Flash

The Pit of Unknowing

When I applied for the job of Marco's assistant, I thought it was just another smoke-and-mirrors gig. I didn't expect the magic to be real.

I thought it a little odd that we didn't rehearse before the performance. "Just be yourself," Marco instructed me, smiling. And I was. My gasp of amazement when he levitated me was totally spontaneous. When he transported me from one sarcophagus to another, I was breathless from the trip through ... whatever it was. Ether? Another dimension? Intertemporal space?

I tried to escape after that trick, because I knew what was coming next. He was going to saw me into three pieces, and I didn't want to be inside my body when it happened. But the magic was stronger than I was. It held me -- my throat, my belly, my legs -- like a vise, and guided me to exactly where he wanted me. My screams as he was making his cuts were not faked. The pain was real. When he joined me back together, I was ready to kiss his feet and call him my eternal master. Stockholm Syndrome at its finest.

"You were great!" he told me afterwards. "Tomorrow, I will make you disappear."

"Disappear and come back?" I asked. "I want to spend forever in your arms."

"Of course you will come back. The audience wouldn't like it if you didn't."

The show had been a spectacular success. Marco received a dozen lucrative offers from producers and talent scouts. He turned them all down graciously. He was waiting for The Big One.

"What is The Big One?" I asked.

"The greatest show in heaven and earth, with all the angels watching."

That sounded a little strange, but seemed increasingly reasonable as the night enfolded me in its dark mysteries of lust. A few sips of absinthe, coupled with Marco's encyclopaedic mastery of tantric sex, made anything seem possible. Marco was a magician, after all.

As the finale of next night's performance, I obediently disappeared when he snapped his fingers. I can't describe the experience with any degree of accuracy. My molecules seemed to separate. I became a thin mist floating around the stage and over the heads of the audience. Then -- whoosh -- I was drawn back together.

That night, I was no longer the innocent who applied for the job. While I was undergoing molecular dispersal, I had an epiphany. I don't know what the source of the revelation was, but the message was overwhelming and decisive.

Marco was Satan himself.

I kept smiling and smooching and doing whatever he asked, because I was too terrified to do anything else. But no amount of alcohol and sex could erase the conviction that I was dealing with ultimate evil.

I exited with utmost stealth while he was asleep, leaving all his gifts behind, even the advance he had given me on my salary. By morning, I was on another continent.

I was afraid he would come looking for me, but he didn't. I guess I wasn't important enough to chase. He continued his show with a new assistant. I couldn't resist checking the ads on the Internet. She was quickly replaced by another hopeful. Who knows -- maybe the whole thing was a test to see who was strong enough to participate in the ultimate contest of magical powers, with all the angels watching.

I don't know what The Big One is. All I know is that I don't want to be around when it happen