view from above
There is a magic act where a volunteer is invited to step into a telephone booth shaped box with a curtain that runs across the front. This person then stands behind a pole which runs vertically through the centre of the box. The walls are papered in pink and white candy stripes, completing the cheery and old-fashioned mood of the overall piece. At this point the audience can still see the volunteer, in this instance waving and behaving the part of the innocent beautifully.
Then the magician swoops in and deftly runs the curtain across the rails, closing off the box. He turns to those in attendance and brags that he can make the volunteer within disappear. His teeth are bared in a showman’s smile – part genuine, part forced. It is part of his oeuvre, this danger. The magician makes no friends, does not simper to the vanities of others. His is the job of illusion, nothing more, and to all in the profession he is genius, but it does not make him rich. His is the realm of notoriety – a place he freely admits is where he belongs, but in turn attracts only those of the same sordid humour, those who flock to the same dark light and soul-tainting contaminants.
So now you might be afraid for the volunteer alone in the box at the mercy of whatever fate or trickery is in store, while the magician prowls outside, securing all gaps, proving to the audience there is no obvious means of escape. With a few dramatic words and a flourish of wrist movements the curtain is pulled back and the audience gasps and applauds because their wish had been granted: the volunteer is no longer there.
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This trick is achieved by two cleverly installed mirrored panels and secret pull-strings. The volunteer is instructed to pull the string as soon as the curtains are drawn. As this is done two panels swing in on a hinge and click onto the pole in the centre. Because of the even patterns of the candy stripes, these are reflected back by the mirrors, making a precise duplicate of the box as it might appear when empty when in fact it still contains a volunteer in the rear wedge, waiting for the curtain again, to click the panels back to normal and step out in triumph, to the applause that will later ring in her ears like a unsettling reminder of something she’s tried to forget. Holding the magician’s hand – they have long been in cahoots – they bow together.
It is only then, during the deep bend at the hip, when the sweat runs off the tip of her nose and flicks onto the floor, when she realises (no, expects) that one day, and she wasn’t sure when, during rehearsal the magician’s temper will flare and he will stride away, leaving her alone within the box and its stifling heat. She knows she could leave if she wanted, but sometimes it was nice to run your fingernails along a sanded surface in those few moments before the reveal and reflect that she is not unlike that cat in the famous experiment – either dead or alive or both simultaneously.
And if he were to leave it would be a continuation of the act, this time a private one, for his amusement only, where he would sit in the stage wings smoking a cigarette, tallying up the minutes on his watch, his perverse glee rising in every minute that passes where she fails to push aside the curtain and step free.
She can imagine the rising heat and feeling for the catch. All she would need to do is push it.
Whether she will is another question.
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Anxiety feels like this confinement. It also feels like a show – a charade one puts on for everyone else. Anxiety is in the sneer of the magician and in the wondering if you’re drug addled or even paranoid, if you’ve got your panels latched or if you’re exposed to the world. Cynical and mistrusting, because you are already privy to secrets. But applause means nothing without joy and appreciation – without it, it’s only noise.
We’ve been away this weekend where I attempted to find my joy – and I did, in a few moments of jumping on a jumping pillow, something like a magic act of its own.
And I’ll continue to do so. It’s better than the alternative.
