"Hello everyone, and welcome back to my Web Show, Impossible Illusions!" The Assstant stood by herself on the stage, the white backdrop curving down to become a covering for the floor.  For this show, aside from her ususal white mask, she wore a pink one-piece dress from her shoulders to her knees. "I don't have much in the realm of witty patter today, so let's get right to it."  She went to one knee and picked up the otherwise invisible envelope from the cloth carpet.

"This is a letter from someone who calls themselves Esnredshirt." She looked up. "Is that supposed to be E.S.N. Redshirt?  Or Essen-redshirt?  I can't tell.  Anyway, this person asks 'Got a wrigner in the works? Might be hard to talk once you're flat though ..."

She tossed the envelope to one side, off camera. "Well, if it makes you feel any better," she said, "I do do post production as well, and can narrate that way.  Of course, for you, Sir or Ma'am Redshirt, I'll arrange things to keep talking as much as I can."

Behind her, her black-clad helper pushed a long table onto the stage, one with a large cylindar at one end.  The Assistant picked up the camera and brought it over. "The Wringer is names after the appliance used to remove water from cloth," she said. "Cloth would go in one side, be compressed between two heavy rollers, squeezing all the water out, and the relatively dry cloth would come out the other side to be hung up to finish drying. The Wringer Illusion," she narrated, "is one where a person enters into it, and leaves flattened."  She panned over the table where there were cuffs at each corner.  "Now, the usual version has the assistant entering into a box of some sort," she circled around the table, "and the magician will activate the device, showing the assistant coming out of some space far too small to fit through."

She reached the cylindar at one end. It was set onto arms that were attached to a railing that ran along the length of the table. "The thing is, most of those performances, for people who aren't me," she focused on the very thin gap between the table and the bottom of the cylindar, "involve the assistant actually hiding in the box, or escaping out the back, leaving the magician to remove a print from the Wringer."

She handed the camera to her Helper, who turned it onto her masked face. "I've checked the prices. A life sized image of, say, me, on a good cardstock?  A couple hundred dollars.  But then again, I wasn't really looking for the best deals."  She shrugged. "Well, on with the show!"  She turned away from the camera, and the helper stepped back to get a better view as she climbed onto the table.  The Assisant turned to put her feet near the cylindar before leaning over and locking her ankles into place.

"These aren't necessary," she said as she finished the second one. "But some people will think I'm faking otherwise."  She leaned back and locked her left wrist into place above her head. "Can you get the last one?"

The Helper set down the camera, pointed at the loose wrist so that it could catch the last cuff being locked into place.  He then picked it up again and allowed the Assistant to narrate some more.  "This particualr version," she said as she kept focus on the camera, "works a bit differently. Most of the time, the illusion involves the assistant - me - being drawn into the compressor, or roller, or whatever is used.  This one, however, allows the roller to move over me."

The camera was returned to the stand it started on, then the helper moved the whole thing closer and at an angle so that the Assistant could still see it.  "Some of you may be thinking that I'm going to start with my feet and work my way upwards.  Well, you'd be wrong."  On the other side of the table, the Helper could be seen lifting the roller up along its bars until it rested over the Assistant's stomach.

"In this version," she said, "I'm going to start in the middle!"  With that, the Helper lowered the cylindar, the large curved object pressing down against her stomach until it seemed like it was resting against her spine.  The Helper took the camera and carefully panned it down to show that the Assistant wasn't contorting under the press, nor was she somehow sneaking under the table.  "Under normal circumstances, I would be hard pressed to breathe, should this be real," she said while trying to be innocent of a bad pun.  "And now, the next step!"

With the camera back in place, the Helper began to roll the cylindar down the Assistant's body. He paused after less than a foot, the roller now resting over her hips - and not moved up or down at all.  "As you can see," she said, "my stomach is flat and my hips are going that way too."  The Helper showed that she was still not hiding under the table. He gave a long look at where her stomach curved down from her ribs and to the consistent height of about an inch before setting the roller back.

He then pushed the roller all the way down, the camera watching as her hips, then her legs, then the Assistant's feet were all compressed, the cuffs around her ankles now loose.  "Now," she said, "you can see that while I've been compressed down, I haven't actually gotten wider to compensate. According to Science," she gave fingerquotes, "when you reduce the volume of an object, you increase its density, meaning that my legs should still weigh the same.  Except this is magic, so they don't!"

"Not that you can tell, of course. I don't have a live audience for these things."  She shook her head. "Well, on with the next part!"

The Helper nodded, and with the roller off the bottom of her feet, lowered it even further.  He pressed it upwards, this time compressing her feet to about the thickness of cardboard.  He stopped at her knees, and then panned the camera to show the multiple compressions. "This is another addition I've made," the Assistant said. "Just to make things more interesting."

The Helper then advanced the roller up to her stomach, where it started. He paused to let the fixed camera angle appreciate that, then advanced it even further.

"There's not a lot to say at this point," the Assistant said as her lower ribs started to join her lower body in its flattened state.  "Just that from my perspective, it doesn't feel like anything at all."  The Helper paused as the roller stopped just short her breasts.  "And despite the changes in ... personal altitude," she noted, "it doesn't cause me to expand in other directions either."  The Helper, now that she was finished, pushed the roller upward once more. If there was any difficulty in compressing her chest, he didn't show it.

Once the roller reached her neck, the camera was moved to allow her to speak one last time. "Well, this is it for me," she noted. "Anything else you hear from me will be from post-production."  With that, she turned to face up, and the Helper rolled over her head.

As he kept going, her facemask appeared, perfectly flattened to the same height as the rest of her.  There was no body movement as he finished his work, taking out her hands, and letting the roller drop off the top edge of the table. "As you can see," the Assistant spoke from after the performance, "I have now been squished down to a very thin level."  The Helper removed the two sets of cuffs and paused for a moment. "And because of this, the body is very pliant and easy to manipulate."

On camera, the Helper carefully lifted up the Assistant's left leg, and flipped it overtop her right.  he then repeated this with her right arm, then returned to the middle where he put his fingers under her left side, and flipped it over top her other half. Then, starting from the middle, he lined up the edged and put his weight down on the fold, creasing her in the process. Once her head was folded in on itself, he flipped her arms down over her body, and creased them in place.

Then he repeated this process with her legs atop the arms.

"Really easy to manipulate," she repeated as he folded the Assistant again, this time in half, pushing her arms and legs into the middle of the growing sandwitch of a body.  "And after all that," she said in voiceover, "You can still be wrung out some more!"

This time, the Helper lifted the roller and carried it - still attached to the table - over the folded up Assistant. He then let it go, allowing the weight to fall into her new middle where he left it, showing off for the camera how her folds pushed upward on both ends away from the multiply-compressed middle.  Then he walked off stage, leaving the Assistant like that.

"Thank you for your time," she said. "And don't forget to Like, Watch and Subscribe to my channel!  And remember, only suggestions from donors will be entertained."