The Moment Between

The Vanishing Act

Every evening, as the sun dropped behind the skyline of Chicago, the sidewalks of Wicker Park came alive. Musicians fought saxophones with guitars. Painters slapped canvas on folding chairs. Food trucks hissed and steamed. But just past the Damen Blue Line station, under the rusted metal awning, stood Jason with a deck of cards and a thin smile.

He didn’t yell. He didn’t wear a costume. Just a faded blazer, black jeans, and a single ring on his left hand. He let the crowd come to him, and they always did.

Jason wasn’t flashy. He didn’t pull rabbits or make doves explode. His magic was quiet, like sleight of hand in a confession booth. The kind of tricks that made you go home and question your grip on reality. One night, he shuffled a card into the deck and made it reappear inside a tourist’s wallet. Another time, he asked a girl to think of her first pet’s name, then turned over a card that said “Mittens” in red ink.

People tipped him well. Not out of obligation, but because mystery like that doesn’t come cheap.

But Jason didn’t do it for the money. Not really. The cash paid rent on his one-bedroom and kept his fridge stocked with eggs and sriracha, but that wasn’t the point.

Jason lived for the pause. That brief, electric second when the trick landed, and the crowd held its breath. When wonder came back into the world.

*******

He didn’t talk much about his past, but he hadn’t always been a street magician.

Before this, he’d had a name people knew. Jason Reddish. Vegas headliner. Five-night residency at The Mirage. Big illusions- vanishing cages, levitating women, the whole bit. But things happened.

The tabloids called it a “career break.” Others called it a nervous breakdown. All anyone knew for sure was that one night, right in the middle of a prime-time show, Jason froze mid-act. Spotlights on him, a woman suspended in the air above a bed of spikes, and he just… stopped.

Stagehands had to lower the rigging. The woman screamed. The audience thought it was part of the act. But it wasn’t.

After that, Jason disappeared. The casinos stopped returning calls. His agent moved on. And he reappeared a year later, unannounced, on a Chicago street corner. Just a deck of cards and the silence of someone who’d been to the edge and decided to walk back.

*******

That summer, a girl started watching him. She didn’t say much, just sat cross-legged on the curb across from where he performed. Twelve, maybe thirteen. Always had a notebook, always scribbling. At first, Jason ignored her. Kids watched all the time. But she didn’t laugh or gasp like the others. She studied him.

After a week, he finally nodded at her between tricks.

“You like magic?” he asked.

She looked up. “I like figuring things out.”

That made Jason smile. “Then you’ll be disappointed.”

“Why?”

“Because real magic can’t be solved.”

She snorted. “There’s no such thing as real magic.”

“Exactly,” he said.

*******

Her name was Amanda. She lived two blocks away with her mom and younger brother. School was out for summer, and she spent most days reading or watching YouTube tutorials on card tricks. She told him she wanted to be a magician.

“Not the kind with top hats,” she said. “The kind that makes people feel stuff.”

So Jason started teaching her. Not the tricks — not right away. But how to stand. How to let a moment breathe. How to pull tension like a string and snap it at just the right time.

“Most people think it’s about the reveal,” he told her once. “It’s not. It’s about the wait before it.”

Amanda nodded like she already knew.

*******

By August, she was helping with shows. Passing out cards, picking volunteers. She even tried a few tricks herself. Nothing big — basic sleight of hand — but she had timing. Presence. She knew how to look someone in the eye and lie with charm.

One night, after a long set and a dozen fives in his tip hat, Jason looked at her and asked, “You ever seen someone vanish?”

She frowned. “Like, disappear?”

“Yeah. Right in front of you.”

“No.”

He nodded, like that was the right answer. Then packed up his cards.

*******

A week later, he didn’t show.

At first, Amanda thought he was sick. Or late. But the next day, he was still gone. And the day after that.

She waited at his usual spot for hours. Tourists came and went. Musicians filled the space. But no Jason. No blazer. No deck of cards.

She checked shelters. Police blotters. Asked vendors if they’d seen him. Nothing.

Eventually, she walked to the alley behind the old pawn shop where he sometimes stashed his gear. She found the milk crate he used as a stool. A folded playing card sat on top.

It was the Queen of Spades. On the back, in black ink, was one word-

“Now.”

*******

Years passed. Amanda grew up. She kept performing. Small shows at first, then bigger ones. She got good. Not just technically, but good. People talked about her like they used to talk about him.

She never found out what happened to Jason. No obituary. No mugshot. No leads.

But every now and then, she’d feel it. In a quiet theater, or at the peak of a street show. That same electric pause. The breath before the trick lands.

She’d hold it just a second longer than necessary.

And smile.

Because she knew someone, somewhere, was still watching.

It was in Montreal, five years after Jason vanished, that Amanda saw the second card.

She was headlining a fringe festival — small tent, sold-out crowd, nothing fancy. She’d just finished her closer: a mentalism bit involving a sealed envelope and a random audience member’s birthday. It killed. People were still clapping when the stagehand handed her a note that hadn’t been there before.

A single playing card.

Queen of Spades.

On the back, in the same black ink- “Almost.”

She froze. Not enough to show the crowd, but just enough to feel that old tug in her chest. He was alive. Somewhere. Watching. Testing her?

After the show, she tore apart the green room. No one had seen anyone unusual. The card hadn’t come from staff. She checked the security feed. The hallway camera blinked to static for exactly seven seconds, then came back on. Nothing.

But Amanda knew.

She sat alone that night in her rented flat with the card on the table. Her mind didn’t race — Jason had taught her better than that. She waited. Let the stillness speak.

He wasn’t reaching out for fun. It meant something.

Almost.

She wasn’t ready, maybe. Or close to something.

She left the festival the next day. Blew off two bookings. Went back to Chicago. Sat in his old spot for a week. Nothing.

Until the eighth night.

At 2:17 a.m., just as she was about to leave, a man stepped out of the shadows. He wore a hood, walked with a limp. Said nothing. Slipped an envelope into her coat pocket and kept walking.

Inside- coordinates. A time. A plane ticket to Lisbon.

No message.

*******

She landed in Portugal, jetlagged and buzzing. The coordinates led to a cliffside chapel, long abandoned. Wind howled through the bones of it. Cracked stone. Empty altar.

On the floor, drawn in chalk, was a circle. With a single chair in the center.

And sitting on that chair—

Was Jason.

A little thinner. More silver in his beard. But unmistakably him.

He smiled like she’d just passed a test.

“You made it,” he said.

“What is this?”

“My last trick.”

Amanda narrowed her eyes. “You could’ve just called.”

“Would you have come?”

She didn’t answer.

He nodded toward the chair. “Sit.”

She sat.

He circled her, speaking softly.

“There’s a reason real magicians disappear. Not just the burnt-out ones. The good ones. The great ones. They vanish when they’re done. Or when they’ve seen too much.”

Amanda watched him move — still smooth, still quiet.

“I saw something, back then,” he said. “Something behind the curtain. A moment between the trick and the truth. Most people miss it. You didn’t.”

He crouched in front of her.

“You know that pause. That breath. You know what lives there?”

She shook her head.

“Possibility.”

He stood and walked to the edge of the chapel, where the wall had crumbled into sea spray.

“You ever wonder what happens if you stay in that pause too long?”

She didn’t answer.

“You stop being real,” he said. “You become the trick.”

She stood.

“Why me?” she asked.

“Because you’re the only one who could finish what I started.”

Jason reached into his jacket and pulled out a small box. He opened it. Inside was a single, blank card.

He handed it to her.

“This is the end of the act,” he said. “Or the start of a new one.”

Amanda stared at it. “What’s it for?”

Jason smiled, softer this time. “It’s the only real secret we have.”

He tapped the card.

“Everything we do — the misdirection, the setups, the reveals — it’s all to bring them here. To this.”

He looked up at her, eyes lit by the sea’s reflection.

“The pause. The breath. The feeling that, for one second, anything could happen. That’s the trick. That’s the magic. Not the illusion — the possibility.”

He stepped back toward the cliff’s edge, wind tugging at his coat.

“Magic doesn’t live in the past. Or the finale. It lives in the Now.”

He turned.

And without another word, stepped off the edge of the cliff.

Gone.

No splash.

No sound.

Just sea and sky and wind.

*******

Amanda stood there for hours, the blank card in her hand.

She didn’t cry. Didn’t shout. She just felt… still.

Eventually, she walked back to town.

That year, she didn’t perform. Not in public. She practiced. Wrote. Studied. Quietly booked a private show in Venice the next spring. Invited-only. One hundred guests. No cameras.

No one knows exactly what she did that night.

But people still talk about it.

Some say she made time pause.

Others say she vanished mid-sentence, and everyone in the room felt their own heartbeat stop.

The only thing that’s certain is this-

No one’s seen her since.

But sometimes, after a great show, a magician will find a playing card slipped into their coat.

Blank.

And on the back, one word-

“Now.”