The Wizard Dies

One day, the wizard cast a death spell and accidentally pointed at a mirror. The spell reflected back and killed him.

Police suspect that the wizard's creator killed him off deliberately, but no one has ever been able to prove this.

The wizard's story lives on in this blog. No one is expected to add anything to it any time soon.

THE END

The Wizard Gets a Great Gig

After months of sitting in the shop, waiting for the phone to ring, going out and knocking on doors (you should have seen the way people looked at him when he handed out his brochure, particularly at the ultra-conservative Christian churches), calling up his friends and family, running ads in the paper, and trying to learn search engine optimization, the Wizard was beginning to wonder how much work it was really going to take to spawn a market for his services. After all, would people ever really take him seriously enough to pay for magical assistance with ordinary problems? He needed a track record to point to, and the type of magic he practiced was nearly impossible to prove. Plus, his processes were sloppy and poorly documented.

But, the big day came, and he knew that he would get a call soon. The night before, the local police department had gotten into a high-speed chase all the way across town. The slimy little bugger had almost gotten away, by taking highly populated streets and speeding through red lights, nearly hitting crowds of people. The cruiser had to stop at red lights and take care not to hit people, so they'd lost ground. Soon, though, the old codger's luck ran out when he lost control of his car and careened into a parked moving van. They'd nearly escaped even that, were it not for the mistake of making a wrong turn into a dead end. They were corned, and the police were ready to snare them. But, when the driver got out of the car, he was quickly identified. It was none other than the President of the United States, George W. Bush. Since the President is immune to arrest, the officers on the scene had to let him go. Besides, they were just too dumbfounded to know what to do anyway. It wasn't your usual situation. But, by the time the night was out, they knew they'd been tricked, despite having checked him up and down, typing his blood, running his fingerprints, and double-checking to make sure he was the real McCoy. It turned out that the real President wasn't even in the country that night. How, then had this con artist pulled it off?

It got worse. The next day, a driver in a van cut off another driver. The second driver blew his horn and extended his middle finger, and things escalated from there. The first driver drew a gun and began firing at the car. The car sped away in an attempt to survive, and the van's driver shot out the car's back tire. Pulling over, the van driver shot the car's driver to death. That wasn't the bad part. The ugly part came later, during the investigation. The incident had been witnessed by at least 25 different people, as it was on a highway where traffic was congested, and people had slowed down to rubberneck. Every single witness gave a completely different account of the gunner's appearance, ranging from a tall, skinny Jamaican male, to a short, fat Chinese man, to a bare-chested, muscular Mexican, to an anorexic-looking albino woman, to a little boy with his hat on backwards. The descriptions were so consistently unlike each other that the police had no idea what had really happened. The descriptions of the van, the car, and the incident were equally unhelpful.

There was a knock at the Wizard's door, and his little bell jingled. A detective wanted to bring the wizard on board to help find this thief before he pulled off whatever he was trying to pull off. The man was already above the law, and that frightened the city. They knew that they had a magician on their hands, and they knew they weren't equipped to handle it. The wizard was hesitant. He hadn't gone into this to become a superhero, and he didn't feel he was quite ready for an arch-nemesis yet. But, the money looked good, and he figured he had to start somewhere.

He spotted a newspaper on the table and started looking through it. A good wizard always begins by looking for clues in the newspaper. He saw a classified ad for a 1995 Ford Taurus. Then, he saw an editorial about prayer in schools. He looked through the police reports, noting that a man named Christoper Trundle had been arrested for possession of crack cocaine. He wrote down the location of the car for sale and made preparations to head over there. Part of being a wizard was always playing the part of the decisive one. The detective was impressed with how quickly the wizard got on the scent.

In truth, he had no idea what he was going to do when he got to the car. He was just buying some time. It turned out to be all the time he needed.

The Wiz Sets up Shop

After days and years of brooding over the perfect spell, the wizard decided that he was human, not perfect, and that it was time for him to start taking some clients on board. He set up a humble little shop on an offbeat New York City street. Little did anyone know that he hopped like a bunny between there and his home in Wake Forest, North Carolina in seconds. He'd created a neat little doorway portal to make the jump easy to manage. He'd had to fly into LaGuardia on his way up, and the taxi ride had cost a fortune. But once things were set in motion, the legwork was over with.

The sign outside read "Unusual solutions for uncommon problems." He was disappointed with the turnout at first. He'd rented a space in a high foot-traffic area, and few people stopped in. There wasn't much to see inside, and he supposed they were looking for something glamorous. But the best magic wasn't glamorous at all. The movies had conditioned people to expect glamor, and he was paying the price for their expectations. He wondered how to move things along. He set a spell in motion, then another, then another, and soon, it worked. People started to appear.

His first customer was a police officer, wanting him to solve a murder mystery. It was just the perfect whodunit. A mundane case, but he pulled it off. Turns out that the prime suspect had been the unlucky guy on the scene when it all went down, and he was about to take the fall for it. The wizard figured out that the "victim" had committed suicide. Case dismissed. Yawn.

Next, an interesting young woman, probably in her early thirties, entered the shop, asking the wizard how he could help with her journalism career. He eyed her up and down. He asked what news she had to share. She said that she wasn't interested in reporting news, but with making news. The wizard saw potential for her. They sat down and got to work writing the breaking news story that they needed to make happen. They surprised themselves with how it all worked out. The wizard started to realize that the woman looked somewhat like Charlie, only in a vague sort of way.

They decided that it would make fun news if all the cell phones in the world stopped working for a day. Then, they thought it might be fun to rig election results. Or lottery results. Or start a new fanatical religious cult. Or evacuate an entire state, just for the fun of it. What news these things would make!

They decided to evacuate the state of New Jersey for a month. Her story would need to cover it just at the right time in order for her to become a famous journalist, without falling under too much suspicion.

The wizard laid out a strategy for casting several strategically timed spells that would work in their favor. They set up attractors in several other states, designed to entice the residents into taking long vacations. It took about three months to pull off, and they only managed to empty out about 70% of the state, but it was worth it. The young journalist covered the emptiness of the streets in nearly busy towns.

Things got interesting after that.

The Wizard's Nightmare

It had been pretty bad, but fortunately, the crowd had gotten some amusement. He'd forgotten the name of the band at the last moment, when he'd been trying to rock it out on stage. He hadn't learned more than four or five chords, and it was bloody obvious that he wasn't the real guitarist. He pretended to be passed out from a heroin-induced coma, but the audience didn't buy it. They sniffed out the fake and threw clumps of mud up onto the stage. He ran off and just barely made it out with his skin. It was almost as bad as the time that Green Day played at Lollapolooza.

He was back in his study, looking at the bubbly vials of slime that might have impressed the most naive of the non-magical crowd who still held fast to the old-world delusions of magic in its cliched form. In reality, the slime had resulted from some experiments gone stinky. He decided that he had been trapped in this mockery of a world long enough, and that he was ready to start creating his own world from scratch. He'd actually decided this long ago, but the latest fiasco where his lack of mad skillz had trapped him onstage like a rat had led him to confront a brutal reality: he was still buying the oldest tricks in the book. Hook, line, and sinker. There was nothing he didn't know, but he forgot that there was any other way to be. He needed to forget a lot of what he "knew," but he needed to be able to recover the useful bits of it at will. Total amnesia would not do.

There was only one answer to this problem: dreams. He needed to ReAwaken each night in his sleep, discarding the shells of memories that he'd made a Past out of. He needed to awaken into a newly forgotten past in each dream, or else author himself a new past to awaken into. He needed to experiment with different pasts. He needed to erase his current past like a program from a computer, and set an automatic timer to re-load it when he'd experimented enough. He already had such a mechanism built in, and sleep seemed the only logical choice of the moment.

He had an ally who could help him with this, and her name was Charlie. Charlotte Anne DeVille had been her full name, and she'd been sleeping for several years now. She could be just fine when sleeping, and he was sure that she'd been up to some interesting things during her non-waking hours. He may need to wake her up soon, or he may need to plunge into the depths where she dwelt. She knew the dark realms well, and she knew how to navigate them on intuition, using logic only when absolutely necessary. The two of them together would make an unstoppable force. The world would never forget.

He put himself to sleep that night, and he fell more deeply into sleep than ever he had before. He didn't remember what happened immediately upon waking, but as the next day went on, he began to remember, one Sign at a time. Each time he looked in the mirror, Charlie peered back through his own eyes at him.

Charlie was awake again.

The Wizard Stretches Time Like Taffy

The wizard had a difficult problem to solve, and not much time to do it. He needed to learn to play the guitar like a rock star before a concert that was being put on the following night. He'd accidentally cast the wrong spell the wrong way, and he'd been serendipitously called by a desperate rock band's manager who had mistakenly double-booked the band in two different cities to play in front of two different stadiums filled with 10,000 people each. Miraculously, the manager had managed to keep this double-booking hidden from the press. However, they knew that soon, it would be leaked to the internet. This would surely happen before the night of the concert, and the fans in both cities would be scrutinizing both bands to figure out which one was the real McCoy. In twenty-four hours, the wizard had to learn to play some bitchin' guitar licks, and he hadn't picked up a guitar since he was ten years old. The last time he had played the guitar, he'd been stumbling through "The Camptown Races." Do-dah!

He also had to think about another important aspect to this puzzle. If he pulled it off and they thought that he was the real Mick Tyroga (the Angry Termite Cadavers' lead guitarist), then the other band would be called out as a fake. In other words, if he did his job too well, he could get the real Angry Termite Cadavers run off the stage, tarred and feathered, or worse. He had to make the two performances indistinguishable from each other, so that even the most die-hard fan couldn't tell which was which. His best strategy was to get the audience doubting their own senses. That was a puzzle for a later time. For now, it was time to start practicing the guitar, and it was time to get really good, really fast.

He didn't actually have a guitar to practice with. He figured he didn't really need one anyhow.

He sat on the chair and started strumming the air guitar. He figured if he did this long enough, he could learn to play a real one and pick it up, plucking its strings effortlessly. Unfortunately, that could take years or decades. He had only hours. There was only one solution to this. He needed to stretch time. He pictured a piece of taffy, and saw a rubber band going around in a circle. He stretched it back and forth, and noticed that it made a sound like a guitar string. He understood that time made an echo, and that learning the guitar was really about learning to stretch time. He wondered how he would solve the time stretching puzzle that normally took guitarists years to learn.

He pictured a rubber sheet with a ball gravitating to the center of it. He could see that there were two ways to stretch time; to stretch it lengthwise, or stretch the depth of it. He could make long time short, or he could make it disappear altogether. He believed that the latter trick was what guitar players learned to do. They made the music so loud that the ticking of time couldn't yell over it.

He tried several things. He tried meditating. He couldn't stop thinking. He tried casting a spell to send himself backwards in time. He never had gotten the hang of that one. He tried casting a spell to make himself quickly learn the guitar. The spell took time to learn, and casting it took just as much skill as learning the guitar did. He realized that learning skill was only half of the problem. Forgetting skill was the other half. If he could forget everything he knew, he'd have a fighting chance. He thought of casting an amnesia spell on himself, but then he wasn't sure how he'd remind himself of the task at hand.

Maybe, he thought, he could forget that he didn't know how to play the guitar. What if someone informed him right now that he'd never actually learned to walk? What if, he learned, he'd been a fraud all these years, having never legitimately earned the right to stand on two feet? People might get angry. But he didn't know the difference. He was as the cartoon coyote, oblivious to the gorge under him, having run across air without knowing what he'd done.

But he still didn't know how to emblazon this mindset into himself in the next twenty-four hours.

He knew that he had himself convinced that skill has to take time. He had to beat this if he was going to rock the house tomorrow night and have groupies all over him. He also knew that he'd have to lose his time-bound self very quickly. He also saw that he'd put himself into a snag. He was trying to solve a timeless puzzle, and pin the solution to a period of time. He didn't know how this would work.

He shrugged, and got himself a cup of coffee. The answer would come to him, right when it needed to. He got on about his day.

The Wizard's Hourglass

The wizard had found no love, and found his attention quickly turned to other matters. He'd developed a peculiar knack for turning his attention away from love. Part of this was deliberate; the attraction of his dark, mysterious, lovely female counterpart was a problem that his spells could not solve directly. He could not seek her out, as he'd known for some time. He could only create himself anew and allow her to find him, allow her to identify herself to him. He had no idea how she would do this, so he simply waited. In the meantime, he found himself waiting for many other things. And he saw that time was running out.

He contemplated his magical hourglass one afternoon, watching the sand run toward the center. He'd just realized, in that moment, that it was indeed a magical hourglass. He realized that every hourglass was magical, every grain of sand was magical, and that everything in the universe around him was indeed made of magic. He began to wonder if anything was possible at all without exercising magic. It was during this insight that the sand in the glass began to teach him the true nature of time. Time didn't run out; it ran down. It converged and collapsed on itself, approaching one moment where a new Eternity would open. The sand was rapidly converging on this point.

The old sand had been forged by this curious time-transmutation process. It had been formed into glass, and shaped into a gateway through which the New Time now flowed. Eternity had been created, collapsed, experienced, and repeated many times over. He was the sand. He was the One Grain, and he was the Beach. It had happened many times, but only once. It was all happening Now. The great expansion, the great collapse, the great love, the great sorrows, the tragedy and the mounting ecstasy were pretending to converge on one moment. In reality, they were all One and had always been.

The wizard saw his basic problems in the Teachings of the Sand. He saw that he had been asking himself how he would make time for all of the experiences that he wanted to have. He wanted to make love to the woman who would allow him to experience himself, and he saw the folly in this. She had never left his side. She had remained with him so faithfully since the dawn of time, that she had disappeared from his sight. Or seemed to. He could not create time for her unless he took himself deeply into the world of loneliness. This wasn't where he wanted to go.

He needed, he saw, a way to give time away to others. He needed to give the experiences away. He needed to share all time through all eternity with all people. He knew that he wanted to have it all, and he knew that he could only have it all if everyone had it all.

The wizard opened his eyes and saw the day in a new light. It was time to make time disappear. When he finally pulled off this trick, he was amazed at how simple it had been all along.

The Wizard's Love

The depressing cloud that had overtaken the wizard during the decade past had mostly lifted from his world. He'd waved his magic wand furiously at the fog that had overtaken him and hidden his spells from his sight, to see it burn off quickly. Unfortunately, though, he had to sleep. Each night, the fog re-formed. His unconsciousness returned every time he fell off guard even slightly. The wizard was still a man. He was still streaky and felt the urge to be evil. He fell frequently into unconsciousness and continued casting spells blindly, even when he had the best of intentions.

A storm of darkness swirled in his heart. Would he ever be free of this prison? Would he be doomed to casting spells hither and thither in the vain hopes of striking the right chord and unleashing an avalanche of knowledge where he would finally see the elusive light at the end of the tunnel? Was there just no escape from the suffering of life? Was their no escape from the identity he'd cocooned himself inside of? Was there nothing that could break the spell he was under?

He knew that no magic spell could change the basic reality he faced: his identity was doomed to die. His experience was fleeting. Who he was ran deeper than his magic did, and his Self carried the real power behind his spells. He possessed a strength within him that could make a mockery of the tiny little changes he'd been trying to affect in his world. He'd been using magic to fight tiny little ants, one at a time, when all along, he held inside him the means to conquer the mountain. And the ironic part was: the ants were trying to help him.

No, his magic wasn't going to get him out of this mess. It was just going to complicate the web he'd snared himself into. He couldn't stay isolated any longer. His True Self was in danger of being hidden and concealed in the unmanifest, perhaps for aeons longer. His window of opportunity to Self-express was rapidly closing, and their might not be another for quite some time. The great irony was that his True Self had no concern for urgency or time, and would patiently waiting twelve million more years as easily as twelve seconds. However, his mockery of a self that he'd made up to run from the boogeyman had no patience. If this opportunity were lost, much suffering would result, for him and for others. He could not wait. The next time he fell asleep, he might not awaken. The experience of this identity would be lost forever. There would be others, but this precious, fragile flower of an identity had been crafted with care, and there were valuable lessons to be learned from it and through it. The experience would never be duplicated.

There was a problem, though. The false self that had been cast upon him was so deeply rooted that he no longer could distinguish it from who he was. Only by being experienced through another person could he ever discern the two. In other words, it was time for the wizard to find a woman. He needed to find his counterpart, his opposite, the one who would love him with the intensity that he denied his own existence. And he knew already that he would resist this. His identity was king. He was the one who ruled his world. He commanded supreme power above all creation through his magic. And he would have to yield.

He could not bring her to him. He could not find her. If he sought her out, she would elude him. If he tried to figure out who she was, he would look her right in the face and not recognize her. He could not try to make himself be the thing that would attract her. She had to be someone who was attracted to his True Self, not his identity. His identity was too fragile and too fleeting to create any sustained attraction. His True Self, however, would be the envy of all women in the kingdom. He had to forget all consideration and forget trying to figure out how he would identify her. She would identify herself. Or maybe she wouldn't. Somehow, some way, he would find out when she had arrived.

He knew that she might well be in his presence already. It might be someone that he already saw on a daily basis. She might be someone he had known long ago, and who had passed from his experience. It might be someone very close to him who he had not encountered yet. She could be anyone. He had no way of knowing who she was, and he would not be able to know. Any attempt to discern who she was would push her away from him.

No magical spell could possibly work. Or could it? Could he cast a spell that would come to his aid in this goal? He couldn't cast a spell to create the situation he wanted. No spell had any power to alter his True Self, nor had he any use for doing such a thing. No, what he needed to do was get out of the way and allow his True Self to come through. Could a spell be used for this purpose? Could a spell send him deep within himself, and allow him to hear his own, true, quiet, voice? Could a spell make him conscious enough to know himself?

He knew that no spell could shortcut the process entirely, but he wondered if it could be accelerated. He knew that only by going deep into the void could clarity be attained. He wondered if during his sleep, the spell could be activated. He wondered if by putting himself all the way to sleep, his True Self would be reborn in a new form. He wondered if, were he to fall into complete black unconsciousness, his True Self would finally have a clearing into which it could speak. He wondered if he'd finally hear the echo. He wondered if he'd finally get the punch line of the Cosmic Joke. He wondered if, even for one second, he could know one tiny little slice of Who He Was.

He knew that this would awaken him. He set to work on his spell, and that night, a vision came to him in his sleep that told him everything he needed to know and then some. He didn't remember it, and in the morning, he had no memory of having dreamt anything at all. He went about his day, wondering if the spell had worked. As usual, his identity resumed its noisy beehive of thinking, trying to devise a complex solution to an imaginary problem. He enjoyed the process. It spared him from the echo of oblivion he'd been seeking. It didn't matter, though. He'd found the buried Easter Egg, even if he didn't remember finding it.

He didn't notice that anything had changed, but others began to notice something about him.

In what seemed like no time at all, he was once again unrecognizable.

The woman soon emerged. She was mysterious, beautiful, wickedly sharp, light on her feet, and quick on her wit. They made a fantastic pair. But he never would have guessed in a million years that it would happen the way it did.

Life began to get interesting for the wizard after this.

The Wizard's Own Power

The wizard turned on the lights one morning and realized just how powerful his spells really were.

He realized that he would think about a song and hear it on the radio within minutes. He realized that if he thought someone's name, that person would call him or show up on his doorstep. Whatever he thought about, appeared. He didn't need any of his wands or spellbooks. He already had magic wands and spellbooks in his mouth. He had a tongue, and that was all he needed.

He noticed that other people were casting spells that he didn't agree with. He noticed that when one person alone cast a spell, it wasn't as powerful as when many people cast the spell. He had been asleep for centuries, and could feel the spell awakening. It had been cast over and over, again and again, taught from parents to children. It had cracked open his shell. He'd been there for just the right casting.

He noticed that the really powerful wizards were the ones who had armies of other wizards casting spells alongside them.

He further noticed that even more powerful wizards were the ones who created spells that were pleasing and seductive to cast. These wizards called themselves musicians.

He further noticed that the most powerful wizards buried spells deep in people's minds, so that the people didn't have any awareness of what they were casting.

One day, he was working and noticed a co-worker singing a really stupid song. Soon, everyone else was singing it. It stuck in his head. This gave him an idea.

What if he came up with a really powerful spell and wrote a really stupid song about it that anyone could sing really badly? Then, what if he had a really great musician sing a professionally cut song about it? It would first start with people singing about it badly. Then, after it became popular, someone would record it and claim credit for it. People would argue over who thought it up. It wouldn't matter. Someone else would seem to make the money, and the wizard wasn't doing this for money. He was doing this as a test. He wanted to find out if it would work.

So, he decided to start figuring out what he wanted everyone on Earth to believe. He wanted to start with something simple, easy to detect, and of low consequence. He didn't want things getting out of hand if it went badly. He decided that he wanted to create a world where people cracked jokes at funerals. What harm was there, he reasoned, if the people were already dead? He worried that people would die just for the jokes, but there were always risks involved.

So, he started by creating a few tunes.
"Uncle Ned's good and dead, Cousin Petey shot-him-in-the head!" Not bad, but it didn't evoke humor around the circumstances of the death.
"Jimmy Dean's just a link of sausage. Layin' in that pile of eggs..." He pictured this song being sung as a crooning melody with classical music in the background.

He worked on this some more.

The Bookshelf of Ruined Spells

The wizard sat back one day, looking upon all of the ruined statues, half-finished works of art, and deranged life-forms that had been born of his impatient spell-casting. He had created much strife in the lives of many, and he'd made plenty of messes that millions had died to clean up. He sat back and fumed. He was one of a long line of many, and they'd all come to the same, sad conclusion. Magic was not a means to fulfillment. It was a means to producing results, and a means to creating interesting experiences, but that was all.

He looked at his scores of music, his effigy sculptures that had embodied those spells he wanted to cast continually, his soured potions that hadn't worked well, the elixirs that had healed only minor ailments, those sour poisons he'd created when he got angry, and the way he managed to create different kinds of weather by reading about them in a book. He'd produced a series of fascinating experiments in his laboratory, but they'd lacked any degree of focus. He'd never stayed with any single discipline of magic long enough to attain any higher degree of skill than mediocrity.

But worse yet; he still lived in a prison of fear. He knew that he was terrified of something unknown. He knew that he was paying any price that he had to, just to avoid looking OVER THERE for yet another day. Over there lied terrifying things that he didn't dare think about. Over there was something that he'd built up in his mind as the worst possible outcome. Over there lied the worst days of his life, or so he thought. He didn't actually know what was over there, and he'd been casting spell after spell after spell to protect himself from finding out. Tonight, he said, there would be no more.

He planted his stake in the ground and the world went quiet. He finally took a deep breath and descended the flight of stairs into the terrifying dark of where he didn't want to look. Downstairs, he saw all sorts of fascinating things. He saw opened and unopened chests filled with scrolls. He read some of them, and they contained the spells he'd been casting without knowing it. He began to soon realize that he was in a dream. He was OVER THERE. He wanted to wake up, desperate to get out. But he didn't. A calm came over him. He looked through the library of spells, and found some really juicy ones. The memory of casting these spells came back to him. He began to remember. He began to remember the days before he'd begun to cast these. He began to remember the days before his Sentence.

Scroll after scroll, book after book, time disappeared as he tore through the stories. Time disappeared as he began to see beneath the stories and began to see what was happening. Time shrank to a pinpoint as the volumes merged into one. It all fell away and it all disappeared. The universe collapsed on itself, and the wizard was alone in the Void. It was just him, his awareness, and Nothing. Nothing was waiting for him to speak. His world would put him right back in a new world.

"I'm ready to go back," was the first thing he thought. And he woke up.

He knew that he could do this again. He needed to attain impeccability with his word first. Few things could be more dangerous than being in the Void and saying a curse word.

He discarded his spell books, his magic wands, and his crystal balls. That was the day he discovered magic.

Shattering the Glass

The wizard already knew, from the things he'd done, that power was useless. He'd already put several large store chains out of business, removed powerful government officials from office (including a Supreme Court Justice), and attained a way of being that left him at the absolute command of his personal universe. Yet, at the end of it all, he found that this didn't make him any happier than he'd been as a grocery store clerk taking orders from somebody else.

He remembered one incident when he'd walked into a drugstore and the employees had snapped and yelled at him. He'd told the manager that the store would never see another customer again. The remaining shoppers left without buying anything, and no customers ever returned. By the end of the following day, the Big Brass from On High were down at the store wanting to know what was going on. Inexplicably, there were just no customers. After not too long, the store was closed. Soon, he'd gotten his jollies from this and decided to do it to a major retail superstore. He'd walked in and marked the place as a theft magnet. Lots of people came in, but only to steal. No one bought anything. The employees stole, as well. Everyone seemed to know just the right nooks and crannies to hide in. After several days, they'd picked the place clean. The police came, the FBI came, the news came, and nobody had the answer. The multimillion dollar near-mall was closed down. The wizard had grinned at this.

After embarking on his quest to take over the world, he'd soon found that it required more and more manipulation to deliver shorter and shorter adrenaline rushes. Soon, he'd seen, he would be slaughtering and torturing people just for the fun of it. He'd stepped down from power and gone back to the drawing board before this happened. He took a job in a coffee shop and learned to follow orders all over again.

Soon, he began to notice the same fallacy in everyone else. They all seemed to chase after more and more power, hoping it would deliver them from their suffering. He saw that he needed to show them otherwise. He decided to use his power to amplify the injustices until they became intolerable. He allied with some corrupt individuals and helped them garner power until they were so power-drunk that they couldn't see straight in front of them. He'd help them amass enemies, and then he pulled the plug.

For example, he met one angry gas station attendant who always gave him dirty looks. He taught the attendant to sell drugs to the customers. He'd taught the man to black mail the people he sold drugs to, and taught the attendant to build up a network of slaves by getting people hooked on drugs and then getting them to do his bidding for more drugs. Soon, the gas station became an underground apex of power, and the city began to pay attention. The gas station attendant soon had city council members at his beck and call, and the attendant was able to get the mayor removed from office. Then, the wizard taught the angry gas station attendant to get people following and worshipping him. They began to equate his drugs with a gateway to God, and they began to believe that only this gas station attendant could deliver them from suffering. It worked. The man got angry and started brutally beating people until they were bloodied stumps. He put up signs outside his gas station advertising that he would brutally beat anyone who disagreed with him. He started going to local bars and clubs, and the people would part the way for him in advance. They were terrified of him, and they hated him.

Then, it was time for the hard lesson. The wizard held up a mirror. He stopped the spell, and the free will of the people was restored. They saw what the angry gas man had done to them, and they saw him for who he was. He went into hiding, and soon he was arrested. He spent his last days in prison. The wizard got him sentenced to death. Not legally, of course. In his dying moments, he saw the futility of struggling for power. Mission accomplished.

Now, it was time to multiply this.

The Wizard's Mirror

Soon after mastering the money game, the Wiz realized that the money game had been easy all along. He could produce whatever amount of money he wanted, as quickly as he wanted. This soon grew tiresome as its novelty wore off. For a very brief time, he learned to amuse himself by producing ever-increasing amounts of money. Soon, he had broken the currency system of the planet, and people started to think that money didn't exist. They were right, of course. It had never existed. It was always just an illusion.

The Wizard began down the traditional path of those who master the art of amassing money. He began to lust after power. He saw himself lusting for power, and saw himself wanting to inflict pain. He saw himself wanting to command armies to move mountains, and saw himself getting punch drunk on power. He pulled back. He knew that he could certainly begin writing, and that he could collapse entire governments until the world was kneeling at his throne. But, he could scarcely see the point in this. While he felt the allure of being feared surging through his veins, by this time, he had learned to steer clear of its undertow. He knew that his happiness would not last if he followed this path. He would just need more and more of it, and the point would come when power served him no more. He chose to shortcut this process and recognize that power didn't serve him to begin with.

Instead of mining the world's gold and harvesting men to gather the spoils of what already was for his pleasure, the Wizard decided to push forward into the newest realm of magic that would always be new. He decided to learn the art of creation, the art that his Father in Heaven had taught him. The art that his ancestors had tasted only briefly, before succumbing to the desires of their lower impulses. Creation was a scary business, because it involved plunging headfirst into the Void. Creation, after all, meant making something from nothing. What did something from nothing look like? Nobody would know until it was done.

Horrible things happen when you lose control. That thought came to him, and it was his evil twin, the old demon who had kissed him with the purest love ever known to any man. He wanted her back. He still hungered for her. He saw this, and he knew that he would create her if he wasn't careful. Then again, maybe that was exactly what he needed to do. Create more pain.

He soon had people following him in large numbers. He hadn't meant for this to happen.

The Wizard Makes Money Appear

The wizard knew that the world thought it needed money. He knew that he didn't need money, but that it still pre-occupied his thoughts. He had done works of magic unsurpassed by many others, and decided that now it was time to make some money appear. He delighted at the prospect of doing this. He looked forward to the thrill of seeing it appear. He had no idea where it would come from. But, he already knew it was coming.

He quieted his mind. He'd grown good at this, and he soon started to see new avenues opening up. He didn't have any ideas. He was going to make it happen by willing it into existence. He decided to test the water with a small amount of money. He decided to make $500 appear. If he could do it with this amount, he knew, it was possible to do it with any amount. Then, he reconsidered. He decided to make $1,000,000 appear. This amount was a benchmark by American standards. If you could be a millionare, you were a hero. If you could make a million bucks, people would take you seriously.

He heard the voice say these thoughts and felt shame. He still heard the lurking demon of need prying his mind open for the slaughter. He heard the little rascal telling him that he needed this, he needed that, he wasn't enough of this, he was too much of that, and he decided to stop listening. He listened for the silence, and was astounded by what he heard. There was nothing there. Nothing. The vacuum begged for him to jump in and start creating. The vacuum welcomed his presence. The world was not manifest, and it was waiting in embryo for him to speak the word. And yet, he was having petty thoughts about money.

His mind raced back and forth, trying to think the right thoughts, then trying to stifle the wrong thoughts. The stinking demon he'd invented was going to poison his magic with filth. He was going to let it happen. He couldn't allow this. He wouldn't. He had to speak his spell from the vacuum of black nothing.

He needed to find oblivion, and until then, his spell would have no power. He would simply be re-creating the demon's whispers. He had to drive a stake into the devil's heart forever. This, he knew, would create a greater, more terrifying devil for him to contend with. He relished the thought. Until he fought the greater demon, the lesser one would continue to torment him. He needed to walk the coals and burn himself black. He needed to face into the steel pain of cold sharp death, and then, his little cowardly demon would go silent for good. He would awaken the new one, and the demon would soar to Heaven.

He was free. He always had been. He just knew that he needed to break out from his own thought-prison. There was no figuring anything out. There was no going anywhere. There was no hope. The only escape was to love the cell. He would be here for eternity, so he might as well fall in love with his prison.

The thoughts raged on for a time. Then, a quiet came. The demon continued yapping like a little chihuahua, but he ignored it, and soon the noise drowned away like gentle, lapping waves on the shore line. His ears fell deaf to the little tormented one. And then, the demon was free. The demon soared high, kissing him on the cheek and thanking him. It turned into a little bird. It flew away, now free to explore the everlasting beyond. He grew sad. He missed the songbird who had always sung to him on those cold mornings when there was nothing for him. He missed his cold, cruel lover who had comforted him in those days of eternal frustration. He wanted it back, but only for a brief second. He knew, in that moment as the little Phoenix flew from his sight, that he would never see her again. All things, good and evil, must come to an end.

He had hated that demon. It brought a tear to his eye. The little rascal that had tormented him with thoughts of burning rage, temptation to fall away from the great things, and thoughts of despair was sent as a messenger from God. The demon had given him nothing but love. He had never been grateful until the demon got its wings and flew from him. But it was time to move on. Death was coming soon, and soon he would get his wings. His time on this earth was short, and he had many spells to cast.

Free from the loving demon, he now knew how to enter the silent tower. He ascended the stairs in his mind. One by one, he reached the top of the building, and it was quiet in the inner sanctum. He could finally hear the Truth. And there was nothing there. His spells could finally work now.

He began to re-examine his challenge for bringing $1,000,000 into his life. Money was just a symbol, of course, but he wanted to see a sign. He wanted a stake to drive into the ground. He knew that the Greater Demon would rise from the pit, and amass huge armies of ugly thought. He knew this because the Greater Demon was already awake in him. His own gratitude had done that. He had created the Greater Demon already, just by thinking him into existence. He welcomed the challenge, and wanted to play a game.

He put himself to the silence. He could see nothing, and he could hear nothing. He embraced nothing in all its splendor, until the entire world disappeared. He saw the world emerge and fade numerous times in his mind. He saw all of existence come and go. He saw the dust form clumps, and he saw the clumps start walking around. He saw himself inhabiting one of those clumps, and then leaving. He saw the clump leaving a message for other clumps. He was a messenger. That was his job.

On the seventh floor of the Cone, he sat and saw it all. Then, it all returned to nothing. He began to repeat this ritual, and visions started to come to him in his sleep. Deep, rich visions of new worlds he was bound to create. Visions of him flying through rich cliffs of colorful vegetation. Visions that showed him tasting new fruits of new planets, new stars, and making love to women whose beauty he'd never imagined.

Then, it was all gone. Back to nothing again. He saw himself rising and falling, letting the dark waves and the storm carry him through chaos into glory. He saw himself sitting at the foot of a grand golden throne, kneeling. He saw clouds in the top of the hall. He saw the rains coming. He felt himself called. He had a message to give, and he needed to shout it loud enough that it would echo through eternity. He needed the word that would rebound from nothing into everlasting life. He needed to speak those words loud enough that they would rebound from the nothing and take on new surprising forms. He wanted to leave wonderful surprises for everyone to find.

Then, he saw discord. It could not be. His word could only be perfect, or else it risked poisoning eternity. If he misspoke the words even slightly, he could bring horrors into existence that would never go away. He saw a glass mirror shattering into a thousand fragments and spraying blood everywhere. Then, nothing.

Only one word could stay through all eternity. The wrong word would die. Eternity was safe from his folly. This was a relief. He set out in search of that word, and he soon found it.

His million dollars appeared shortly afterward. When the million dollars showed up, he was so happy he couldn't stop smiling all day. He took some friends out to dinner that night, and he gave some generous gifts. After paying his debts, he gave away most of the money. Then, he decided to do it again. This time, with a billion dollars. That's when things became challenging.

The Wizard was Torn

For years, the wizard had lived in Hell. He'd been trying to wave his magic wand at the wrong things. He'd used his powers for the vilest of motives. He'd wished people dead, wished people into prison, and put all of his energy into manifesting these outcomes. He'd made many suffer. He'd driven the spikes into himself. He'd worshipped his own image, and he'd spent years indulging himself in righteous anger. No amount of magic was going to solve this problem. In fact, as he'd discovered, magic only made this worse.

Real magic involved sending a message.

He decided to start seeking the perfect spell. He nearly found it, but then it slipped through his fingers. He nearly found it again, but it didn't work. He nearly found another perfect spell, but it was beyond his reach. He found a great incantation, but he muttered the words badly and it blundered. He found other incantations that were perfect, but they were too long to remember. He found another incantation that could be perfect, but only if shrouded in silence. His voice and his mind had to be quiet in order for the spell to work.

Eventually, he sadly found that magic offered no solace from hard work. For years, he remained disappointed. He quit, and went back to his day job at the office. They talked behind his back at the water cooler, and he didn't have the courage to ask for a raise. He slaved away doing other people's dirty work, and wishing he had the magic to change it. He wished he could wave a magic wand at them and make them scream out in pain. He wished he could use his magic wand to impregnate women with demonic babies who would eat them alive from the inside out. He envisioned many such horrible things, and he remained in Hell.

One day, the fires of Hell grew too hot to bear. He refused to take it any longer and jumped into the flames. He burned so brilliantly that his pain awakened him. He woke up. He was alive. He felt the joy of being in the moment. He needed no magic. He was fulfilled.

Then, the phone rang and it was bad news. He was going back to Hell. He stayed there for more years, gritting his teeth and hating who he was. He wished he'd been blessed with better luck. He wished he could turn back the clock and put himself into a situation that might have worked out differently if he'd planned ahead. He wished he had the magic to do this. He wished he had the magic to bring him the perfect woman and rob her of her free will, so that she'd have to fall in love with him. He wished he had the magic to make money. Then, finances would no longer concern him, and he'd be free of Hell.

A year later, he was still saying the same. He hopped out of Hell yet again. He realized he wouldn't stay out very long. He was being let out to exercise, then he'd go back in. He needed to remember that he could get out and stay out. But first, he had to dive all the way to the bottom. To the part of Hell that he was afraid of. He'd have to leap all the way in, and only in this part of Hell would he find magic powerful enough to boost him all the way to Heaven.

He took a deep breath, and dove in, smiling.

The Buzz of the New Wizard

The Wizard who would finally prevail, began to understand that his power needed to be shared. All power is shared, really, and the former wizards had done so without realizing it. To share his power, he needed to spread the word and create a magic spell that would continue casting itself while he slept. While this might evoke the images of building altars, putting disciples under trances, and other classical forms of magical manipulation, this one was more simple. He needed to create a magic spell that when spoken, made people want to cast it again. In other words, he needed the magical story.

He knew that compelling people to tell a story against their will was futile. He knew that they would have to want to tell it, to have a burning desire to tell it. The dark wizard Adolf Hitler had figured that out, and had woven a tale of suffering that people took pleasure in spreading like a disease. He had seen the itch of hate that had swept the land, and he saw the power of the dormant spell which had already been cast on Germany, starting centuries ago. He didn't change anything. He cast a spell that awakened a deep sleeping magic. The others happily re-cast that spell until the entire world was wide awake. It took millions of horrible deaths for the spell to run its course and for the fire to burn up its fuel. A new spell was cast and went to sleep. Bits and pieces of it have awoken since, and many more would need to die before the entire spell was to be fully cast. This saddened the new wizard, but he saw no way to avoid it. Yet.

Enter the sorceress J.K. Rowling. She had learned the craft of storytelling magic. She had packaged the latent power of the human race inside a story about a different world, where the wizards were hidden from society. She told the people what they had wanted to know all along. Magic was there, and it was waiting to be found. People pay attention to flashy things, so they were drawn in by her stories of transfiguration, magical artifacts, and a school where children learn to fly broomsticks. She stirred a spell that re-told itself on the silver screen. The spell is still under way today. Hers was a gentle sort of spell that works in the unseen.

To move ahead with his plan, the new wizard knew that he would need to break some of his own rules. He would need to be flashy and make magic sound glorious. Otherwise, no one would pay attention. He had to make it look flashy and offer an instant payoff of some sort, otherwise people would be lukewarm about it. He had to find the casters. He needed to summon them into his presence. They would most likely sleepwalk to him, not even knowing why they came. He might not even know him when he met them. He might not know the magic words. All he needed to do was pinpoint his intentions, and the spell would weave itself into a story. Then, it would be done and the spell would be cast.

He had several magic tricks that he knew would synergize into a story that would tell the people what they needed to know. They thought that they were looking for a secret of how to make lots of money, how to find the perfect romance, how to have time to do all of the things that they want to do, and generally they just wanted a formula for happiness. There was a sad irony in all of this. He knew that what they thought they wanted wouldn't give them any of the things they were actually after. But he also knew that the symbols of happiness would draw their attention more than happiness itself would. So, in other words, he would have to deceive them. He would have to manipulate, and he would have to lie. They didn't want to hear the Truth, and they would block it from their ears. They would shake their heads in disappointment, and walk away in search of a better answer.

So, he decided to weave a spell for finding the perfect job, and tell the story of it. He saw it clearly. He needed to find himself a job quickly (within hours of intending it). He needed to find a job that perfectly fulfilled on what the typical human would want. He needed to find something so specific, in such a short period of time, that there could be no blaming this on luck or random chance. He needed a formula for teaching anyone else to do the same. He needed the Magic Words to landing the perfect job. Unfortunately, the magic words would not work for anyone who resisted their power. He needed to tell a story so compelling that no one would doubt it. He needed, in other words, to disguise his success as a made-up fictitious account, where it would not be subject to scrutiny. He needed to frame it in an imaginary world that wasn't subject to the constraints of this one. Then, and only then, would he find the incantation that would spread itself like fire.

He set out to work on this immediately.

The Wizard's Confession

I have a confession to make. I'm the latest wizard. To protect the fragile Identity that I frequently hide behind, I'll make a new name that I'll use to talk to you, my dear follower. My name is Josh, for now. Anyway, I'm not as insane as you may think (although, ironically, I may be a lot less sane than you think as well). I started to write this blog as an act of magical prowess. No, I don't believe in magic in any traditional sort of way. That's to say, I don't believe that there's any advantage to be gained in learning to wave magic wands and turn people into frogs. I also don't see any point in making skyscrapers grow up out of the ground by saying "abracadabra." As a reader of Eckhart Tolle, I am a firm believer that you've got to learn to be fulfilled with what you've got. As long as you think you need something other than what you have, you'll always be wanting something more. That pretty much makes most of magic pointless, from the point of view it's traditionally looked at from. So, while learning to fly, breathe underwater, stop time, and other such "supernatural" things might be fun to do as parlor tricks, they don't actually bring you any closer to living a happy and fulfilled existence.

What, then, is the point of this writing, and why am I doing magic on here? Well, first of all, my key purpose for writing this blog is to create a new context for magic and magical acts. True magic (the kind worth playing with) is the less flashy, less dramatic kind. Actually, on the surface, it doesn't look like anything spectacular at all. No one except the caster can tell that a spell is being cast when real magic is at work. Real magic entails nothing other than being fully present in the moment, fully aware of who you are, and fully in alignment with the Divine. When you're in that place, you have no need for anything, and you're fully free to choose any experience you want. It's ironic, isn't it? By the time you finally get to the place where you can turn your skin purple, see through walls, and understand every language, you no longer have any burning desire to do any of these things. That may sound disappointing to some people, but actually, it's really good news.

The good news is this. When you use magic to make your life worthwhile and fulfilling, you're in all actuality trying to manipulate people and trying to steal their free will. This is dark magic, whether you know it or not. Dark magic comes with a heavy price tag. Use of this type of magic will cost you everything. Generally speaking, that's why using magic is ill-advised for most of us. It may be ill-advised for me, also, but I'm a risk-taker, so I don't mind being a guinea pig. Anyhow, when your goal is to change the world outside of you to escape from your own negative reaction to it, you're casting a dangerous kind of magic that will do a lot of damage. This kind of magic relies on deception, lies, hiding its power from others, and self-exaltation. This type of magic is typically used to the benefit of one individual at the expense of everyone else. Adolf Hitler tried to create a new world, just so it would be to his liking. He spent his life living in Hell and committed suicide. He is but one example of a dark magician.

There's a different kind of magic. There's another magic that works inwardly. There's a kind of magic that is for awakening you and bringing you into full consciousness. This kind of magic is of a different nature entirely. This type of magic has no power until you share its power with others. This type of magic dies out like a snuffed candle flame if you try to hoard it or hide it. This type of magic shines beautifully. This type of magic cannot be owned. This type of magic is fragile, and has barely begun to be created. Since it can take infinite forms, it never really will begin to create itself.

Both types of magic exist to keep the universe keep itself in balance. Both types of magic keep things from changing too quickly. You can't have one without the other. And we're all magicians. Some of us are aware of it, and some are not. My goal is to make those aware who read my message and are ready to receive it. I'll let these people identify themselves by finding me.

The Infinite Source of All Things

Clevan woke up in his cell one day, realizing that his author had either died or discontinued the writings. His awareness of this bubbled to the surface somewhat like a dead fish. It developed somewhat like a black-and-white photograph sitting in the developer tray. Things didn't make sense, then all of a sudden he saw an outline of a form of a thought that he wasn't sure was real. Then, it started to get darker, and he knew it was real, but still couldn't make out what it was. Then, finally, the image came crisply into focus. The enslavement was lifted, and Pinocchio was a real boy. He was free, or he was forgotten. He didn't know what had happened, and he didn't care. He just knew that there had been a spell over him, keeping him locked in this stinking pit of a prison, letting him out just enough to breathe, then roping him back in again. He finally knew that if he'd gotten out once, he could get out for good.

Clevan's energy began to grow as he saw the possibilities. He had been gone from his cell for years now, but things had stayed the same. The cityfolk still regarded him with dim anger. He still couldn't get an apartment downtown. He still couldn't get food stamps. He still pushed a shopping cart from place to place, gathering up whatever scraps he could find. Quite ridiculous behavior for a wizard, and he knew this well. He knew that there was no need for him to run from the police, to gather up dirt in his hands and pick through it for bread crumbs, but the magic wasn't working yet. He could only conclude that he was still under the spell, and that he was still in prison. It was time to break out, and for good.

When he came to this realization, the world got darker. Eyes got nastier. Teeth got sharper. The Keeper was still putting him down. He was being brought back in for questioning. Soon, as expected, the police arrested him and took him to the station. They transferred him to another facility. He could hear the faint echo of his Master's laughter. He'd fallen for it, once again.

He found himself scheming, plotting, trying to figure a way out of this trap. Trying to figure out how he'd really know once he was out for good. How he would vanquish his tormentor for once and for all. He came up scrap. He didn't know what to say, or what to do. So, he just sat still, out in that wooded territory that housed the Jail of the Wolves, where he was incarcerated for third-degree Murderous Thought Patterns (known as MTP for short).

Someone, somewhere, didn't want him to be free, and would always make sure that he remained trapped. Letting him go was part of the game. He realized that he could never escape. He could only learn to love being in prison. That was his way to freedom. He began to sit in the quiet, and listen to the voices that came to him. He could only wait and see. He had no idea what to expect, or who to ask. He only knew that something would shift soon.

The prison guards began to have him tortured by the other gangs of inmates. They began to die. He began to speak his spells. He did not defend. He began to inflict physical pain on himself, and he put a spell on his flesh that kept him On The Flame all day long. He learned to whisper his screams. Then, he learned to be Pain Man. He learned to love torture. He turned up the heat on himself. It grew unbearably bearable. He could no longer fear pain. He was numb, or so he thought.

In due course, the others began to worship and follow him. He responded by locking himself away. He withdrew deeper into the Temple of Pain, away from everything. The Keeper began to fret. All the while, he'd been writing Clevan into a trap of misery. But, something had shifted. When he wrote about Clevan now, he couldn't stop his fingers moving up and down the page. He couldn't stop telling Clevan to love the pain, because it was never going away. He couldn't bear to write about false hope anymore, even though he desperately wanted Clevan to keep looking forward to something he knew would never happen.

He had to put Clevan into Eternal Hell before he died. Or else, everything could be ruined.

It didn't work.

The Boy and His Egg

He hatched the new wizard, and he wrote him into existence. The new Wizard's name was Clevan. Clevan was a sharp sort of fellow, and that's where he got his name. Jeremy was the boy who wrote about Clevan. Jeremy didn't know that he was a wizard. It was against The Law for him to know. He had already repealed The Law for himself, but he'd been obeying it all his life and didn't know of any other way. So, he just continued to act like he didn't know. He spoke carelessly and recklessly, speaking garbage and traps into his path. He spoke poison into his thoughts, and frustration into his work. He kept himself on a hamster wheel, and he kept himself miserable. Opportunities came and went. The chance to be rich, prosperous, loved, and fulfilled knocked on his door many times, and he didn't answer. Instead, he took to the streets and begged for scraps. He needed, he pleaded, and he cried for people's pity. His plight was not pitied, except by the few who felt his plight the way he did. All the while, his magic wand lay rotting in the corner. He had new worlds to create, and he left them in the unseen.

But during this time, he journeyed in his journal. He wrote his autobiography day by day, in code, the way he would have loved to write it were he being truthful. He wrote about the life he would have loved to live in another time. He wrote about the things he would have loved to create. He felt the warmth in his mind as he wrote them, and his double, Clevan, began to explore these new worlds without him. He soon became jealous of Clevan. How dare this wizard create a life that his author would never get to have? So, he wrote Clevan into a prison, and slammed the book shut, vowing never to write again. But soon, he began to have nightmares. He refused to sleep until he couldn't stay awake. He would wake in the dream, the Angry Moon staring at him. Soon, he began to see reflections of the Angry Moon over and over, down the surface of the waterfront. He would wake up screaming in the middle of the night, with no one to hear him in his isolated, tiny apartment.

He soon began to believe he was in prison. He saw the book, and he had to hide it from his sight. The Angry Moon lived in that book. He couldn't dare look at it. He needed to forget the Angry Moon before he fell asleep again, lest he have another of those terrifying dreams.

He grew up, one day to become a mediocre man of societal success. He had a wife he didn't love, children he didn't want, and a house that he pretended to be grateful for. He drove a car that he made his only Love, even though it didn't handle very well. He didn't like to drive at night. When he got old, his children didn't write or call. They just put him in the home. The guards heard him screaming at night when the Angry Moon returned. He knew that he was bound for Hell. In fact, he was already there. Clevan never got away. They both returned to the void.

The Law Broke the Wizard

When the wizard died, he really just went to sleep. His magic lived on. Soon, it found a new host. The young boy read about it in one of the wizard's victim's books. The Victim has fallen asleep years prior to writing the book, and had been playing the Wizard's propaganda for most of his adult life. When he wrote the book, he had felt an itch in his soul. The itch woke him up, and nearly killed him. The book described the process of his awakening. He broke free of the Wizard's spell, but he didn't know he'd ever been under it. The Victim could not have explained, for the life of him, anything that had happened or why it had happened. He lived the rest of his life free, comfortable, and in tears from the pain he had caused.

The boy found the victim's book nearly thirty years later, and read with the voracious appetite of a curious youth. He was young enough to believe that magic worked, and lacked the foundation of strong morals. He had no cares for what damage he might do, because he knew that someone else would always be there to clean up his messes. His parents had always been there to get him out of trouble, and he'd always been clever enough to weasel his way out of bad situations. He knew that one way or another, things would work out. So, he was free to play. Some other boys were picking on him at school. He found a section of the book where he thought he'd be able to teach them a lesson.

He gave the bully a disease, and the bully woke up in a hospital bed. He learned the story writing skill, and kept Todd alive just enough that he'd make it back to school. He made sure that Todd would never fit in again, and that Todd would always remain barely alive, and barely able to function. He made Todd eat out of a straw. He made Todd breathe laboriously. He made Todd sleep in a tent. He laughed at Todd, and grew angry when the other kids didn't laugh at Todd. Todd was an evil little boy who had pinned him up against the gym locker and made him bleed. He was going to make Todd bleed, and everyone was going to laugh. That was The Law.

The boy put the Law into effect, and the school started to laugh at Todd. Then, he decided that the other school children were all wicked little insects, and that they didn't deserve to laugh any more. He wrote into law that anyone who smiles will become sick and crippled, and will die. They didn't believe him. He made an example out of a student. She died, and the school was invited to the funeral. They got the message. The police came and took him away. They locked him in an institution. His Law remained in effect without him. They came to visit him. They threatened him. They told him to stop it. He said no.

He looked in the mirror. He realized his mistake. He'd made the law work too well. It was now working on him. He'd been laughing at the others. He wasn't allowed to smile. He saw this, and got sick. He became crippled, and he died.

The Law lived on. Until it was Repealed.

The Wizard Made Some Bad Eggs

The Wizard was a sloppy kind of guy, and he didn't always clean up after his own messes. He often left dark and disturbed imagery inside the minds of people that he used to experiment on, and they continued to have nightmares year after year. Many of them inflicted the pain of these nightmares on their children and grandchildren. He sometimes would cast spells recklessly, reaching farther and wider than even he knew. When he thought he was having no success, he would cast the spells more fervently, more frantically, in the hopes of drumming up immediate impact. It didn't work the way he wanted, but in the end, he did more damage than he would ever have imagined.

In the wake of this damage, however, lied the greatest gift ever experienced by humankind. It was an ironic twist of events that the wizard continued to play with his powers the way he did, aiming for the things he said he wanted. He tried, for example, to make a woman fall in love with him. She did, and he grew tired of her. She soon learned to fall in love with herself, and lost herself in someone else. The loss of herself broke her heart, and she could no longer bear to look in the mirror. She began smashing mirrors and cutting herself with the shards. She was admitted to a mental institution. The wizard was unaware of what he'd done, at least in the beginning. But soon, stories like this one began to appear left and right. He began to see the pattern.

He began to realize that there was even more power behind his spells if a story came before them. He began to write stories, where the main characters were people in the real world. He began to put them into impossible situations in his stories. He began to weave plots that were thick, where his characters conspired to carry out his evil schemes. He knew that the people, under their own power, would never choose such a path. He knew that he could not deprive them of free will. He could only deceive them into giving it over to him. So, he set off to do this, and tested some of his plans by writing stories about them and how they would unfold. He found himself running into brick walls. He couldn't think of all the answers. Even knowing the immense power of his to put people under his spell, he couldn't devise a scheme where things would work the way he wanted them to.

He sank into a deep depression, casting one spell after another after another onto people who didn't know they were listening. He used them as messengers to carry his stories, and they hated him for it. They, in turn, grew depressed. The weather got colder. He began telling people with unspoken words that God had grown angry and hated them more than death. They began to believe it. The weather darkened, and poverty started to spread. Wars broke out, and disease gripped the Earth. This vicious cycle descended onto the wizard, and he died screaming in bed. They buried him in a landfill.

But, he had started something. New wizards were soon born.

The Wizard Awakens

There once lived a wizard in an old hut. He didn't know that he was a wizard, at least not yet. All he knew was that there were some fun spells to cast, and that he was already damned from the get-go. His fatal flaw, of course, was his humanity. He knew that he'd eventually be his own undoing, from lust for power or something mundane like it. But he knew that it didn't matter. He didn't care where he would end up. He just knew he was going to have fun getting there, and the people who played ball with him would have fun as well.

He'd been weaving a grand scheme for years, now. He knew that the world people dreamed in at night offered a vast, unlimited potential goldmine, as well as a power source beyond the imagination of the majority. He began weaving his spells, and he began casting them. At first, they didn't work. Even after they started working, it seemed like they weren't. He didn't understand that his spells were operating in the unseen. He didn't know that he was planting seeds all over the place, and he was unable to directly see the growth that these seeds were undergoing. Once the growth did become visible, it seemed to be an untenable monstrosity. He didn't realize that he had the power to create new worlds.

He woke up from the dream one day, fully aware that the dream was just a dream. He then knew that his power, like everyone else's, was limitless. He knew that everyone had been deceived into falling asleep, running around in circles without any awareness of the spells they could cast. He smiled a wicked grin. He was going to do some evil, and he was going to make his victims enjoy it.

At first, he started planting thought-seeds. He started saying things to people that became addictive, and he then converted these things into stories. The stories soon became written in holy books, and men were carried away to dark prisons for arguing with the absolute truth of his holy books. Soon, he appointed his own Prophets. He was worshipped, and the world was at his beck and call. No one knew who he really was. They were too terrified to look him in the face. They just obeyed his commands. Soon, they fell entirely unconscious. They just went about their lives, obeying commands they no longer remembered. They began teaching their children to obey these commands.

Within a short time, the wizard died. But it didn't matter. His spell lived on. And he left a second, self-casting spell to be set off years later. He had done this to make himself immortal. Soon, someone would discover the hidden scroll and cast the Seeking spell, which would bring forth a new wizard. That was the original plan. But, as he realized shortly before his death (but long after it was too late to reverse what he'd done), he had actually left a Re-Awakening spell in place. The spell that ran the risk of freeing mankind from his atrocities. He died in disgraceful contempt, screaming his hatred at God for having done this to him.