Mistification (Angry Robot)

by Kaaron Warren

  "The crow, in ancient Egypt, symbolised discord, strife. Trouble.

  "The swallow was present at the death of Jesus Christ, and is thus tainted. The bird circled the cross crying "Svala! Svala!" which means "Console! Console!" (though how a Scandinavian bird, or a speaker of a Scandinavian tongue to translate the bird, came to be in Calvary I'm not sure). It has been called a swallow ever since. In Rome, though, a swallow is considered lucky when it builds about your house, because it is sacred to the household gods.

  "But," said Marvo, "do not kill a swallow thinking this will save you. All this will do is bring bad luck upon you."

  He pointed at a child in the audience, a bird-like and timid boy who had been making nervous cooing sounds since Marvo began. The boy swallowed, and swallowed again compulsively.

  "Do not mimic the birds," said Marvo. He waved his arm and the boy sank into his seat, breathing loudly, angry and embarrassed. He shook off any helping hands, his timidity vanished. "The owl, the cuckoo and the sparrow also have evil reputations. The owl because, when Jesus Christ wanted something to eat, he went to a baker's. She put a large loaf into the oven for him, but her penny-pinching daughter said it was too big. She tore it in half. But the loaf grew and grew enormous! And the daughter turned into an owl.

  "If you sleep in and hear the cuckoo's first note, bad luck for you and your family.

  "Don't ever catch a sparrow and keep it in a cage, or misfortune will fall on all in your house."

  The children loved the magical birds. They were quiet, stunned. He told a joke.

  "If I shot at three birds in a tree, and killed one, how many would remain? No one knows? No one can guess? None: they would all fly away."

  The two boys who hated birds laughed, coughing. They had forgotten the birdseed.

  After the show, children flocked to the stage, wanting Marvo to sign their tickets or their school books. He winked at Andra, packing up their equipment, and she smiled at him.

  "Good show, good show!" the promoter said. He was beaming; he knew he'd signed a winner.

  Andra said, "We'll have something amazing for you before too long. Something to do with a fish tank and pure magic."

  A young woman came up to Marvo but was too shy to speak.

  "Did you enjoy the show? And your children, did they enjoy it?" he said.

  "I don't have children. I brought my little brother." It was a boy who had watched entranced.

  "I have a puzzle for you," she said.

  Three People

  There are three people in an office; one is three years older than the next, who is twice as old as the third. How old is the youngest worker? How does this age difference affect work in the office? Where does the youngest person eat lunch whilst the older two are discussing children?

  #

  "I can't answer it, but I can solve it," said Marvo. He sent a young co-worker into the office so the young woman was no longer lonely.

  The children dispersed as their parents collected them.

  One mother was left standing at the door, peering in.

  "Show's over, friend. It was a beauty! Sign up for the next one, front row seats, buy now and I promise you that," the promoter said.

  "I'm looking for my son. Have all the children come out?"

  Andra sucked in her breath. Marvo remembered the third boy, the one who'd disappeared.

  "They are all out," he said. "All gone."

  Before the next show, a detective came to investigate the disappearance of the child. Marvo said, "There is a woman who is obsessed by me. I gave her time for a while because I felt sorry for her, but then she started to talk about my audience inappropriately so I asked her not to come to my shows any more. I wish I'd done more. That boy might be safe now if I had. Her name is Doctor Reid. Will you stay for the show?"

  The detective watched the magic show and told Marvo a puzzle of his own.

  "A wet operation is what the Soviet KGB used to call murder. That's a clue to what the story is about."

  A Wet Operation

  There were four friends, who grew up together. Alan, Brian, Charlie and Peter.

  Alan, Brian and Charlie, while not actually failures, had not had the successes that Peter did. This fact they bemoaned often, at work, in pubs, to anyone who'd listen. They were so well known for their opinion about Peter, that he had taken all the good luck and if he hadn't been around, they would have been the lucky ones, that when he was found murdered (stabbed to death with a dagger, sliced and cut in a ritual, ancient way) the three men were immediately suspected. In fact, one of them is definitely the guilty party. These are their statements.

  Alan:

  1. I hadn't seen Peter or had any contact with him for a week before his unfortunate demise

  2. Everything that Brian said is true

  3. Everything that Charlie said is true

  Brian:

  1. I have never handled a dagger

  2. Everything that Alan said is false

  3. Everything that Charlie said is false

  Charlie:

  1. Alan was talking to Peter just before he was killed

  2. Brian has handled a dagger

  3. I have for a long time thought more of Peter than is generally realised

  I can give you this clue now: Alan and Brian both made the same number of true statements. This number can be anything from zero to three.

  Who killed Peter?

  #

  "I can figure out who killed Peter, but I don't know where that Doctor Reid is. But find her and you might find the boy. Beyond that I can't help you."

  Using the lesson that magic, religion and science can be used as an excuse for terrible events or actions, Marvo solved the puzzle and thus provided the detective with the killer.9

  Marvo settled that magic, pure magic, illusion, mist and tales, was the path he would follow, and relaxed his search for learning. He began to talk to people for other reasons. He wanted to learn about being a person; he did not have that lesson. He began to seek the stories which would teach him how to live. He began to trust Andra to teach him the ways. She had so much to teach him. She was so successful in her work. Her success gave him the direction to seek an answer to one of his questions. He found that understanding something in another's life helped answer the mysteries of his own. He realised that Andra had faced danger in her life and it had given her the desire to live and fight. Andra had faced her dangers in the world, Marvo faced his in the room.

  The room of his childhood was built by an ancestor who accepted the world to be a dangerous place. Other magicians had spent their youth or old age in the room. It was a secret room away from the world, protected by spells. Why was food not supplied? Because lessons and dangers must be learnt. Once Marvo and Andra joined each other, they both became powerful.

  On the promoter's books there was also a dance troupe. They did beautiful work which held Marvo enraptured. He sought out a member of the chorus, because he felt nervous of the principal dancers. She told him a story.

  Dancer

  European folk dancers leap high to make crops grow tall. They leap and dance, their heels lifted high, their arms upstretched for greater height.

  Only the special ones can dance in this way. Not only the young. There is one old woman who leapt until she was eightysix, until she had lived twenty years longer than the oldest man. She leapt, the highest leap anyone had seen, then she sank into the mud and did not rise again.

  That year the crops grew so high, travellers came to see. They rested overnight, paying for the privilege with trade. Some would pay with a tale, or a recipe using scraps.

  Some stayed, wanting to enjoy the boom period. They brought skills of farming and language, and they settled and joined and gave children to the place.

  The old woman was buried in the mud where she fell. In the years to come, through boom and bust, always on that patch of ground was wheat, tall and healthy.

  People would take husks of that wheat and keep them as
good luck charms.

  Dancers would come for strength and empowerment.

  #

  With this story of an ancient ancestor, he learnt that while old age is weak, very old age is powerful magic. It was better to die young than middle-aged. It was best to die very, very old.

  Marvo gave the dancer light feet and the ability to fly. By so doing, he lost someone he could talk to, because the dancer's talent became overwhelming and she moved to a bigger city, to a life which didn't include Marvo. He tried to win her over by talking about the world's most amazing trick, something Andra was creating. The fish tank, she called it.

  The dancer wasn't interested.

  Marvo and Andra went to the memorial service for the boy who had vanished during their show. It was unfair; the kid would have hated it. There were flowers everywhere, and all white, so everyone knew he was a virgin. Marvo spoke to a lady at the church who guessed he was the magician. She said that she listened to his voice, and got the clue that way. She told him about her first memory.

  The Sound of Your Voice

  My first memory is aural. I was born as the clock chimed twelve and I remember all twelve bells. The moon was full the night I was born. I feel sometimes I was born counting; sometimes I start counting to twelve without thinking.

  My sense of hearing is very fine. Many people have a sense of smell which excites memory. They smell a flower and think of a certain flower bed. I hear the sound of a flower being picked and I think of being in the garden with my mother as she wandered through, plucking and smelling flowers. I can remember a sense of well-being, though this was my first clairvoyant experience. I followed my mother around, the well-being strong, but I also saw flowers atop her still body.

  "Why will you lie down? Why will you hold the flowers?" I said. She laughed. I was only five or so, and my mother loved to laugh. She laughed at the silly things I'd say, though they weren't silly to me. I questioned and guessed at answers, like any five year-old. The sound of my mother's laugh; I hear it occasionally. In trains or at parties, and I turn to find her, but it's never her. It's always a beautiful woman, laughing at some puppy companion. In that split second though, when I hear the laugh, I forget my mother is dead. She died before those flowers she picked wilted in their glass; a sudden and shocking attack of asthma.10

  I did not witness her death; I was out playing house in the cellar across the road. We only emerged because my friends' brother came down to show us a dead bird.

  "Better watch out, girls," he said. He was much older, and cruel. He loved to scare us.

  "Someone's gonna die real soon. It flew against the kitchen window and flopped down dead. One of you is going to get it."

  Only years later, when I had learnt about guilt and regret, did I wonder how he must have felt about my mother, about predicting her death. Perhaps he was born on a chime hour too, like I was. A seer.

  People tried to make me feel bad. "If you'd been here, you could have called for help," they said. But what happened was inevitable. If I had saved her then, she would have been killed some other way.

  #

  Marvo had an affair with the lady, unbeknownst to Andra. It was not a sexual affair. He gave her a week of his time. At the end of seven days, they bought fish and chips and sat on the beach to eat them. Marvo loved the feel of sand. He had not felt contrasting textures in the room of his childhood; he never tired of touching rough surfaces.

  "The best way to keep your man faithful is to keep a fish in your vagina till it dies. Then you should feed it to your man. He'll never leave you, that way," he told her. Marvo smiled at her and kissed her fingers with regret. He knew people would believe what they want to believe, and she would like to believe she lost him because of her lack of magic. He left her on the beach to think about her future, and he decided he would not give time as a reward again.

  Marvo became adept at looking beyond the image. He was blind when he entered a room with Andra – it was a party to celebrate the end of the theatre week. The cast and crew were there.

  "I know what it's like to be alone," said one young woman. "The most alone you can be is not to have any parents. Both my parents were dead by the time I was born."

  The others in the room exchanged glances. She was young and she was drunk. She was not worth listening to. If she felt these old people would take the place of her parents, her hurt would be great.

  Marvo moved closer to her voice. "What do you mean?" he said. "How is that possible?"

  "I'm not from around here," she said. She took his hand. Her eyes were watery. She was truly drunk. Marvo was blind but he could hear the tears splashing in her eyes. "I can't even visit their graves, because a football stadium has been built over them."

  "So soon?" said Marvo. He had no reason to disbelieve her tale. People rarely lie when drunk. "You're so young – did they build the stadium so quickly?"

  Born Alone

  My parents died over a hundred years ago. My father believed the world could only improve. So he preserved an egg furnished by my mother and fertilised by him, and he established a foundation for my birth when the technology appeared. People thought he was insane, just as they think Walt Disney is insane, expecting to be woken up and cured.

  When I was born, my parents were long dead. All that remained was the thesis he left to me in his will, and a large amount of money, growing over many decades.

  #

  Marvo nodded and wondered if, with such a remarkably resilient and lonely birth, the woman was a magician. But there was no sign. No truth. Marvo gave her a clever disguise. He changed her gait and her voice, he dimmed the intensity in the woman's eyes. He left the mist around her ears, to soften the features and steer her safely through life.

  He pretended to be the blind man. He closed his eyes and saw pale blue eyes, a crossroad. The vision calmed him, made him feel less responsible. He was truly blind, but he knew the people stared at him. He caught the bus without any difficulty, and knew when his stop was. He let people help him, hold his elbow, but he did not need their help. He always sat in the seat that faced the rest of the passengers, the one sighted people hated because everyone looked at them. He was used to it.

  Marvo did not really enjoy being the blind man but it was necessary. He had to remember the blackness, the not-seeing, in order to drop the mist. It was very important.

  It was good to be blind sometimes.

  There was a blind pensioner who could tell if a woman was a virgin by a touch of her hands and nails, their odour. He was not tricked by wedding rings – he always got it right.

  The pensioner had a hand fetish. He could never touch enough soft hands; and a virgin's hands are always soft. No matter how old the woman was. Something about sex turned a woman's hands hard.

  Marvo's magic wand could stretch or shrink, depending. When he was blind it became a walking stick. If he was nervous it became a placebo cigarette that did not burn. It was always white, though.

  It could be pointed like a stake. He had played a trick on a man once, as a favour to the man's ex-wife. Followed him silently as he walked the beach. Was he thinking of his angry ex-wife or of his quiet, beautiful lover? Marvo walked besides the man's footprints, pressing his walking stick deep into the reverse arch of the indentation. It was a good trick; the man was crippled in an accident later on. But it was a very good story too. The woman had told him a good story and he had decided to play this trick for her.

  They Came at Night

  They came at night and marked time on the outskirts of the city. Their presence was felt.

  "The men are here. The men!" The city's people had been prepared, but not for such an onslaught. Women are not as violent as men, so the citizens were not ready to kill and maim. They would, though. Anything was worth it to keep their city of women alive, unsullied.

  We ate chocolate by the handful, all of us craving the sweetness.

  The children were hidden underground. The women made themselves ugly, splashed animal blood on
their faces, shit and piss and vomit on their bodies. They made themselves unattractive.

  The men moved in. It was a pride lust that motivated them. But the women had more to fight for, and they won. Once more their walls were safe. They could never look each other in the eye again. The things they had done. The slit throats and broke necks, they strangled the skinny ones. All of that was necessary. But they tore off the men's clothes, too. The whimpering men. And they anally raped them, with long sharp anythings. The children jumped on the men's stomachs with spiked heels. They were cruel, vicious, bloodthirsty.

  They moved away one by one and the history was forgotten. Word was spread that a disease had killed the enemy men, a cruel, vicious, bloodthirsty disease.