The Prestige

One. You show the subject to your audience. A pigeon. You make sure it looks common, ordinary, normal. You earn the audience’s trust by getting one or two people to check the subject. You gain their trust.

Two. You perform the trick. In a split second, the blinding white pigeon vanishes within your fingers. The audience gasps in wonder and confusion. You lift your hands up for them to see, reassuring them that the trick was not a trick, that it was real. Your hands are empty now, but it’s not over yet.

Three. The prestige. This is the most important part of a magic trick. Anybody can make something disappear, but what makes you a true magician is conjuring the subject back into your hands. You pull up your sleeves and do so, with little effort. The audience smiles and laughs, clapping vigorously at the end of your magic trick, completely impressed. The show is over. The crowd pours out of the small room with bright smiles on their faces, leaving you behind, smiling flatly at the last child who waves at you as she leaves with her mother, too.

You exit the stage, and looked at your hands. There’s traces of blood. You cuss silently at your carelessness. You need to make sure that doesn’t happen the next time. A good magician makes sure there are no clues to his secrets being revealed, and a great magician shouldn’t even succumb to such lowly tricks. You sigh and remind yourself to purchase more new pigeons from the market tomorrow, as you carry your things and prepare to leave the tiny backstage. The lone pigeon is quiet in its small cage, perhaps thinking about its friend’s disappearance. You clear out from the place and enter into the streets of London, filled with mud and people and smog. You wonder optimistically about the chances of ending up in the hall of fame with the greatest magicians. You hold your head up high, trying not to take a whiff of the nearby horse droppings as you head home.