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Welcome to the Night Theatre, the place where one escapes the clamour of life for a night's worth of relaxation. There are no guarantees on the quality of the film; Hands, Flora and everyone else work on a time crunc...
The phone's speaker crackled with movement. Perhaps they were preparing dinner in the kitchen. The magician envisioned his family. He had a photo of them stuck beside his dressing mirror, always, but they were just that--a picture frozen in time.
A sniffle. Then, "Dad, are you still there?" This was their younger son.
"I'm here. How's school for you?"
"Boring." He lowered his voice. "I wish school taught us magic tricks like you. But is it true? Maya said that you wouldn't come home even if Victor and I made cards. So Victor ripped them up. That's why I want you to teach me again!! The trick where you glue back the cards like they're brand new! Or the sleight of hand one where you take stuff without noticing! That way Maya won't steal our stuff."
The magician untangled his son's onslaught of ideas. He chose the easy route and grasped the semblance of a connection. "The trick takes practice, kiddo. Besides, magic should be saved for the stage. I don't think your teachers will appreciate making your homework disappear."
His son huffed. "I'm not young anymore! I can handle it. When are you coming back, Daddy?"
Coming back? Coming back? He'd abandoned his dreams once; he wasn't going to make the same mistake twice.
"I can't," he sighed. "There's so many things going on. Just know that Daddy loves you, okay? Wherever he is, he's always thinking about you."
"Hey!" the son yelled from the other side of the phone.
There was some rummaging. "Come on Dominic, stop babying Dad. If he doesn't want to come home, then he doesn't care enough to do so. Help us in the kitchen for once."
"But it's important!" Dominic's shrill scream hurt the magician's ears as much as it pulled at the seams of his heart.
"Our lives are more important! It makes me sick seeing you care for someone who doesn't give a shit about us!"
Maya and Dominic launched in a screaming match that abruptly ended with a slamming door.
When the magician's wife spoke, he was reminded of the old, simpler times when they'd speculate about the future. They would dream big dreams, but it only one of them had taken them seriously.
"Come home, dear, or don't ever bring up those empty promises again. I'm tired of you wrecking the household when you're not even here."
The line cut short. The magician stared at his phone screen like so many of the volunteers who'd come up on stage, astounded by the feats of the Illusionist. That reminded him to start packing up for tomorrow's performance in the next city. Each object seemed to weigh twice as much as they should. The fabric of his cloak sparkled like cheap dollar store glitter. His doves weren't his graceful companions, only noisy animals needing to eat and poop.
He missed the thrill of being on stage, like your veins were rushing with sparkling champagne. It was an art, a skill, a reality he'd forged for himself. But no matter how ingenuous his new tricks were, he could never figure out how to make his problems vanish with a sleight of hand.
And that concludes this short story.
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