Another Magical Encounter for Ann

Ann wondered how she had been persuaded to attend another magic show, but somehow her friends, Lisa and Quinn had managed the feat of getting her to come along; Fred's presence took the shine off of it a bit; he said that he was studying the presentation of the show.

Both Lisa and Quinn had been on stage already and were disappointed to have been used in the role of audience observers, looking in boxes and banging blades, while the magician, Carlos did things to his assistant, Carmina.

The show was already overrunning, when Carlos announced that he needed another volunteer to check that things were above board for the finale of the show, during which Carmina would be performing an escape.

Many hands went up, including Ann's; she had been convinced by her friends and Fred that Carlos had only used one volunteer in an illusion and that had been the guillotine; there was no danger as magicians never use volunteers in escapes.

Carlos' eyes flirted with all the potential volunteers, but he chose Ann to inspect the kit he would be using for Carmina's escape trick.

As Ann mounted the steps to the stage, the curtains opened revealing to all the nature of the escape. In the middle of the stage was a large clear-sided box about 5 feet in each direction. Across the back of the stage ran a conveyor belt that sloped from knee-high to about seven feet from the floor. Under the high end of the conveyor was the hopper of a wood chipper of a size that suggested that it could cope easily with whole trees. The output of this machine pointed at the box.

Carlos described the procedure; Carmina would be restrained and placed on the conveyor and had the time it took to reach to the top (about 50 seconds) to escape, or she would be tipped into the wood chipper and sprayed into the box in tiny pieces. Ann's job as the audience's representative was to check the restraints and help get Carmina into them.

Ann was reassured that her role was likely to be no more onerous or risky than Quinn's or Lisa's had been. Carlos greeted Ann as she reached the stage with the same warmth that he had greeted all his other audience volunteers and there was the same dialogue to introduce her as a genuine member of the crowd.

"Ok, Ann, it's now time to check out the equipment," said Carlos as Carmina, clad in a body hugging black leather leotard and nothing else, wheeled on a low platform on which stood a black body-shape thing. While the assistant returned to the wings to fetch the remainder of the gear, Carlos set about showing the black fibre-glass shell to Ann. He undid the buckles on the rubbery straps that held the two halves of the shell shut and opened it out.

At this point Ann was feeling more confident that she was there to witness not a dangerous escape attempt, but something more magicianly; probably involving Carmina being free of the case before the conveyor started and once the fibre-glass coffin had been up the conveyor and shredded by the wood chipper and squirted into the box, she would appear somewhere unexpected; like the back of the auditorium.

Carlos asked Ann to check out the fibre-glass case. It seemed perfectly normal, although Ann had to admit that she had never seen one of these before, but it looked like she expected. Ann did not detect any escape hatches, but she knew the ways of magicians are subtle, so concealing an exit door would child's play to Carlos. She pointed out that there were various slots cut into the coffin shell, which Carlos said he had added to help Carmina escape. The three slots down the edge of the front half would allow his assistant to get at the fastenings the held the straps holding the two halves together. The two smaller slots in the top and the back of the head-shaped part he promised to explain later.

Ann looked into the box again and spotted low loops moulded into the back section, which Carlos told her were for the internal straps that would hold Carmina's ankles and waist so that she could not simply kick holes in the thin material of the person shaped box.

Carlos invited Ann to step into the box to see how small an amount of space Carmina would have to achieve her escape. Inside Ann's head alarm bells rang, but she stepped back into the rear section of the box and felt how little spare room there was. She affirmed for the audience that there was very little room to move, but also noted that Carmina was a tiny fraction smaller than her so would have that minute bit of extra space, while expressing the doubt that this would make it much easier to escape. She felt she was playing along with the magician's plans as she saw them, by treating this as a real escape.

The magician made a move to close the front over Ann, but she put out a foot to prevent it and stepped out of the coffin. Carlos made some excuse about giving her a feel of how confined the interior of the fibre-glass coffin was and how difficult it would be to reach the strap buckles through the slots in to. Ann said she was already convinced of that, but she also reckoned that a professional would know what to do and have practiced it until it came as second nature.

"So, you think this escape isn't hard enough? Even with the straps round her lower legs and waist?"

Ann felt badgered. "I didn't mean it that way. I was just saying that you must have practiced it a lot, or you would not risk it in front of a live audience."

"Maybe we should make it harder; do you think?" asked Carlos. Carmina returned to the stage with a pair of straps. Before Ann could formulate an answer, the magician was commenting to his assistant that Ann thought that the stunt was going to be too easy.

Carmina suggested, "Why don't I fit the body straps and get our volunteer to check them while you get those extra items we're trying out. I do hope you brought them."

While Carlos rushed off stage, Carmina bent down to thread the strap through the ankle height loop in the back of the coffin. When both straps were in place, she supervised Ann in checking that they were solid, properly through the loops and that the loops were firmly anchored into the rear of the casket. Some tugging later Ann felt she could affirm to the audience that the straps were what they seemed.

Carlos returned to the stage carrying a bunch of rubbery straps that included a red ball and thick rubbery tube with straps and buckles on both ends.

Ann voiced the question in the mind of everyone there. "What are they for?"

"I'll show you," said Carlos. He handed the bundle of straps to Carmina, before instructing Ann to hold out a hand.

Ann held a hand forward and Carlos put one end of the tube over the presented hand and swiftly pulled the strap tight around her wrist and did up the buckle.

Ann squealed and then asked "What did you do that for?"

"I'm demonstrating what this is for," the magician stated. He gave the tube a tug and Ann's hand, trapped in the end, followed. "Once Carmina's hands are in either end of this heavy gauge rubber tube and strapped in she won't be able to the undo the straps, because the material is too thick to manipulate anything through and even if she could she would not be able the reach the straps, because they are on her wrists. You can confirm that, can't you, Ann?"

Ann tried to remain calm, with one of her hands out of action and unable to feel anything with it. She inspected the rubber tube in the hope of finding somewhere that might break away. "It seems quite solid and I couldn't get out of it one handed, because, presumably, once one hand is out, getting the other one out is easy, right?"

"You are right, of course, but you know that getting the first hand out would a difficult problem?"

"Yes, indeed. But why is tube so long? Surely it only needs to be a little longer than both hands."

"That's because it is used to not only make the hands useless, but to restrict the arms. If you'll allow me to demonstrate."

"You will let me out afterwards, won't you?" Ann queried. The magician nodded. Ann said, "Ok."

Carlos drew Ann's enclosed hand to rest on the other side of her chest before passing the tube over her shoulder, around the back of her neck and forward over the other shoulder. He took Ann's remaining hand, pushed it into the open end of the tube, then buckled and tightened the strap.

Ann was posed like an Egyptian mummy with her hands across her chest. "How does that feel?"

Ann tried to pull her hands out of the tube or down, without success. She then tried lifting her arms to raise the tube over her head, but her hair got in the way. She quickly discovered that Carlos had linked the straps at her wrists so she could not cross her arms further to make the loop formed by the tube big enough to slip over her head. "Ok, I don't know how anyone could get out of this even given plenty of time. I guess there's some trick to it, but I can't see where that trick is."

Carmina came up behind Ann and said, "It's not a trick, it's just skill and training."

"Shall we show you the other bit?" asked Carlos.

"Ok, but can we take this off first, please?" She nodded her head at the straps about her wrists.

"I would, but this bit fits with that bit and I want to convince you that the challenge of escaping from the combined set-up is sufficient of a challenge for Carmina," assured the magician.

"You promise to let me out when I say I am convinced that the challenge is big enough, right?"

"Of course, we will," said the magician and his assistant in unison.

Ann's hair was pressed against her scalp as the net of straps with the red ball attached was put onto her head and a chin strap done up.

"Ok, you've put some kind of harness thing on her head, but I don't see the point," commented Ann.

"The point," offered Carmina, "is that there's an extra strap here that buckles to the hand-tube so that I can't move my head around so much."

There was a tug at the base of Ann's skull and she knew that her head movement was extremely limited.

"We wouldn't want you going away with the idea that Carmina could manoeuvre to undo straps with her mouth, would we?" added Carlos.

"I suppose not," admitted Ann. "But what's the red ball for?"

"Oh, you noticed that?"

Ann tried to nod, but the head harness prevented that. After an awkward silence, she said, "Yes."

"Well, that has many purposes. That'll go in Carmina's mouth so that she cannot use her mouth to unbuckle things, even if she could move her head. It also has the added side effect that we won't terrify the audience with her dying scream, if she should fail and end up in the wood chipper. And during rehearsal, Carmina has developed a tendency to swear rather vividly and we feel it is much better to spare the audience a stream of expletives, because, despite the hour, there are still a few younger people in the audience."

"You're not going to use that on me, are you?" queried Ann.

"No, not unless you start to get sweary."

"Ok, now, if you would turn sideways, we can show the audience the final thing about the head harness." Ann complied and the audience were shown loose straps that came from back and top of her head; she felt these as tugs in the appropriate places. "These straps, which are solidly attached to the rest of the head harness, will be fed through the slots you noticed in the head section of the box and buckled on the outside; this ensures that Carmina's head is not going to move until she can open the box to reach the outside."

"Shall we demonstrate?" suggested Carmina; more to the audience that to Ann.

Ann's reply of, "I would rather you didn't," was drowned out by the audience calling, "Yes." Ann was shocked to notice that she could detect the voices of Lisa and Quinn among this chorus.

Responding to the audience verdict, the magician and his assistant guided Ann backward into the coffin box. Ann had little choice, but to cooperate as the alternative was to fall over without the use of her hands to break or control her fall. Carlos fed the head straps through the slots in the head section and Carmina did up the straps round Ann's waist and ankles.

"Do you think you could escape from that?" asked Carlos.

"Not in a month of Sundays," replied Ann. "Could you let me out now, please."

Carlos was about to say that they would, when he was interrupted by a man dressed in the customary black garb of a stage hand.

Ann heard him tell Carlos if his act was not finished soon they would be killing the lights and walking out, if he did not come up with the money for the overtime he had already caused this week.

The man walked off.

"Sorry, Ann, but there has been a change of plan. We are running out of time and it'll take too long to unstrap you and restrain Carmina, so you'll be doing the escape. Don't worry, because the instructions are on the inside of body form; just do what they say and it'll turn out fine."

Before Ann could object (in fact as she opened her mouth to object) the red ball was shoved between her teeth and buckled into place. As the cover of the coffin was closed over her Ann noticed a square of paper stuck inside the section that was about to cover her face, but once the coffin was shut, it was too dark to read what was on it; she suspected that even if there had been light it was far too close for her to focus on.

The audience watched; fascinated by this turn of events. Ann was the first of their number to have a role in the show that involved much more than agreeing with the magician that things were as he said they were.

Ann was shocked, but not entirely surprised, that she had been suckered by another magician. She assumed that at some point Carmina or a concealed stagehand would reveal to her how she could exit her fibre-glass container.

The audience followed the simple process of transferring the fibre-glass case from its stand on the platform to the start of the conveyor belt. Ann felt the case being tipped sideways until she was almost horizontal and then her feet being lifted. She wished that she was the one lifting the foot end of her plastic sarcophagus. She felt a slight jolt as she was deposited on the conveyor, with her feet higher than her head.

There was a pause during which the conveyor was powered up and the wood chipper was set running; with nothing to chip it ran quite quietly.

While she lay encased Ann composed a tirade to be used on the unfortunate soul who eventually would release her and show the her quick way to get to the back of the hall or wherever she was intended to reappear from.

There was a knock on the case. "Are you alright in there?" Carlos asked.

Ann attempted to give a piece of her mind, peppered with every cuss word she knew and a few she made up for good measure. Nobody got the benefit of this masterclass in swearing, because of the ball that filled Ann's mouth.

The magician's response to Ann frustrated squeak was say, "Great. Good Luck."

There was a jerk as the conveyor started. Ann realised that she had been deluding herself and concluded that she had gotten herself into the clutches on another nefarious magician; she cursed herself for letting her guard down. Her only consolation was that she had not been undressed or otherwise embarrassed on the way to dying in the maw of the industrial wood chipper.

Ann immediately formed a plan; given that she had no idea how to escape her bondage, the only other thing she could try was not make it to the end of the conveyor. She wriggled and shook and kicked as much as she could, hoping to rock the case enough to fall off the conveyor before she ran out of conveyor to fall off.

It was obvious to the audience that there was someone in the body shaped fibre-glass coffin, because it rocked and pitched, but it was still riding up the slope of the conveyor.

There was a moment of near total silence as the case teetered on the end of the conveyor, before it plunged feet first into the hopper of the wood chipper. With the head end still visible, the chipper's note change to a grumble and black fragments began to shoot from the output spout of the machine and fly into the clear sided box centre stage. After the first squirt of fragments came the second, these seemed to be a covered in a fluid. Where they hit the sides of the clear box they transfer some of the liquid to the wall of the box. As this accumulated, it became clear that it was red and it started to dribble down the inside of the box.

Ann's experience of this, reminded her of her encounter with a running chainsaw between legs, except that it was not just up her middle, but everywhere, starting at her feet and rapidly progressing up her body. She would have screamed, but for the ball in her mouth, and by the time the chipper had destroyed the ball, she had no intact mouth to scream with.

Carlos and Carmina looked both shocked and disappointed. While Carmina switched off the conveyor and the chipper, Carlos ducked off stage and quickly returned with a stick. He went to the box and stirred through the wreckage, making the end of the stick redder in the process.

"Such a pity," Carlos remarked. "She was so pretty and innocent, but maybe a bit too smart for a volunteer. And those cases don't come cheap either."

He poked about in the debris and hooked out something, which turned out to be a bloodstained bra.

Carmina rushed onto the stage with a large sheet of silky black fabric. She told the magician that it was only proper respect to cover the body, even if all that remained was a pile of wet shreds mingled with fibre-glass chips.

Between them magician and assistant draped the cloth over the box. Barely a second later, Carlos dragged the cloth from the box, sending it flying into the wings. He revealed Ann standing in the box. He leaned over the edge of the box and scooped her from among the black chips that had so recently formed her prison.

The audience surged to their feet, clapping and cheering Ann's reappearance.

Carlos stood Ann on the stage and took one of her hands; Carmina took the other. They walked to the front of the stage holding Ann's arms aloft and bowing all the way. At the point where they released her hands and stepped back to be behind the closing curtain, Ann noticed that some of the excitement from the audience was probably due the fact that she did not have a stitch of clothing on.

It took her altogether too long, in her estimation, to find the gap between the curtains and get through it. Behind the curtain a stagehand gave her directions to the dressing room that Carlos and Carmina were using, but starred at her chest the whole time he was talking to her.

Lisa, Quinn and Fred found Ann outside the stage door wearing an oversize T-shirt that barely an inch longer than required for minimal modesty, a similarly oversize pair of flip-flops and an expression of deep embarrassment.