Oh, crap. I’m in for it now. I really screwed up this time, that’s for sure and I need help fixing it. Let me take you back to the beginning.

My name is Austin Grant, otherwise known as Agamemnon the Great, a hypnotist and stage magician of… middling success. It all started as a routine show in a rented auditorium for a local community. I loved these small town shows, the people were always so kind and sometimes they tipped as well. Anyway, after doing some of my usual parlor tricks (making small objects seem to teleport, transform or disappear), it was time to get to the fun stuff and begin hypnotizing people.

 Hypnosis isn’t like what you see on tv. First of all, it isn’t fast; inducing a person, or “putting them under the spell” takes five minutes minimum, preferably ten. Second, a person can’t be forced to do something they wouldn’t do normally. That can make it hard to have a big showy induction to show the crowd, so getting the volunteer to believe something is easier.

Like I said, it was a routine show. A kindly young Philippino-looking woman (I think she said she was a teacher?) was on the stage as my act was reaching it’s finale.

“Deeper and deeper your mind goes… now, I want you to believe something: you’re pregnant and have been for a long time.”

I couldn’t help it: I had babies on the brain. My wife was nearing the end of her ninth month and looked like she was about to pop. Since she was overdue, she could go into labor at any moment.

“You are more than mine months pregnant with triplets, so your stomach is absolutely massive. You can still walk, but only barely and it’s incredibly slow.”

Here her posture changed, her feet separated and she became out of breath, her arms cradling an imaginary gut the size of a bathtub. The audience laughed as I had her waddle around a bit, her speed slowed to a crawl due to the “added weight”. Now, I was just about to include the trigger word used to undo the effect (think of it like installing an off switch) when my cell phone rang right there on stage. Well, I knew what that meant: I had my phone set to only ring if it was my wife or the hospital.

My wife had finally gone into labor.

In hindsight, I know I should have handled my next few actions better and for that, I’m sorry. But you know, a man only becomes a first time father once in his life and I didn’t want to miss it, so I dashed off To the hospital without a second thought, abandoning the show and my volunteer.

I may do sleight of hand tricks for a living, but the next few days were the real magic. I still couldn’t believe my eyes when my son looked at me for the first time. And as any parent would tell you, the first few days are absolute chaos, so my attention couldn’t have been further from my show. At least until a week later. My son was asleep for once and my wife and I were discussing how different things were now that the baby was born.

“Well, I’ll tell you what,” she said, “I’m just glad I’m not pregnant anymore. It was awful, having to waddle around with that giant gut everywhere. First chance you get, you’re getting a vasectomy.”

“Gasp! Oh, no! I totally forgot!”

“The vasectomy?”

“No! I was inducing someone during a show and then I got the call…I forgot to undo her hypnosis!”

It’s said that in small towns, everyone knows everyone. That sounds nice on paper, but in practice, finding one person you knew for five minutes who was part of a crowd of hundreds isn’t exactly an easy task! Believe me, I tried, but it’s not like ticket sales included entering all of your personal data. The whole time, I was imagining what she must have been going through: having all the physical symptoms of pregnancy: the encumbrance, the kicking… and not only does she not have maternity leave, no one even believes that she is pregnant. I tried checking local mental hospitals, but the only one I found refused to confirm or deny if someone in there though she was pregnant. I tried the local business, but no one knew who I was talking about. I was at a loss.

I’m also one of those types of guys who always makes the problem worse for myself. For example, I tried to research how long post hypnotic suggestions last, thinking that perhaps it wore off on its own. No dice: they last as long as the patient’s memory. If I didn’t find that woman, she would, in her mind, be pregnant with triplets, always past due, for the rest of her life! I couldn’t be responsible for that: hypnosis usually lasts about an hour! It was just supposed to be a bit of fun!

But I wouldn’t give up I would find her and undo what I had done to her…and probably give her a refund while I’m at it. The thought had occurred to me to hire a private investigator to either give me her location so that I may fix her or else confirm that she somehow got the induction undone herself. Either one would put my mind at ease. Naturally, that’s where you enter into the picture. I have your down payment here… it’s actually about a tenth of the ticket sales from that very show… the rest will be paid once the investigation is complete. All that money down the drain…an entire show’s worth. My wife is going to kill me, she already thinks this is about an affair or something, given how I keep mentioning that I made that poor woman pregnant. But none of that matters now. So, will you take the case?