Smoke and Mirrors

Bensiabel has never seen an illusionist, though he knows an illusion is some sort of trick. “A tired trick, they use mirrors and ropes and draw your attention away while they flash their capes and do ‘magic’ on stage,” his father has always told him.

He has mixed feelings upon entering the Illusionist’s tent.

The space smells of velvet and embers, but also faintly of wisteria perfume. There is a star studded black platform in the centre of the tent, white chairs circling it in three rings. Merry flames dance in candelabras around the interior perimeter of the tent, casting shadows on the empty stage.

Bensiabel takes a seat and awaits the illusionist. He runs his fingers along the seam of his jacket, combs them through his hair, and stifles a yawn while he sits. He is about to rise when the curtain of the tent is pushed aside and an ebullient group emerges from the shadows. They sit in the front row, quite near Bensiabel though still a few chairs away. He catches snippets of conversation while he waits, hearings half-descriptions of tents he has no seen, and recommendations of paths to take or delicacies to taste.

The conversation dies to a low murmur, voices low as though the boisterous party has suddenly become solemn.

It is unclear to Bensiabel at first why the tent appears to darken, until he realizes the flames topping candles around them are dying down.

In the dim light voices rise again, first out of wonder and bemusement, then out of confusion and slight fear. His own heart is beating so loudly in his ears he can barely hear them.

In the centre of the platform stage a white light is raising, a wisp of smoke with a gossamer glow.

The smoke increases and the light darkens, like a light shining through the black smoke rising from a fire. The smoke bursts suddenly across the platform, sending cinders cascading over the stage’s edge.

The smoke clears, revealing a figure standing in the centre of the stage, a young woman with ebony hair piled on her head under a stiff black top hat.

She wears an oversized black coat that hangs on her narrow shoulders.

She extends her arms, creating a rippling wingspan of black silk, and then shrugs the coat off, letting it fall unceremoniously to the ground.

The illusionist removes her top hat and bows/makes a dramatic bow.

Beginning from the bow, in which she straightens, holding a pearl earring in her hand that causes a patron several rows back to gasp and put a hand to her ear where the pearl is no longer, the performance is continuous.

The pearl shatters into sparkling white sand that hovers in the air as it floats down. The patron to whom the earring belongs to seems too stunned to exhibit anything but dazed disbelief.

The illusionist steps forward, reaching out a hand to a member of the audience in the front row, a young man who cannot tear is gaze from hers as she wraps a length of white ribbon around his hand. When she unwraps it, the trinket sits in the palm of his hand.

The earring intact, a luminescent drop of pearl once more.

At another point in her performance she curtsies lowly, taking the opportunity to retrieve her black coat and drape it elegantly across her shoulders once more. At first it is not noticeable, only a small flicker of heat radiates from the fabric, as though amplifying the warmth of her skin. When she removes the coat, small flames are dancing across her skin, increasing in height and becoming more blindingly bright with each passing second.

Several patrons move forward, ready to smother the flames with their coats, one patron picks up her own bolero jacket from the chair. She smiles calmly as the fire licks further up her arm.

The fire begins to move as though in synch, swirling in one direction or another, leaping in arcs of sparks, landing on her shoulder or in her palm. Yet is does not burn her.

Each act following is continuous, melding together into a thread of magic and impossibility. Bensiabel rubs his eyes so many times, to assure himself what he sees is real, and pinches himself so often, to be sure he is not dreaming, that is is almost sore by the end of the performance.

She reads the twinkle in their eyes, the delight and disbelief, conjuring creations and wielding light to enchant her audiences.

At one point his chair begins to rise, hovering inches above the ground. His toes brush the ground as he clutches the sides with unease. The chair stops only a foot above the floor, and even digging his fingers into the velvet of his seat, Bensiabel feels weightless.

Later, the illusionist presents a silver hoop , turning it in her hand as though its rotation brought it into existence, from thin air.

She passes her hand through the hoop, flourishing it with showmanship and revealing there are no strings. She passes it to a man who grasps it, to prove its solidity. She holds the hoop out, flat in the air, and removes her fingers. The hoop stays suspended in the air.

Slowly the hoop begins to spin, rim flipping over rim, gaining speed until it is a silver blur in the air.

She reads her audiences like books, feeding from their reactions, responding with enchanting tricks and mysteries.

A second hoop appears, midnight blue and spinning in the centre of the silver sphere, rims flipping perpendicular to those of the first hoop. The hoops slow, so they can be seen as individual circles rather than blurs, and now a third hoop, ebony black, spins around the second hoop.

Bensiabel watches closely, looking for strings tied tightly around the moon-coloured rims, and when they begin weaving in and out of each other, growing and shrinking in size, he begins to think perhaps they aren’t being held up at all.

While the hoops levitate, the illusionist spins in a circle, smiling alluringly at the audience. Bensiabel grins back and is rewarded when her smile grows. She tips her hat, mostly in his direction, before stepping toward the hoops. They slide over her head, settling around her waist, hips and shoulders. They begin to spin, passing through her as though she is made of water.

Several audience members look around the perimeter of the tent, as though the real illusionist is hiding in a darkened corner, the one on stage simply some strange distorted reflection.

The hoops shatter, disintegrating into sparkling dust that blooms like a silver tempest, and drifts through the air. It settles on an empty stage, the illusionist has vanished in a whirl of silver dust and black silk.

The audience members wait several seconds, some full minutes, before deciding the show must be over. They slowly rise, musing over this and that feat as they file out the door at the side of the tent.

During the mass exodus Bensiabel looks over the stage, finding no edges of trap doors or uneven floorboards. He spots a feather, white and under a glittering layer of dust, in the centre of the stage.

It must have fallen from her hair, unnoticed by the preoccupied audience and performer.

He is unsure if he should go on stage to retrieve it. He looks toward the tent door but the last of the patrons are not watching him.

Quickly he jumps on stage, hurrying to the centre of it and bending down to pick up the feather. He straightens and turns to the door, half expecting a patron to emerge through the curtain and admonish him for standing on the illusionist’s stage, but he is alone.

He stuffs the feather into his coat pocket, keeping it secure between his tickets and handkerchief, before quickly descending the stage stairs and striding to the door in the shadows. 

Text by Lucie MacAulay