After the Charity Dinner: Challenge 2

By Vaughan



After thirty seconds I said, "So, what's next?"

"I think we need another cup of coffee; doing an illusion like that takes it out of you."

I realised that I was thirsty too, so I agreed that another coffee would be nice. Then he offered to make a little supper, which told me I was hungry, so I agreed to that too.

Before he set about making supper, Jack switched on the TV and pressed a few buttons on the remote, before handing it to me to review the squashing down to 2 and a half inches I had just survived. After some quick instructions on how to select which camera I would view through as well as play, pause and rewind, I watched.

Nothing I saw on the screen showed me anything to make me doubt the experience I had been through was real.

I finished as Jack brought over a steaming mug of coffee and a lap-tray with a plate of risotto with some mushrooms. It was at this point I realised how hungry I really was. I checked my watch, it was over two hours since we had left the charity dinner; where had the time gone? And the aroma of risotto seemed so good. With not much more than a thank you, I tucked in. It was as good as, if not better than, it smelt; even better than the catering at the dinner; this is not the fault of the catering, but the fact that something crafted by someone who truly cares will always be better than the mass produced version.

As I was scraping the last few grains of rice from the plate, he said, "So, tell me something about yourself! You know I'm Jack, a magician who lives over the shop and that I do real magic and have done since I was young. But all I know about you is, your name is Abigail, Abi to your friends, and you challenged me. What else is there to know?"

I paused to consider how much of my life I wanted to reveal to this near stranger; to cover the gap between question and answer, I put the lap-tray on the coffee table. "There's not really much to tell. I work in an office and I live in a flat the other side of town with Linda, my flatmate. I reckon I've been interested in magic and illusion since I was in my early teens, when I worked out that there must be something special going on with it, otherwise why would anyone want to be sawn in half or whatever."

"Well, that explains your interest in me, but I am wondering what kind of office work you do that you can be making thousand pound bets with passing magicians?"

"Oh, nothing exciting, or all that well paid. I am working for an accountants organising travel and accommodation for the partners and staff and making sure the office runs smoothly and we don't run out of paperclips and suchlike; quite dull really."

"Even that doesn't explain how you were at the dinner making bets you can't win; because let's face it, a bet against a magician is lost money in one way or another, because magicians cheat, it's part of the job description."

"Honestly, the work only just covers my part of the rent, but, fortunately, when my parents died they set up a trust fund that pays me an income until I'm twenty-five, as long as I'm in 'gainful employment'. I think the idea was to give me a good grounding, before giving me the rest of the money to spread my wings and do what I want to do."

"So, what do you want to do?" he asked; he seemed to be skirting around the fact of my being an orphan, but then I did not want to talk about it either.

"I don't know; until last year it seemed so far away and since then I've been too busy with day-to-day life that I haven't had the time to think about it much. I did have ideas about going to lots of parties and shows and travelling the world, but that feels like it would be a selfish waste."

He considered me for moment and sipped his coffee. "How would you like to be vanished?"

For a moment, I thought about how I felt about being vanished; having been told it was a warm sensation. I quickly realised that I had been caught again and was being asked which method of vanishing I would like to experience. "What're the options?"

"Oh, at least three come to mind. I could put you a box, have you disappear and I dismantle the box to prove it. There's the disembodied princess, but that is only a partial vanish. Then there's always the DeKolta chair. - Oh, yes! There's the rub out girl too." He paused for a couple of seconds. "Wait! I've got the perfect vanish for you." I nodded, because I assumed he would be making it an interesting pre-vanish stage; especially as until I saw the resulting video I would not have a clue what happened, assuming I vanished at all.

"I guess you're going to ask me how I want to re-appear."

"Well, if you have an idea of how you to want come back, I am open to suggestions, otherwise I think I know what I'll do to get you back."

"So, you've vanished and unvanished people lots of times before, right?"

"Not really," he admitted. I could see him recalling each time and counting them. "I've only done it six times, to tell you the truth and two of those didn't go quite as I planned." He seemed saddened by the thought.

I almost felt I was intruding on a private grief, but I needed to know what I might expect. "What happened?"

"The first time I vanished a person was when I was first learning at magician's college. I vanished a subject the college had hired for practicing vanishing with, but instead of bringing her back immediately, like I was supposed to, it took me about four hours to relocate her in the 'Nowhere' to get her back. After that I had to practice hellish hard starting back at rabbits, because I knew that having failed so badly, I would be forced to include it in my graduation show; that vanish was a success, but I mostly rely on making things invisible these days. The difficulty of vanishing increases with the size and intelligence of the creature being vanished; why magicians traditionally do it with doves and rabbits becomes obvious. I trained my vanish skills to the point that I could genuinely vanish and retrieve an elephant."

"So, what happened the other time, if it's not too rude to ask?"

"The second time it went awry was at a private function and I vanished a volunteer called Debbie. I got her back, but the problem was I didn't get her clothes back until after the show, but I do know what went wrong on that occasion."

"I get it. You vanished Debbie and unvanished her naked a few minutes later." He nodded with a frown. "So, what went wrong?"

"She had a smartphone on her, which had the effect of connecting her intelligence to the internet. That meant when she vanished I nearly lost her, but I realised as she disappeared that she was more than I could keep track of in the 'Nowhere', so I dumped her in another box on stage, but the strain meant I failed to bring back her clothes at that time."

"Did anyone notice that it had gone wrong, or did you cover it up like you did with guillotine?"

"There must have been a few that spotted that I hadn't done what I said I was going to do, but I guess all of those assumed that I had been leading them to expect one thing in order to cover what I had really planned; misdirection, you know. And Debbie knew I had got it wrong, because her phone came back shattered; I had to buy her the latest version of her phone as compensation, but my insurance covered that. She took it very well, given the circumstances. Since then all magicians have to 'remove for safe keeping' people's mobile phones before vanishing them; it turned out that I wasn't the first to have this problem, but the insurance company hadn't analysed the data before to judge their exposure."

"You'll be glad to hear that my phone is in my handbag, so shouldn't be a problem."

He smiled and we both took another sip of coffee.

"How long are you planning on vanishing me for? And how are you going to get me back? And what is the 'Nowhere' like?"

"I reckon I shall have you back in about five minutes at the most, and I will get you back in a way I've never heard of anyone doing it, if that isn't working out I'll just do the crystal casket appearance."

I interjected, "You're experimenting on me, aren't you?"

"I guess you could call it that, but prefer to think of it as trying out stuff I know will work that I have never tried before."

"That sounds slightly better, but not much, but you are having to go that extra distance, coz of my challenges."

"True, but I've always wanted a willing subject - erm wrong word - particularly willing volunteer to try out some of the more advanced tricks I want to work on. To be honest I have never shrunk someone to less than a foot before and I usually use a more conventional pre-built illusion for that."

I could not think of anything useful to say to that, so I repeated my earlier question, "So, what is the 'Nowhere' and what is it like?"

"The 'Nowhere' is the place where vanished items, whether objects, creatures or people, go. It's where vanished things are stored."

"Ok, I get that, but how come you had so much trouble bringing your first vanisher back?"

"I guess I lost concentration. You see, once an object is in the 'Nowhere' it drifts and you have to keep an 'eye' on it. As the rate of drift seems to go up with the size and the intelligence of the object, my first vanishee drifted off faster than I anticipated, because she was the largest and brightest thing I had vanished at that point."

"And what is the 'Nowhere' like?"

"I don't know, because I've never been there and the only description I've ever been given was, 'it was warm and didn't feel too unsafe, quite exciting really'."

I had a feeling that I would not get any more information on where I would end up, so I asked what he needed me to do ahead of the illusion, as we were both near the bottoms of our coffees.

"Well you could select another outfit to change into after the vanish, because that dress wasn't cheap and both the dividing and penetrating are likely to result in some damage. So if you could choose something from the cheap end of the rack that would be good."

We both drained our coffee mugs. I went to look at costumes for being divided and pierced in, while Jack fussed with some of the stuff in the elevator.

I soon selected a plain white T-shirt bearing the printed slogan 'Your chosen card is the Jack of Clubs' and a pair of rather short shorts in black. Showing these finds to Jack, I got a mumble of approval.

"What's the printing on the T-shirt?"

"Oh, that? That was just the reveal to a card trick I used to do. You know the thing I got someone to pick a card, then, after some toing and froing, I strip off my jacket and shirt to reveal the selected card."

"That sounds novel, but I guess the mundane explanation is you forced the card to match the T-shirt, right?"

"Actually that would have been a lot simpler, but what I used to do was to use real magic to change the printing. Sometimes an illusionist has a better method than a real magician. I feel a bit of an idiot not thinking of doing it the way you just suggested."

There was a few moments of embarrassed silence, while I reflected that he seemed to rely on his magic more than he perhaps should and perhaps he was thinking the same.

"I'm ready for your vanishment and reappearance." He paused. "Are you? - ready that is. 'Coz this one is all or nothing; once you are vanished, you are vanished until I bring you back; no safe word, at all."

I looked at what he had set up in the triangle of cameras; a lower table, about knee high, with centimetre square legs at each corner and the middles of the sides. The top of the table was a board covered in a thin layer of foam stuff. I assumed I was meant to lie on it. It did not look inviting, but then I was not going to be on there for long, so why not?

Jack stood in front of the bed/table thing and addressed the cameras facing him. "Having won the shrinking challenge, we move on to the vanishing challenge. I shall vanish Abi completely for a period not exceeding ten minutes."

"Hey!" I called. "I thought you said I'd be vanished for five minutes. What happened to that?"

"I said, if you think back, ABOUT five minutes. I am giving myself a bit of leeway in case there is a problem setting up the return or such like. I guess you won't believe it but I am not cheating." He seemed to ponder for a little while. "How about I forfeit 25 per cent of the winners reward for every whole minute beyond six I take?"

I considered this offer and quickly notice that this resulted in no penalty until the seventh minute. I counter offered, "what about, you loss a fifth of the winner's fee for each whole minute beyond five?"

"I can work with that," agreed the magician. "The time starts from when you vanish to when you reappear."

"That seems obvious," I agreed.

"So now we begin. Please lie down on this, erm, table, erm, bench. I would like you to lie flat on your back and look straight up."

"OK," I confirmed as I sat on the bench. I smoothed the skirt of the dress so that I did not risk flashing what little underwear I had on. Once arranged I swung my legs onto the low table and once more checked my modesty. I was soon lying down my upper body using my arms to control my descent. "How would you like my arms?" I asked, quickly first crossing them across my chest, then laying them on the table either side of me.

"Just like that is ideal," he confirmed, "With your arms by your sides, but slightly away from your hips." I adjusted my arms a tad and he said, "Just perfect!" I did not quite freeze into the pose, but I knew the position I was supposed to be in and felt I could maintain it.

He stood on the side away from the mirror and asked me to close my eyes.

"Is that necessary? How am I meant to know if what you are doing is something that'll make me want to stop?"

"Well, it's not strictly necessary, more traditional; but it will help you relax and be more comfortable."

"In that case, I'll keep my eyes open, partly because I get nervous when people ask me to shut my eyes, they're usually trying to pull a fast one on me, and partly to keep an eye on you."

"That's alright," he conceded. "It's very sensible to keep an eye on a magician; we're a sneaky bunch. By the way, how are you feeling?"

"I'm feeling OK, thank you. Maybe a bit tense about my impending vanishment." Then it occurred to me to wonder why he would ask me just then. I applied a bit of downwards pressure with my hands; the resistance seemed firm and steady, but not as firm as I would expect from the foam covered board. I pressed backward with my head and, while it still felt supported, there seemed to be more give than the board had afforded. I turned my head toward the mirror. My suspicions were confirmed; I was lying flat about four inches above the table. The only thing touching the table was the hem at the back of the dress. "Hey! You've levitated me. What happened to the gesturing and suchlike?"

"I can see I'm going to need to keep and extra careful 'eye' on you, when I get you into the 'Nowhere', because, while you're not the largest thing I have ever attempted to vanish, you are certainly the smartest."

"What was the largest?" I asked. For a moment he looked puzzled, so I added, "... thing you've ever vanished?"

By now I was a full foot above the foam covered tabletop; the dress was no longer touching the surface either. "That depends. Do you mean largest thing or largest living thing?"

"Tell me about both!" I said as he slid the tabletop from the supporting frame and folded it where the board was divided and just held together by the thin foam glued to the surface.

"Well the largest thing I ever vanished was a double-decker bus."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. It was a stunt where I appeared to drive the bus under a low bridge. I had tents set up either side of the bridge and drove the bus into one tent, when the flap closed I vanished it, ran under the bridge and unvanished it in the other tent, and drove out through the flaps at the other end."

"Wow! That sounds amazing. How come I've never heard about it?"

"Actually, it wasn't done officially and nobody was filming it. We got a bit drunk, me and a couple of friends, while I was at magician's college. They bet me that I couldn't do it, so I 'borrowed' a bus and did it. I don't think anyone ever discovered how that bus ended up between those two low bridges." He smiled; I guessed he was relieved to have told that dark secret to someone.

"And the biggest living thing?" I prompted.

"Well, I did look into the possibility of vanishing one of the giant redwoods in California, but all the ones that would be worth the attempt are classified as national monuments and the paperwork would cost more than something to cover the tree. The biggest animal I've vanished was a bull elephant; it was the culmination of my practice after the disaster of my first human vanish. I would like to try a whale, but finding one is just not feasible."

While he told me about his various vanishing exploits he picked up the frame of the table, folded it up and went to dump it among his other stuff. The entire time I lay there rock solid floating in mid-air at about waist height. He came back with a neatly folded cloth which he laid across my belly. He unfolded the fabric so that it hung down a few inches below my body on both sides from my neck to my ankles, with a large turn up ready to cover my feet and head.

As he covered most of me, I asked again, "What happened to the gesturing to make me rise? Every magician I've ever seen does gesturing for a levitation."

"Oh that," he said dismissively, "That's entirely unnecessary. It's all window-dressing and has no effect on the magic whatsoever. I didn't do it because it didn't want make it obvious what was happening, until I was ready for you to notice. It seems you quite like the way I am telling most of what I am doing, but just leaving bits out so you are feeling not totally sure what is going on."

"I don't!" I countered, but then I realised I did like not being in total control, but having some confidence that if things happened that I did not like I had someone to blame.

"I'll take your word for it; for now. But it's time to vanish you before one of us chickens out. So, if you'll watch in the mirror you might just see something happen."

While he approached my feet, I turned my head so that I could see my reflection hovering about three feet above the reflected floor. He took the hem that was doubled over my shins and moved it to cover my feet. And then he strolled with fake casualness to my head and lifted the hem draped across my upper chest. As he moved it I felt an odd sensation in my feet, which seemed to flood up my body. Just as the sensation reached my neck I briefly heard a pair of objects hit the floor and lost sight of the mirror.

I blinked a couple of times, but it did not seem to make any difference. At first, all I could see was the orangey-red blotchy sight, like when your eyes are shut but you are looking towards some light, so I opened my eyes and could not tell the difference; blinking did not help.

Robbed of sight, I turned my attention to my other senses. My hearing was neutralized too; I could not hear any noise, but it did not sound like silence either. Next I open my mouth and did not taste anything, but why would anyone expect the 'Nowhere' to have a taste; sweet, bitter, sour, salty or umami? After that I turned my attention to whether I could feel anything; had I lost the feel of the support that had levitated me. I soon discovered that I could feel nothing; a sensation akin to weightlessness, I assume. I tried taking a deep breath to find out if the 'Nowhere' smelt of anything; it smells of nothing in particular, but could be no smell or just the normal day-to-day smells that get ignored in daily life at a very low level. Finally I turned to the question of temperature and found it to be at the high end of pleasantly warm.

I occurred to me that I still felt as if I was lying on my back, but if I was weightless why would that be? Then I remembered Jack talking about things in the 'Nowhere' drifting. I concluded, on what seems be no evidence, that I was falling, but not towards anything, but away from where I had started however long ago since I vanished; this felt a little unsafe, because falling usual results in hitting something and that expectation conflicted with my instinct that there was nothing to hit here.

It suddenly worried me more to realise that I had failed to keep track of time passing; I did not know if I had been checking my senses for seconds, minutes or hours. I put my hand to my mouth when this thought crossed my mind; I could not feel my lips. It was a sensation impossible to describe, knowing part of your body, in this case my hand, was touching another part of my body, my face, and not being able to feel it in either part. Experimentally I tried to move my hand further, but it refused to go as if there was something there but I could not feel it; this I found comforting, because I did not really want to know what passing my hand through my face felt like.

Armed with this negligible amount of information, I began to consider what I could do, besides drifting away lying on my back. I thought about the action of sitting up and wondered if I could sit with nothing to push against, then I tried it. I felt like I was now in a sitting position and drift seemed oriented so that I was now 'falling' in a seated position. So I tried standing and that worked too. I was about to try walking and possibly even doing a cartwheel when something changed.

Identifying the change seemed to be a puzzle; I had to go through the 'check the senses' rigmarole again to realise that I could feel something with my feet; a further search of my internal database of sensations turned up the feeling of shoes on my feet. I also discovered that my feet felt cooler than the rest of me and seemed to be experiencing gravity.

I concluded from this that Jack had made my feet reappear in my shoes. This set several trains of thought running; the first was that this was the start of my reappearance and looking forward to being a physical thing again, because I would definitely have got bored in the 'Nowhere' if I had not been exploring my lack of feelings. Then in rapid succession, I wondered how much long it would be before the rest of me returned to the normal world? How being part present and part not there was effecting my drift in the 'Nowhere'? (I could not tell, because the real sensations in my feet drowned out the subtler non-senses) Was Jack a foot fetishist wanting to be alone with my feet? (I quickly discounted that idea on the grounds that he would probably not have appeared my feet in shoes)

Such speculation was halted by the cooler than 'Nowhere' running up my legs as far as my hips at which point I could also feel shorts with a tight waistband. It stopped there for a while before continuing up my abdomen and chest where it stopped again. My torso seemed to be dressed in something that felt like a T-shirt. While it dawned on me that Jack was making me reappear inside the clothes I had selected for the following challenges, my arms returned to reality, and after a brief pause real sight returned showing me a red fabric being raised from the front of my face.

As the hem of the cloth ascended from view I saw myself in the mirror; I had assumed correctly that I had been unvanished into the 'your card is ...' T-shirt, the short shorts and my shoes. I was in the frame of the same cabinet Jack had used to restore me to full size after being compressed, with the clothes attached to the edges in the same manner.

Before I could actually do anything, Jack said "Welcome back. How was the 'Nowhere'?"

Even before he could lower his hands, from which the red cloth dangled, I turned, snapping all the threads, and hugged him.

"Whoa! What's this in aid of?" he asked after I had had myself wrapped round him for about twenty seconds. "It's not unwelcome, just a bit of a surprise."


I disentangled myself and said, "Sorry, but I was so glad to be back, I just had to let you know." Then it hit me that I seemed to be the first person, out of the seven he had vanished, that had reacted this way. I decided to brazen it out for the moment and look at what I was really feeling later (perhaps never). "It just seemed inadequate to just say 'Thank you."

"Ok, 'Thank you' accepted. Shall we go and sit down? And you can tell me all about the 'Nowhere'. Then I can make us another coffee before we move on to the next challenge."

Reminded that these experiences I was having were a result of my challenging him, I asked, "And how long was I in the 'Nowhere'?"

He paused before saying, "I'm not totally sure, somewhere around the five minute mark, but given you spent some time partially vanished at each end, maybe we should work out what counts as vanished before we review the recordings to see if you saved any of your bet."

I thought about this for a moment, then said, "If your right about being well within the time allotted, you shouldn't be worried about the time it took you to vanish me or the time it completely bring me back. So I reckon the time from you making my feet disappear right up to the time I got my head returned should count."

"I guess that makes sense. I pretty much said that at the outset, anyway at most it'll make 200 difference in what you'll owe me; it won't break the bank."

By this time we were both sitting on the couch facing each other. Before he could ask me about the 'Nowhere' again, I asked, "Earlier you asked how I was able to make a bet with you. So fair's fair, if you're a jobbing magician who lives above the shop, as you put it, how come you can drop four grand on a charity event, on the off chance that a girl you've never met before is really interested in getting involved with you and your magic? I could have been anyone; it could have been a prank; it could have been a challenge that expired at the end of the dinner."

"Firstly, you weren't just anyone. I saw you follow my volunteers to speak to them and I saw you drop that note on that waitress' tray; so I thought it was a pretty fair bet that you'd be open to taking up your challenges in your own time, as it were." He thought for a short while, then added, "As to my means, I pretty well off. You remember I told you that I had a mentor, he owned the magic shop and funded me through magician's college. Well, it seems I was the only one of his protégé's to express their gratitude; during the holidays I worked in the shop and tried to pay back the fees and expenses. It turned out that when he died he left the shop to me. The shop mostly takes care of itself financially, so I get to do my own thing. And between performing and practicing, I make magic gear for sale in the shop. Besides I lead a frugal life and you don't want to know what the insurance on this place would be if I didn't live here."

I reflected; we seemed to be in similar situations, both independent through the generosity of someone we respected who had died; both connected to reality through doing a mundane job, although he seemed to be better, because he had done it having a choice not to.

"A penny for them."

I was startled out of my reverie. "Sorry. What?"

"A penny for your thoughts. You seemed to be deep in thought; I wondered what you were thinking about. Care to tell?"

I looked at him and he smiled back. "Well I was thinking we were similar."

"Oh yes?"

"Yeah, we both have our financial independence and no desire to squander it out of respect for the source of the money. Does that make sense?"

Jack nodded. We sat in silence for a while thinking our own thoughts.

"Right!" I said, "It's time to see what you got up to while I was vanished and how long you took doing it."

He reached for the remote from the coffee table and had the last illusion cued up, before handing me the remote. "The buttons are the same as before, but you'll need this button to get the timer up. I'll get you a bit of paper to note down the times."

I thanked him when he handed me a small pad of post-its and a pencil. "Would you like another coffee?" I nodded. "Same as last time?"

"Yes please."

While reviewed the video footage, he brewed a fresh pot of coffee; he presented me with a mug that tasted just as it had before.

The first part of the challenge was to vanish me. The best view of that was from the camera behind us, facing the mirror. This showed that the vanish had started at my feet, as I felt it had and the cloth that was laid over me was already sagging at the foot end as Jack was covering my head. I realised that the thuds I had heard at the point of my head vanishing were my shoes hitting the floor. As my head was covered Jack had whipped the cloth away; continuing the direction that he had been pulling to cover my head. The only thing remaining in the air that I had been occupying was the dress I had been wearing, which followed my shoes to the floor.

I paused and thought for a moment about the fact that I had been naked in the 'Nowhere' and I wondered if I would have been able to feel the dress if it had gone with me. It occurred to me that the nudity question was pointless as there was nobody to see me and the feel of being dressed or not, might be something that could be discovered if I ever got vanished again.

Did I really just think that it might be a good idea to try being vanished for a second time? I must be madder than I thought!

Shocking myself, I parked that thought for looking at another time and returned my concentration to the video. I soon had determined the time I had started vanishing and noted it down.

I skipped the end of the vanish to see what Jack had done to convince me that I had disappeared; though I was already convinced. He waved the covering cloth for a few seconds in full view, nothing larger than a dove could have been concealed in the sheet, and that would have got whiplash. He then draped it over his shoulder and leaned down to pick up my dress; he held it against his cheek and said, "Still warm," in obvious tribute to David Nixon vanishing Lyndsey DePaul on his show back in the 1970's.

Video paused, I said to Jack, "Nice touch, with the Nixon reference."

He smiled, "I hoped you'd get that."

I returned to the video and fast forwarded past the clear away and the bringing in of the cabinet frame and the setting of my current costume suspended by threads. I went back to normal speed when the red cloth came into view; it turned out that it had a pair of sticks in the top, so that it could held in a 'V' shape from the top corners. The sticks were a foot long each and the fabric hung a foot below the sticks.

He bent down and covered my empty shoes, so that none of the cameras could see them; the two cameras in front only getting a view of the cloth and the one behind being obstructed by Jack's back. When my shoes were back in sight there were a pair of feet in them.

Jack got out his small camera and took a bit of time videoing my disembodied feet. I switched to that view to get close up all-angles view of what they looked like. My feet seemed to stand in my shoes normally, even showing the small muscle movements I assume are a normal part of standing and maintaining balance. The strange and curious thing was that they ended just above my ankles, an inch above the knobs. The most curious part was what the end where I ended and became the vanished part of me; while I had no particular expectation of the interface between existence and vanishedness would look like, I was surprised by what showed on the screen. There seemed to be nothing there as if the camera had failed to receive any image from where my shin transitioned from being to not being; like a hole in the picture.

I looked at Jack calmly sipping from his mug. "What's going on with the bit that the camera doesn't seem to be seeing?"

"Oh that. A bit of a problem that. Video cameras of all sorts don't like some of the more peculiar parts of magic that involve things like the 'Nowhere'; they, kind of, censor it. It can be a problem for users of real magic; it can make videoed magic look like bad camera tricks, which is why you very rarely see a magician using real magic on TV. I wouldn't try something using real magic, if I were ever invited to perform on TV in case it showed."

"That makes a kind of perverse sense, but what do the bits the video isn't showing me look like?"

Jack thought for a while. "Well, what I saw was something that looked like an out-of-focus cross-section of a shin; mostly red with a couple of white bits where I guess the lower leg bones would be. It's the first time I've ever seen it, because all my other vanishes have been concealed and unvanished all at once. One of my friends at magician's college said he had tried something similar and the ends had seemed to be covered in skin, but I'm not sure he really tried it; it was said in the argument that lead to the bus escapade, so he might have been winding me up."

I looked at him and said in a low tone, "You've been experimenting on me again, haven't you?" He held up his hands in a 'guilty-as-charged' gesture. "So, did you learn anything from your experiment?"

"You mean apart from that I can do an in-view partial vanish?" I nodded, so he continued. "Well, let's see. You are very intelligent; I know this because you had the fastest rate of drift of anything I've ever 'seen' (apart from the girl with the mobile phone)." He paused to check my reaction; I just raised an eyebrow. "Not only that, unlike most other my other vanishes, you changed direction a couple of times; I nearly panicked and brought you back prematurely. I guess you wouldn't have been happy to reappear naked, even though I'd covered the box; I guessed you were doing it, so just kept a closer 'eye' on you. How did you change direction in the 'Nowhere'?"

That put me on the spot; I did not remember changing the direction of my fall. "Um, don't know," I admitted. "To be honest, I don't remember changing direction at all; it was always down." I was his turn to nod for me to carry on. Formulating my thoughts as I spoke, I continued. "This drift you keep on about is more like a fall; it was about the only thing I could sense, you know, that I was falling. It, sort of, felt a bit dangerous, because falling in general is dangerous, but it didn't feel as though I was going to hit anything, so it didn't feel all that like real falling, so not as dangerous. Mild peril, I suppose. I didn't knowingly change direction, but I did try to move."

"Well that's a first! I've never heard of anyone doing anything in the 'Nowhere'. What did you do?"

"I just tried to sit up and then stand up, when I got bored of falling nowhere on my back; it seemed to work too; you know, down seemed to be where it should have been in both positions. I was even thinking of walking or doing a cartwheel, when you brought my feet back."

I had paused in case he had any other questions, when I remembered that timelessness of the 'Nowhere'. "You know that my sense of time seemed to go funny; I had no idea how long I was there. But, I guess, there must have been some kind of time, because things happened in a definite order from my point of view. Speaking of time, I'll carry on watching what you did and drinking this excellent coffee."

I retrieved the remote and coffee mug from the table and set the video running again.

As expected from the way it felt as it was happening, he used the cover of the cloth to unvanish first my legs, then my body, then my arms and finally my head. At each stage he used the hand-held camera to capture closer images of my partial reappearance; he even moved aside the hanging hem of the T-shirt in an attempt to show the cross-section of my waist; with just as much luck as with my shins. I brought up the timer and, with a bit of play and rewind, found the exact moment I became totally visible. I noted down the time and did the computation.

"I've done the calculation," I announced. He turned having placed his coffee mug on its coaster. "Don't go getting smug, because I didn't get a discount, because it was five minutes and forty-eight seconds. Another twelve seconds that's all it would have took."

"Well, I did say I'd vanish you for about five minutes and I did just that. Although it is the longest I've even vanished anything; deliberately (that first time doesn't count). I've never vanished anything for more than two minutes before." He seemed proud of that.

We fell into companionable silence and went back to sipping our coffees.

As I replaced the empty mug on the table, I said, "OK, Jack, which challenge do you want to do next?" The thought occurred to me that while I had survived being squished to a few inches tall and being vanished, now was asking whether he wanted to stab me multiple times or chop me to bits; it was not the first time I had questioned my sanity that evening.