Extreme Magic Vignettes: Smoking does not kill (immediately)

The seminar at the medical conference was full; it had been advertised with the title, "How to get patients to stop smoking"; there were no empty seats in the lecture theatre. The men at the lectern had covered many of the aids to giving up the habit. "My final point," said the lecturer, "is that you can help patient's to stop smoking by setting a good example. They are hardly likely to take the 'stop smoking' advice from someone who is dis-regarding it themselves, are they? Especially, someone who is meant to know better."

"We'll take a quick poll by a show of hands. How many of you have ever smoked?" A larger than expected proportion of the audience raised their hands.

"Good, and how many of you still smoke?" Nearly a quarter of the hands remained up. "That seems a little higher than the national average, but I can only assume that that is an indication of some of you seeking of ways to quit yourselves. I hope the demonstration I have arranged to finish this presentation will help you all."

There was a slight hum of expectation as lectures that included a demonstration were usually more entertaining and you could forget the sizeable hole coming to this conference had left in your already meagre budget.

"I wish I could do this demonstration myself, but I don't possess the particular skills required, so may I present a friend of mine, Terry."

A young man dressed in T-shirt, jeans and trainers, all black, enter through a side door and went to the dais to stand next to the lecturer. The slogan on his shirt read, 'Smoking kills (eventually)'.

The lecturer said to Terry, "The stage is yours." He move to the one of the theatre's aisles and sat on the steps.

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Terry. I am not a doctor; I'm a different kind of miracle worker. That is to say I'm a magician." There was once more a buzz in the theatre. "When Simon asked me if I could do some kind of magic to dramatize the benefits of not smoking or the dangers of smoking, I took it as a challenge and I soon discovered that it wasn't easy, because it is difficult to show the effects of the many carcinogens and other harmful chemicals. And you can't really do much with the effects of nicotine, because its replacement is the focus of many treatments to get people to give up the even more harmful aspects of smoking. But I came up with something; for which I'll need two volunteers."

Once again the hall buzzed as the attendees wondered what kind of demonstration was about to occur and who would volunteer.

"First, I need a non-smoking volunteer." He scanned the rows of faces and selected a slightly nervous young lady. "Would you mind helping as my control subject, Dr C. Matthews?" She looked like she wanted to say 'no', but the young man beside her, also bearing a badge that said Dr C. Matthews, nudged her and told her it would be OK. She started to make her way to the steps.

"Secondly, I need a smoker to volunteer," he said once more scanning the audience for a likely prospect. "You madam, are you willing to assist in my demonstration. Dr M. Salmon, is that?" The older woman in her later forties, put on what she hoped was a brave face, nodded and began her journey to front.

"And finally, I need a helper. Normal at this stage I would ask your speaker to come and help, but I see a familiar face among you, a person I have met briefly once before. He did well then, I'm sure he'll do well now. So Dr S. Green please come forward." The doctor started to shuffle along the row he was on, not sure that he wanted to be involved again, but at least this time he knew the magician's name and no apparent harm had even been attempted (yet).

Soon Terry had his cast assembled and introduced more informally to the audience; the young lady doctor was Cath (she was here with Colin, husband of three weeks, for a working honeymoon), the other lady was Marion, and Dr Green turned out to be Samuel.

"With introductions over, does anyone have any idea what I have planned?" Terry asked.

His assistants looked blank and there were no suggestions from the seated onlookers.

"In that case I'll bring in the experimental apparatus; if you'll give me a hand Dr Green."

Samuel followed Terry out of the lecture theatre's side door and they soon returned with a high-backed bench, which soon was standing on the floor in front of the lectern. Terry invited the ladies to sit side-by-side on the bench while he went to fetch the rest of the equipment; which he brought in on a trolley.

Terry assessed the seated ladies, he asked Cath to shuffle two inches to her right and Marion was given a slim cushion to sit on so that her shoulders were at same level, almost at the height of the top of the bench back. Positioned as they were they hid the only interesting feature of the high back of the bench; namely pairs of slots arranged to form a cross.

From the cart Terry fetched a square box without a front or a back. It had a small cut-out at the top and a larger one at the bottom. He offered this up the Cath's torso, asking her to put her hands through, and hooked it on to the back of the bench. Cath's neck fitted neatly in the upper in the upper cut-out and her waist in the lower one. Samuel followed his lead and fitted a similar frame around Marion's torso; he caused some laughter among the audience by initially presenting the box upside-down.

"As you will be well aware a magician likes to guard his secrets, so to this end there is a front to slide into each of these boxes." He showed a square panel with a cross shaped slot which he slid down some slots on the inside edge of the box. As the panel reached the bottom, he guided Cath's wrists into cut-outs at the bottom of the front. He returned to the trolley and handed Dr Green another panel to finish the enclosure of Dr Salmon's torso.

"And now Simon," the magician said, referring to the speaker, "could we have the lights lowered, please?"

Simon returned to the lectern and picked up a remote control. He thumbed a control as he returned to his place on the steps, causing the illumination to dim. Meanwhile, Terry picked up two LED torches, handed Samuel one and took the chance to say a few, what he hoped would be reassuring, words to the ladies.

"Dr Green, I'm going to get you to supervise our control subject, Dr Matthews, while I take care of Dr Salmon." Dr Green nodded. "We will begin by shining our torches at the back of our subjects." They did. Terry addressed the lecture theatre, "As you can see, there is very little light coming through the boxes, because our subjects are in the way; but there is a little light that can be seen, because a small amount of it bounces round the inside of the box and around the bodies of Cath and Marion." There was some mumbling of agreement from the onlookers. "Thank you, Simon, can we have the lights back up again."

While the light brightened, Terry went to the trolley and picked up a sheet of glass and showed it to be exactly that, by tapping it. He handed this to Samuel, with the reassurance that the edges were not sharp, so he would not cut himself on it. The magician picked up the matching glass panel and, having tapped it, located it in the vertical part of the cross-shaped slot in the front panel of the box containing Marion's torso.
"What are you planning to do with that?" she asked, in a voice that was trying to seem calm, but was not quite succeeding.

"This sheet of plate glass will be passed through your chest, but you will come to no harm. And the Dr Green will be pushing the pane he is holding through Cath's chest." Drs Green and Matthews seemed surprised at this news. "And it would help me if we did it together, so if you would slot the glass in the slot and rest it against Cath's chest, please, while I do the same. And ladies it will help us both if you could sit straight, ok?" Both ladies shuffled in their seats.

Once both the glass plates were in place resting against the ladies' sternums, Terry instructed Samuel, "When I say go, you will push the glass, gently, but firmly, until I say 'stop'; got that? And try to push straight down the glass, so that it comes out of the slot at the back; we don't want to have to re-insert it, right? Start pushing; now!"

The doctor and the magician, applied pressure to the edges of their respective glass sheets and, much to the doctor's surprise, he felt a bit of resistance, but the glass smoothly continued further into the box. After about ten seconds, Terry called a halt and instructed Dr Green to join him behind his 'patient'.

"As everyone can see, there is still some glass sticking out of the front of each box, and Dr Samuel Green can confirm that there is some glass sticking out of the back of the box." Dr Green nodded, as he was not sure what to say. "And I'm sure the ladies can confirm there is glass joining the two parts visible on the outside."

Terry paused to allow Cath and Marion a chance to say something, but it seemed that they were also lost for words and just nodded.

"Simon, can we have the lights down again, please! And Dr Green please switch your torch on again."

As the lighting dimmed, the edges of the glass panes through the lady doctors' chests shone with transmitted light.

"Lights up again, please, Simon. As you can see the glass has harmlessly penetrate out test subjects. Are you feeling any pain from the pane, ladies?"

While some of the audience relieved some of the tension they were feeling by giggling at the poor pun, the lady doctors both told them all that there was no pain, just a slight discomfort.

"You can switch the torch off now, Dr Green. Some of you will be wondering what this has to do with the dangers of smoking. And my answer is nothing, except to prepare my volunteers for the next part. You'll notice that the glass went between the lungs, the organs primarily effected by the habit. In further preparation for stage two we shall pull the glass out from the back here." Suiting his actions to his words, and followed by Dr Green, he pulled the glass sheet out of the back of the box and his experimental subject.

He held up the pane in full view and said, "As you can see the glass is still clean and clear and complete." He tapped it and it sounded just as it had before. Samuel also showed his glass plate. "Now, we shall pass the glass back through our volunteers, but this time horizontally." The magician demonstrated to his helper where to insert the plate until the leading edges were both resting against the base of the volunteers' shoulder blades.

"Now, Dr Green, we do the same thing again; pressing the glass straight and firmly through our experimental subjects, until I say, 'Stop'." Samuel nodded that he knew what to do. "Ladies, I would advise you to try breathing quite shallowly during this bit, because air does not pass through glass all that well, so for a short while the lower halves of your lungs will be cut off. Well he we go, push!"

While Marion and Cath looked around in consternation at the lack of notice, Terry and Samuel pressed the leading edge of their sheet of glass through them. The two plates emerged through the expected slots in the fronts of the torso boxes.

"Time to demonstrate that the glass is once more through the good lady doctors; so lights, please, Simon, and torches for us two, and if Marion and Cath wouldn't mind I'd like them to cough."

The front edge glowed brightly in the dimming lights, and both volunteers coughed, although Marion seemed a little worried that it might induce a coughing fit.

"We've all seen that now; so lights back up, Simon and Dr Green and I will remove the glass from your plucky colleagues."

Going round the front of the bench the magician rested his hand on the front edge of the pane sticking out the front of Marion's box. "Dr Green, please go first. Pulled the glass pane from the box and show it to the audience."

Dr Green gently extracted the plate from the box and held it above his head, while Terry asked the spectators to notice that it was intact and clean. The black-clad magician then pulled the sheet free from Dr Salmon's box and held it up, showing large, brown sticky smears on the glass. "This is tar from Marion's lungs."

While the onlookers expressed their amazement, Terry quickly removed the front panels from the boxes and then the boxes. He then pressed pieces of paper into both his lady assistants' hands, bowed and departed.

Soon the crowd were crowding round the participants in the demonstration and checking out the tar smears on the glass. Some were more astounded to discover that Dr Salmon now had a horizontal tar stain across the front of her blouse.

Later, once the commotion had died down, Marion discovered that her piece of paper was a voucher to get her blouse dry-cleaned by the conference hotel and Cath found that her paper was a coupon for a complementary bottle of champagne in their hotel room.