Headbox Gallery 1

Welcome to a warehouse space that contains a large number of cubicles. Inside each cubicle one or sometimes two of us wait to demonstrate the many potential magics that can be performed on a person's head by your guide and magician, Ian. We all enjoy the magic and come back each week to volunteer to be subject to the many possibilities. A few of us have participated in the wonders of every box, but others find a few they like and stick with them, so, if you come again, you are unlikely to see the same heads in the same headboxes.

I am one of the few that has tried everything and liked it all; if I could be a professional headbox model, my future would already be decided, but the token payment that Ian gives us models is definitely not enough to live on, but it will mean that my student loans will not be quite so large.

Us headbox volunteers have a uniform in a manner of speaking. Ian does not much care what we wear below the waist (so long as it's decent), but we all get issued with a 'Headbox Gallery' T-shirt, which he told me ensures that our necks and heads are unobstructed for the magic to happen. He only recently admitted to me that the 'uniform' also makes it obvious that we cannot duck our heads out of the boxes.

Most of us volunteers are girls from the nearby university, but there are a few regulars from the town and even a few boys, but they tend not to hang around so long.

My blonde hair is fairly long, not quite reaching the middle of my back, this means that once I know which headbox I will be helping to demonstrate, I can style it as needed; into a bun, just left loose or a ponytail or braids.

Which headbox is my favourite? It would be difficult to pick; it depends on my mood; sometimes I like a box where I can interact with the customers, other days I like to be inside my headbox and not have to deal with the public.

My least favourite? That would have to be the plain old dagger headbox that you will probably have seen many a time. Why? Why don't I describe what happens and you will see why.

The dagger headbox is the first one that Ian demonstrates; he says it establishes a base-line and that most people will have seen something like it, so it is unlikely to frighten people.

For this one I have my hair in a bun. Ian says it does matter if my hair is hanging down my back, but I feel it is tidier. I sit in the chair and fit my neck between the projections from back of the chair; most of the headboxes are set up like this, so that the weight of the headbox is supported by the chair, because if we had to carry the weight of the boxes for as long as we are in the box we would get very tired.

Ian shows the headbox around the audience, which is usually eight to twenty people. The box is pretty much a square tube; the base has an indent at the back to accommodate the victim's neck, the sides have many slots for the daggers, there are only single slots in the top and the bottom.

The box is slid into place along the support rails, so that my shoulders are pressed against the back of the chair and the front of my throat held back by the front of the neck hole. It quickly gets uncomfortable having the thin wood pressed against your throat. I have complained about it, but Ian says it is necessary that the victim's head is correctly positioned and he has vetoed a bit of padding in the neck-hole as against the aesthetic of this headbox; whatever that means.

Next comes the closing of the ends of the tube by sliding thin panels into slots in the ends of the tubes. The rear panel goes in first, so as to demonstrate that my head cannot escape from the box; as I mentioned the neck-hole is a definitely too tight to get my head through. The front panel goes in once the tourists have had a chance to see that I cannot do much to move my head. Ian says he likes the nervous smile I usually give while the viewers are checking out my predicament; the reason for the nervousness will become apparent soon. Once the front panel is in I am in the near dark, the slots in the sides let in some light, but the interior of the box is black so there is nothing to see.

Ian then brings forward a table on which the knives he is going to use lie; they are good quality kitchen knives with blades six inches long and an inch and a half deep at the heel tapering to a point. He lets the group look at the knives and shows them the sword with is twenty inches long and an inch wide tapering to a point in the last inch. Once it has been shown, the sword is inserted through the slot in the top of the box and slid down until it emerges through the bottom slot less than an inch in front of my neck.

Where does it go in between? Exactly where you would expect; it enters my skull at the top of my forehead (just at the hairline) and goes down between my eyes, through my nasal cavity and through my palate, it then continues down through my tongue and out under my chin. Once the sword is in I cannot speak.

I have asked Ian why he uses the sword; pointing out that it becomes obvious to the critical observer that most of the space in front of the sword must be empty. He said it was primarily tradition based on the illusion that the headbox is based on, so people expect it. He also pointed out that there are very few 'critical observers' in our little audiences.

What does it feel like to have a sword pushed through your head, just behind your face? It does not feel like anything really, unless you want to accept the unhelpful answer, "it feels like having a sword pushed through your head, just behind your face." In short, I have never felt anything remotely like it and I'm not about to let someone push a sword through me to see if it feels like that.

Oh! What kind of feeling is it? Well, it is quite pleasant, but not in any properly definable way. I think of it as, I would rather have that sword behind my face than someone stamp on my toe.

Once the sword is in place, Ian then slides the knives through the slots in the sides of the box. The ones that go in in front of my face are bad enough; if you have never had someone push a sharp knife across in front of your face when you are not in a position to even try flinching backwards, I do not recommend it. The knives that come in behind the vertical sword are worse; imagine really having a knife thrust into your skull with the only positive thing about it being the lack of pain; you would feel the flesh over the bone start to split under the tip of the knife and then the pressure build up until the knife pierces the bone and the noise as the blade rubs through skull, close to the site of the auditory bones in the middle ear (so it sounds quite loud) and finally distortions of perception caused by the knife penetrating the soft pulp of your brain. This happens about ten times per performance for three to eight performances in a morning. Because the process is done by hand, it is different every time, so you cannot even prepare yourself for the mix of noise and the mix of different feelings that get evoked (one time I had nausea, vertigo, terror, strawberries and chocolate; I could not face any desserts in the canteen for a few weeks after, but on the positive side I lost a couple of pounds).

You think that is the worst? You are wrong. There are two blades that go in just in front of the sword and, depending on the angle the Ian puts each one in at, they pierce my cheek or my nose. When I feel the knife penetrating my cheek, it is uncomfortable; sometimes it is a bit lower and cuts through my lip and scrapes across the roots of your teeth (instantaneous toothache). But even that is bearable compared to getting a knife in your nose. That compromises your breathing, which is already not as free, because of the sword occupying a large chunk of your nasal cavity.

Yes, I said I enjoy all the headboxes. With the dagger headbox, the process of getting to the enjoyable part is much more stressful than most, but once the last knife is in place, I get a feeling of utter calm as my head vanishes, just before Ian opens the front panel to allow the public to see the box is just full of knife blades and my head is not there to be seen. The people will peer into the box to try to detect trapdoors and mirrors that are not there; meanwhile I am in my private headspace; such total relaxation.

Once the audience are convinced that my head is no longer inside the box, they are ushered into the next cubicle, where Ian performs his next headbox miracle and I wait in my state of meditation.

When the tour has been concluded, Ian comes back to each of us volunteers and undoes the magic. I usually end up in the dagger headbox when there is a problem in my life or my studies that I have not worked out; I usually leave my shift at the Headbox Gallery with some workable plan to deal with whatever was bugging me. So while being stabbed in the head a dozen or so times may not be anyone's idea of fun, with the dagger head box it helps me iron out the bumps in my life and it does not hurt.