Endless Days

“And now my last and greatest trick”
The magician smiled, the crowd leaned in.
A flash-pot set them back in their seats.
The magician smiled.

“My last and greatest trick”.
His headache was getting worse.
His assistant stepped
into the spotlight
her sequins too bright.
Fucking dazzling.
Fucking incandescent.

A crackle of light, smell of cut grass.
His assistant stepped...

“My last and greatest trick”
The crowd leaned in.
Earlier they had fought about nothing.
She didn’t love him.
He had called her a cunt.
Smell of cut grass.

Her sequins were too bright.
Fucking dazzling.
With unbelievable effort,
he raised his wand,
stirred the air above him.
“Behold The Disappearing Bride!”

On that cue
her hands swept down
from head to toe
brushing reversible sequins.
The fierce red light
changed instantly to
incandescent white.

The crowd gasped and clapped.

“The Disappearing Bride!”
She never sucked him off anymore.
He blinked sweat out of his red eyes,
the wand slippery in his fingers.

She coughed,
tipped her head pointedly towards
the crowd,
her eyes flashing at him
expectantly.

“Oh yes!”, he whispered.
“My final, greatest trick”
He circled the wand,
lassoing all the magic in the air.

He had fucked her once in the
surf of a nameless island
somewhere south of Cuba.
When was that?
How many summer seasons
since that fuck?
How many times had she disappeared
since that lost tide?

She coughed again and
the silence grew louder around the cough.

A diamond boiled in his belly.
It flowed and grew outwards.
It expanded and vibrated
at the exact wavelength of her entire body.

The magician coiled down
to bring the diamond out
and around him.
A cape of pure light.

“Abracadabra”, he called and
all the lightning and the thunder
of the lost arts
sent their hammers down.

The bubble formed
and washed towards her,
its surface curving
every way
to fractal recurrence.

His wand came down
and she was gone
a puzzle piece removed
as black light pulsed,
the faintest trace of ozone
in the air.

The crowd levitated,
enraptured,
exploded in a
deafening popcorn
of applause.

The magician fell to one knee,
profoundly deaf now.
He opened his hand
to find a few sequins
and three of her teeth
beneath the skin of his palm.

Two weeks later he has
given up hope
of sleeping again.
The days are endless now.
His days are endless.
She is gone.