A Christmas stage magic fantasy

With the magician’s hand to support me, I step up onto the low footstool. I turn to face the audience, then gingerly lower my bottom until I’m sitting on the base of the partially constructed box. At the magician’s command, I kick off my shoes. Dave, one of my two co-volunteers, takes them and places them on a table off to the side. Kate, the third volunteer, watches, a scowl on her face. Always the show-off, I’m guessing she’s miffed at having been relegated to a secondary (or should that be tertiary) role.

Now comes the tricky part - twisting sideways and lifting my legs inside the small open-topped cube without flashing my knickers. Maybe I should have worn a longer dress, but when I got ready for the workplace Christmas party a few hours ago I had no idea the stage magic show the boss had booked was going to be so interactive. Still, I manage it without any of my colleagues getting to see more of the new Finance Department intern than I’d be comfortable with come nine o’clock on Monday. It’s a tight fit, though. I have to pull my legs so that fronts of my thighs are up against my tummy, and my knees are pressing up into my not-insubstantial chest.

"Lean forward now please, Janice," the magician says to me. "I’m going to lower the lid." I do as he asks. Moments later I feel a rigid sheet pressing down flat on the back of my head, cutting out the light from above. The magician throws a few catches, securing it in place.

I can still see out to my right though, via the missing side that I climbed in through. The magician dimmed the lights before his show began, but I can still see the outlines of my colleagues sitting in the half-dozen rows of function room chairs. Ad-libbing a bit, I wave to them. A few wave back.

"That’s the spirit, Janice," the magician says, grinning. "Say goodbye to your colleagues."

I open my eyes wide in mock horror, then grin back. "Bye for now!" I say to the ranks of silhouettes watching me. "See you all later!"

The magician lowers the side panel, shutting me inside the box. It’s dark, but not completely black. A little light shines through chinks between the panels, and more diffuses through a round, fabric-covered hole in front of me. The noises from outside are muffled somewhat, but when the magician starts to talk again I can still hear him well enough to understand what he’s saying. He has me pass my arm out through the hole in front of me. This entails a little wriggling on my part, but I manage to get my right arm through the slitted fabric, almost to the elbow.

I can picture in my mind’s eye what my colleagues are seeing. There’s a table, waist high, with thin legs so that everyone can see there’s nothing fishy underneath. On top of it is a cube, a little under three feet across on each side, painted to look like a Christmas present. It even has a little gold bow on top. Then projecting out of the right hand side there’s my arm - fingers wriggling, light catching my crimson nail polish. In my vision my arm is elegant, mesmerizing, and rather more slender than it probably is in reality. But then being a volunteer in a stage magic show has been a long-standing fantasy of mine and I’m going to make the most of it.

I hear the magician telling Dave to take my hand and hold on tight. His grip is strong and warm. There’s a strange metallic click, then I feel cold metal around my wrist and hear another click. Dave and I have been handcuffed together! I feel my cheeks flame. Restraints feature heavily in my stage magic fantasies, but I’m conflicted about being handcuffed to a work colleague. This performance is going to feature in my 'private time' fantasies from now on, and I just know that Dave will creep into them too now. I just hope I’ll be able to maintain a professional face when I see him the next day, but that’ll be difficult. I’ve never been good at the old poker face.

My ruminations are interrupted by the magician telling Dave to brace himself. Then I hear him instructing Kate to take hold of the opposite side of the box and pull. Her nails scrabble for purchase until he tells her that there are two concealed handles for her to grip.

There’s a short drumroll, then a sliding sound. I lurch backwards. The pressure from the walls of the box eases for a moment, but then there’s a sharp bump and the pressure is back, only more intense now. It’s like the box has gotten a couple of inches smaller!

And apparently it has. There’s a sound that I interpret as a tape measure being opened out, then the magician is announcing that the box is now thirty inches on each side.

Now I’m not the smallest of girls. Not fat, no, but quite tall and definitely well built. I can imagine fitting into the now-reduced box, but only just.

"Again, please, Kate," the magician says.

Again there’s the scraping and the bump (which I’m guessing is the new inner box dropping an inch onto the table top). Again there’s the relaxing of pressure then a renewed squeezing. The sides are pressing in on me quite hard now. It’s just as well I’m not claustrophobic!

Three times more the routine repeats. Now each time the walls press in on me I feel a strange dislocation in my body. Not in a painful way, though. More like I’ve slipped into some new and extreme yoga pose I never thought I could possibly manage. It’s actually rather calming.

The voices from outside the box are fainter, but I can just about make out that the box is now fourteen inches on each side. That can’t be right, though. My thigh bones alone must be almost that long. I hear gasps from the audience, so however the illusion is being done it must be pretty damn convincing.

Two repetitions later I’m apparently inside a ten by ten by ten inch box. The noise from the audience is louder. The magician has me wiggle my fingers to prove it’s really me in here, which I manage despite Dave’s steely grip. I’m going to have bruises on my hand come tomorrow. But then if I’m really in a ten inch cubed box I’m gonna have bruises all over!

Then the box is an eight inch cube. Then six inches. That’s smaller even than my skull! And now I think about it I can feel pressure on all sides of my head, as well as on every single part of my body. I can’t even tell which part of me is where. I seem to be jumbled up, folded over, folded inwards even. And I can’t hear anything anymore. My right ear is crushed up against the side of the box and something - I think it might be my right big toe - is stuck in my left ear.

Then things get even weirder. I feel like I’m being lifted up then swung from side to side, still trapped inside the box. What’s happening? It takes me a moment then I realise that Dave has been told to lift me off the table and hold me up, turning around so that everyone can see my arm apparently projecting from a box not much wider than my biceps. I swallow, and hold on to my lunch for all I’m worth.

After a couple of turns, I’m being set down, but not the same way up. Nope. Now I’m on my back, my arm projecting towards the ceiling. There’s a pair of clicks and the cuffs are removed. I want to rub my wrist but there’s no way I can manage it. My left hand is stuck somewhere in here with me and my right arm is most definitely stuck out there.

That doesn’t last long, though. A different hand - the magician’s? - grasps my wrist and starts to push my right arm back into the hole and inside the box. There’s no way it should fit, but somehow it does. A few more shoves and I feel my right thumb press into my left shoulder blade, while my right pinkie is stuck between my toes. It makes no sense, but it seems to have happened.

I hear muffled voices and a faint drumroll. The fabric over the hole bulges, pressing in on me. Something is coming through. Something bulbous, rounded, and from the way the light comes in with it it’s something transparent too. But making room for this whatever-it-is is just a step too far. There’s no room around me, between me, or even in me. The object stops.

Muttered voices. Another drumroll. Then I feel a sharp shove. The object is coming in, whether I’m ready for it or not. It presses against my forehead, seeming at first to push my skull inwards, then there’s a pop and it seems to pass through me.

I see stars and pass out.

* * * * *

When I come too, the pressure against my body has changed. It’s no longer all flat sheets and sharp corners. Now it’s round and smooth and even.

Then light floods in. The box is being opened.

Someone looms over me. Why do they look so big? Is it distortion caused by the clear ball I seem now to be inside?

No. I’m small enough that I can be picked up by just two fingers grasping a loop passing through the ball above me. I can be picked up, turned round, peered at and gasped at.

Dave looks astounded. Kate looks astounded. The magician just looks smug. Then I’m being carried over to the Christmas tree, and hung from a branch - me and the glass bauble I’m trapped inside - right there between a jolly Santa Claus and a stick of candy cane.

And that’s where I stay, through the next trick (in which Kate gets turned into a wooden doll) and all the way through the interval too. My colleagues take advantage of the break to come up and stare, trying to convince themselves that it’s really me in here. It’s actually quite fun to watch the confusion on their faces as logic and the evidence of their own eyes collide head on. I wave. I even stick my tongue out a couple of times. It’s not like anyone can get at me in here.

I just hope the magician will remember to release me before the end of the night. Today was the last day of work before Christmas, after all. It’s a long time until New Year.