Magic Short 9: Was it an accident?

The magician had proved to be creative, because he needed to be creative to get round the problems he had created for himself.

He had done a trick where he took the string of a floating balloon to pieces and tried to restore the string, but the string was still in pieces but before it had floated too high, he had pulled a second string from behind the ear of the kid who was the close-up observer and used it to lasso the balloon. The show had been littered with things 'going wrong' only to be remedied in unusual ways.

The audience were nervous about the final illusion, because the magician's assistant had been badgering him to do an illusion with her and he had finally agreed. This gave the chance that his assistant might be severely hurt or if the illusion went seriously wrong, maybe killed. They wondered why she was considering taking the risk in first half, but throughout the second half there were hints that either she loved and trusted him, more than he appeared to deserve, or she thought that there was an agent in the audience who might be on the lookout for a brave and beautiful assistant.

The finale arrived and he announced that would be floating his assistant on air. She pushed on a table to the centre of the stage. The table was sturdy enough to hold her weight, which she prove by lying down on it with her head hanging over one end and her shins and feet project from the other. The magician made a series of graceless passes with his hands over his white silk clad assistant. Hesitantly at first, but more clearly after about a minute, the assistant floated up from the tabletop.

With assistant poised several inches above the table, the magician walked round to the head end of the table and raised his foot to give it a forceful push into the wings. The first attempt did not go well, because some of the fabric of the assistant's sleeve got caught up in the manoeuvre as evidenced by a ripping noise as the sleeve parted from the shoulder of the dress and the magician hopping about for a few seconds while he disentangled his foot from the draped sleeve. The assistant's expression, which had been a stressed version of serene, transformed to irritated. The magician's second attempt to move the table was more successful, in that the table sailed off stage to be greeted with a shout, a crash and a short, but highly audible, demonstration of the shouter's proficiency at profanity.

Trying to remain unperturbed by what had happened, the magician put out a hand that expected to receive a hoop. A few seconds later a crewman limped on stage and passed a hoop to him. He twirled the hoop as evidence that it was not part of any rig supporting his assistant and began passing the hoop up the assistant's body.

The assistant looked down her body and began a stage whispered conversation. "This is supposed to be our spectacular finale, why are you using a plain old hoop. You should be using the hoop of fire."

"You know what happened that last time; the tent burnt down."

"Ok, it was a stupid idea to use the fire hoop in a tent, but this is a proper theatre with a sprinkler system and fire extinguishers everywhere you look."

"But the fire hoop isn't ready."

"What better way to convince them that this is an added element of danger that bringing it out here and getting it ready while they watch. I'll hold it for you while you add the fuel."

The magician put down the hoop in his hand and rolled it towards the wings. It collided with the crewman carrying a similar hoop which had something wrapped round half of it. He also carried a small rectangular yellow tin. He handed these over with a scowl and retreated to the wings, picking up the other hoop on the way and still limping a little.

The assistant, still lying in mid-air, lifted her arms to accept the hoop and held it flat so that the wrapped area was between her hands. The magician opened the nozzle on the top of the tin and began to squirt liquid from the can onto the padded section of the hoop. Soon the smell of lighter fluid was detectible by the entire audience. He closed the tin and bent down to skitter it across the stage floor into the wings.

He retrieved the hoop from his assistant and stepped to the side by her feet. From his jacket pocket he pulled a cigarette lighter and with a flick applied the flame to the fuel soaked hoop. In moments, the upper half of the hoop was an arc of yellow flame.

He passed the flaming hoop over his assistant until it caught on the dangling sleeve that he had ripped earlier. To get the hoop passed he lowered it slightly. Unfortunately, he touched the inside of the burning section of hoop against the assistant dress at one of the many points where splashes of lighter-fuel had dripped from the hoop. This lead in quick succession to a spot of burning clothing, then more spots catching fire until the assistant was covered in burning fabric.

Members of the stage crew swiftly came on stage directing CO2 fire-extinguishers at the burning and screaming assistant. As the clouds of CO2 cleared, it became clear that this intervention had been too late and floating in place of the brave or foolhardy assistant was a skeleton.

The magician requested a cloth to cover his assistant and a crewman brought out a blanket, which he threw at the magician. As the magician tried to place the blanket on the still floating skeleton, it seemed to break into pieces and fall to the floor where the pieces broke into smaller pieces. The crewman without the limp brought out a broom and swept the pieces into a pile of smouldering bones. He returned to the wings to find a means of picking up the assistant's remains.

The magician covered the pile of bone fragments from the view of the audience and then tossed it away to reveal his assistant alive and standing at his side; an effect somewhat spoiled by her being a singed mess and her remaining scraps of clothing doing nothing to cover her modesty.