

"I suppose next I slam the blades through the slot," said Jen,
picking up one of the blades.

"Not quite so fast, young lady. First you put one blade in gently until
you feel it touch the skin, then you adjust the position of your arm so that it
is touching your wrist between the base of your thumb and the start of the
radius."

"The what?" asked Jen.

"That's the bone on the thumb side of your lower arm," expanded Mr.
Phillips. "I think you don't have the experience required to cut long
bones, yet, but the wrist consists of lots of smaller bones. So you should be
able to push the blade between these when you're ready, which you aren't yet.
That's why most of the sawing through happens at the waist, where there are
vertebrae with spaces between."

Pushing the blade into the slot, she could felt the leading edge against her
arm. There was little need for adjustment, but she made an adjustment for the
look of it.

"Take the blade out again and put both blades together so that metal
bits are flat against each other. Yes, that's right. Now they will act as one
blade until they are separated. It would be a mess if you inserted one blade and
then didn't put the other one in touching it; you would end up with a slice of
your wrist between the blades."

"The blades are together. What now?"

"OK, now turn the box sideways and rest it so that the slot is over the
edge of the table."

"Like this?" she inquired as she turned the tube so that the hinge
was towards her and pushed it so the slot lined up with the table's edge.

"Not quite." said Mr. Phillips, "I meant for the slot to be
beyond the edge of the table so that the blade can come out of the slot without
being obstructed."

Jen moved the tube a further half inch off the edge of the table and look at
the aged magician, who nodded that she had got it right.

"Now for the blade insertion instructions," the magician continued.
"The blades must be pushed smoothly and firmly through your wrist. I will
hurt a bit, but if you make any sudden changes of speed it will hurt a lot.
While your are smoothly pushing the blade down through, you need to be quivering
it backwards and forwards, along your arm." Jen looked skeptical, so Mr.
Phillips mimed gripping the blade and quivering side to side while lowering his
hand. He said, "this procedure makes it easier to miss the delicate bones
of your wrist. You may find it also helps if you curl and uncurl your fingers in
overlapping sequence, sort of like a Mexican wave." Jen tried this
rhythmically drumming her fingers on the closed off end of the tube.

"Is there anything else I should be doing?" asked Jen, trying to
get it all straight in her head. Curling and uncurling the fingers of her left
hand while making a smooth quivering motion with her right. The old man had said
she would feel some pain; she hoped the pain would not confuse her, causing her
to get her hands mixed up and increase the pain.

"Well, you could try to avoid thinking of actually cutting your hand
off," said Mr. Phillips unhelpfully.

"OK," she said, giving him a withering stare, "here goes
nothing." Jen located the pair of blades in the slot at her wrist. Using
the weight of her forearm to brace the tube, she began to quiver the blades.
When she thought the quiver was properly established, she began to flex her
fingers. Then she looked at the old magician, who nodded confirmation that she
should go ahead. She allowed the quivering blade to drop onto her wrist and then
began to apply a steady downward pressure on the blade handles. For a moment
nothing happened, then she felt the blades begin to enter her wrist. The pain
was quite intense, but because she was partially prepared for it, she was able
to continue flexing, quivering and pushing. She felt the blade make contact with
a bone in her wrist and suddenly the pain leveled off; and there was another
feeling as well. For several moments she could not put a finger on the feeling, then
she recognized it as the same sense of well-being as she had felt when she had
been restored after being sawn in half. She suddenly noticed that she was no
longer concentrating on the various motions she was doing with her hands; they
seemed to be continuing without any assistance from her. The well-being made her
feel a lot better in herself and more than canceled out the pain in her left
without actually preventing her from feeling it. Suddenly it was all over the
well-being and the pain subsided together as the blade handles touched the tube.

She looked up at the magician. He looked quite shaken. "You look as
though you've seen a ghost," Jen remarked. "What's up?"

"I won't tell you now until I'm sure, but how do you feel?" replied
Mr. Phillips.

"I'm not sure really. I've got a bit of an achy pain in my wrist, but
other than that I feel fine. I felt very odd, in a nice sort of way, as the
blade was going through and I felt, kind of, present but detached. Do you know
what I mean?"

The old man nodded meaningfully, although the meaning was lost on Jen.

"What do I do next?" prompted Jen.

Mr. Phillips' worried expression converted to a carefully neutral one.
"Turn the tube so the catch is on the top and the end still hangs over the
edge of the table and then undo the catch," he instructed.

Jen complied. It came as a surprise, despite expecting it, that the end of
the tube pivoted away from the rest of the tube and swung underneath until it
hung from the hinge; One blade closed off the section containing her hand and
the other blanked the remainder. It was a bit awkward trying to touch the
fingers of her left hand, but when she did they continued to react in the usual
manner and were completely under her control.

"I supposed it's reverse the process time," suggested Jen.

"Not quite. You haven't touched your elbow yet."

"Oh, I'd forgot about that. How am I supposed to do that? My hand is
still in some sense attached to my wrist, even if it isn't directly
connected."

"You undo the hinge," stated Mr. Phillips, as if this had been
totally obvious.

"Oh well, I should have thought of that," Jen said sarcastically.
"Pass me a screwdriver!"

The aging magician wore a pained expression. "No need," he said.
"You see that sticky-out bit on the hinge." Jen looked and found it.
"Well, that allows you to pull out the pin that hold the two halves of the
hinge together, just pull it and your hand will be complete separated from your
arm."

Jen took hold of the pin and pulled. Too late she realized she had made a
mistake. The pin came away in her fingers and her left hand which had been
dangling from her wrist was no longer supported. The tube section containing her
hand fell to the floor and she felt the jar through the back of her left hand as
it landed. Immediately, Mr. Phillips rushed across and picked up the small box
with the fingers sticking out of it. He turned it this way and that and then
seeming satisfied that the box and the hand were undamaged, handed it to Jen.

"You really ought to be much more careful," the magician
admonished. "If that had fallen wrong, the box might have cracked or the
blade popped out, and the consequence would be dreadful."

"How dreadful?" asked Jen, wondering what the old man was panicking
about.

"The magic would have stopped and I would have to take you and your
severed hand to hospital to be re-attached, where they would start asking
questions neither of us want to answer. I think I might have enough ice in the
freezer to pack your stump and preserve the hand, but I'm not sure whether the
local hospital has anyone who can do the necessary surgery, and your hand would
be useless for months, if not forever."

"In that case I've been lucky, but I take your point; luck has a habit
of running out. Didn't you ever drop your hand?" said Jen in hope of
diverting the old man's panic.

"In fact I did. But I wasn't quite so lucky as you."

Jen raised her eyebrows in the hope of getting the story.

"My hand landed straight on my finger tips. It hurts a lot; like
stubbing your toe only worse," he explained.

"I do feel very lucky then, and I'll be a lot more careful in the
future. So panic over shall we finish this trick?"

Mr. Phillips returned to his chair and slumped there for a bit, then said,
"I'm sorry, but I did not mean to over-react. Alright, now you can touch
your left elbow with your left hand, then just carefully reverse the process.
The key is to remove the blade at as near the speed you put them in as you can.
You don't need to quiver the blade this time, but you may find flexing your
fingers helps."

"OK," responded Jen, carefully reversing the process, she found repinning
the hinge one-handed the most difficult part. As the blades came out, she
experienced another wash of well-being, this time without the underlying pain.
Finally, she pulled the tube from her arm and examined her wrist. She could feel
a bruise beginning to form at the base of her thumb and there was an indentation
as if something heavy had been resting on her wrist. "Well, apart from a
bruise, I think I'm none the worse for wear."

"I think we should sit a while and recover," advised Mr. Phillips.

"OK, and then what will we do?" asked Jen.

"Would you really like to do some more?" queried the old magician,
"I would have thought after nearly losing a hand you would be at least
worried about doing more."

"But I didn't lose anything and it felt good in a funny sort of way. But
maybe for the moment, I had better let you do the magic, so I don't make any
more mistakes."

"Would you like to go and change into another costume?"

"I thought you had two more illusions you could do with me in this
costume," Jen pointed out, "But perhaps I should take this wig
off."

"No, keep it on. Long hair really suits you."

Mr. Phillips seemed more relaxed again as he considered which illusion to
perform on Jen next. Jen felt comfortable wondering which would happen to her
next.