Ivyx of Orc

Why did I agree to take over this stupid magic shop after Dad passed? The business is deluged in debt, it's reputation is decrepit. The dark musty store itself is straight-up creepy. Repulsive from the outside, repugnant inside. The junk on the shelves are outdated gimmicks that trickster losers can buy off the internet for half the price. How the old man lured customers into this rundown shack and made sales is beyond me.

Roaches fester the wall's bowed mortices. Rats rollic on the creeky floorboards from aisle to aisle. The scent of mold is evident. The scuzz on every surface is sticky with malady.

There's no cleaning a joint like this, not even the best construction team of remodeling experts can convert this rickety old shop into something profitable or appealing to the senses. Sorry Dad, but this puppy is going to get razed. A congenial insurance check shall make up for the lack of inheritance.

My heart-felt condolences to you Dad, but the days of believing in magic are over. Kids now don't even believe in God, or setting their cellphones down for a minute, or getting an education, or respecting their elders…

All this. It's a farce.

The movies portray the Great Houdini as a cheating hack. Penn and Teller have been victims of hate crimes many times over, while Siegfried and Roy were accused of committing heinous crimes. The Las Vegas hotels and casinos advocate and promote “illusionists”, not magicians. All of the top media outlets continue to reveal the secrets and exploit every single magic stunt ever performed, laughing all the way to the bank.

“Excuse me, Mister...”

Some call it witchcraft. Most mothers call it devilry. Or Satanism. Those with biological science backgrounds label it as alchemy. The younger generations say sorcery. They say wizardry. Federal authorities mark it as occultism. Religious folk prefer the Wiccan title.

“...Mister?”

Whatever the belief may be or term spoken, magic carries a hint of enchanting mystery that intrigues any age, gender, race, and creed. To me, I say, magic shop my arse, this is a joke shop.

“Excuse me, Mister?”

Whoa. Wait. A person.

“Uhh, hello lad.” I smile nervously, kids weird me out, “How may I be of service to you?”

The anemic moppet says, “Mr. Snuzzies is very very sick.”

The child's age is impossible to guess. Six? Eleven? Due to the baldness of the head and the sickliness of the voice, the youngster has equal chances of being either a boy or a girl. 

He or she holds up a raggedy careworn teddy bear that's wearing a hospital wrist-band that matches the fragile arm holding it. The stamey lips go, “I would like to purchase some ivyx of orc, please.”

I have no idea what the heck is being requested, but I feel obligated to honor my father's perennial adage of the customer is always right.

Both the pallid kid and the teddy bear are adorned in denim and neutral greys from head to toe. I offer a gesture of trust and kindheartedness by shaking hands with the stuffed animal, “Mr. Snuzzies, I presume?”

The scrawny child wiggles the plush limb of the beige cuddle-buddy. The act of puppetry should be cute, but it's sadly anything but.

“Yeah. Mr. Snuzzies needs medicine to make him all better.” The boy/girl winces a sharp one.

Magic has a reputation of being miraculous or supernatural, two words that involve factors that are not meant to be comprehensive based on reason. Licensed psychologists use a form of this in the hypnotizing trade. Surgeons execute procedures that their colleagues explain as “metaphysically extraordinary”. If the birth of a baby is indeed a miracle, then the ability to formulate an embryo from scratch in a petri dish has got to be some kind of paranormal phenomenon.

It's human nature to embrace hope. The desire to believe that absolutely anything is possible is hard-wired in our DNA. 

The debilitated kid gives out a piercing cough and persists with an infantile voice, “I called you guys on the phone last week and the old mister told me you have ivyx of orc for sale, special just for Mr. Snuzzies.”

Dad.

My miniature customer holds out a crumpled twenty dollar bill that appears to be too heavy to elevate above the checkout counter.

“Alrighty, little one,” there's not a chance under the starry sky that I'm accepting a penny from this feeble wobbler. “You can put that money back in youe pocket kiddo.” I wink. “If you would be so kind to excuse me while I see if we have any ivyx in the back…”

Geesh.

I must find something to fill the bill and lead that small fry to the nearest medical facility to seek actual genuine aid. This is not what I signed up for, Father.

Think think think. There's got to be something back here. Maybe I can just write a bogus spell real quick, like a Doctor's prescription. Perhaps I can jot down a counterfeit recipe for the ailing juvenile to cook in a cauldron.

Nah.

But seriously, placebos have been in use for eons. It's a whimsical fantasy the poor little adolescent is pursuing. An escape from the mundane. A trick to fool the mind into a lie that everything is going to be okay.

I peep my head through the storage room's threshold, I ask considerably, “What color is an orc's ivyx again?”

Trekking here by oneself in such a frail condition exhibits hope and motivation to the utmost degree.

“White-ish brown!”

The old man was definitely a believer, it's a shame all this junk will be blazed to the ground by morning. The lessons that Dad sermonized rivaled that of the most respected wheelchaired physicists. 

The greatest civilizing force of the Chinese dynasty 5,000 years ago, Huang Di, better known as the Yellow Emperor, had the power to change his shape and appearance.

The Templar Knights, under interrogation, admitted to worshipping a disembodied head that spoke and granted the members wisdom to gain prominent wealth and influence. Magic words and crystal balls were for the cartoons, my father would say. The Templars used a skull to summon demons and then they carried out rituals with a goat named Baphomet who had the body of a lush young woman.

Ancient Pharoh Hermes Trismegistus was possibly the first to seek out the secrets of eternal life. He did so through a substance known as the Philosopher's Stone. This Egyptian was thought to have lived around 2000 B.C. His works of sorcery were found ascribed in fragmented tablets dated from the early first millennia.

Zosimus the Panoplite, in the fourth century, Morienus of Alexandria, and Cedrennus in the sixth century, all left books, documents, and records of necromancy, stuff like transforming base metals into gold and animals into stone.

A book written around the time of the Crusades by Spanish philosopher Artephius, has won the devoted research of thousands of intellects from all corners of the world. This compilation accentuates a version of humanity freed from disease and conflict. The term fountain of youth was mentioned throughout the writings of the luminary. He claimed to have lived for one thousand years.

By the thirteenth century, as the dark art spread across Europe, men of prestige, including kings and saints, we're imprisoned and punished by death for simply possessing magical knowledge.

It's difficult to fathom a world of wonderment hidden behind our microcosm where various beings can accomplish supernatural marvels. However, one can make the argument that the implausible has already been playing out everyday since the beginning of thought.

Living in a time where supercomputers and genetic analysts can prove anything, the possibility that magic is real has got to be slim-to-none. However, the hope that the mystic craft emits is certainly persuasive.

If today's technology tested the probability of magic being valid through some ciphering algorithms and spat out a less than one percent chance, it would probably be good enough for anyone with heart.

With a small youth potentially dying in the front of my newly acquired store, a less than one percent chance is more than sufficient to put forth an effort to give the strengthless child some form of willpower to beat whatever illness he or she is suffering from.

Like an arbitrary premonition, a squeaky rat bumps a dusty container off the unsound shelving unit my father built when he was my age. The contents spill to the floor directly beneath the lone overhead light. Two objects that resemble fossilized testicles tumble to my boots like primitive dice.

Please be a sign from my dad's phantom soul. Tell me this is a charity token offered by some kind of pixie or a benefaction doled out by a sprite, or a fairy, or whatever.

I package the white-ish brown mystery nuggets into a glossy, ribbon embellished gift box. I plea to no one in particular, "Help me save this child's life."

Walking back to the check-out counter is nerve-quaking as I notice my meager patron is struggling to stay vigilant. I can feel the eyes of all the deformed figurines that line the aisles, ogling me as I walk by them. I can feel the mythical characters on each tarot card mocking me as I pass by.

The eerie silence is sliced with sharp elfish wheezes of the youngster's anticipation.

I handle the pocket-sized box with heedful care, imagining the discovered morsels glowing in their cramped confines. Like a master Jedi handing down an heirloom light-sabre to his protegé, I whisper, "Your ivyx of orc."

The frail kid simpers a chapped smile and proclaims, "Mr. Snuzzies, we got it!"

I inform the juvenile that the gift is free of charge. I offer to arrange a taxicab ride, but I'm thinking an ambulance would be more appropriate.

The young one is so elated, he or she doesn't acknowledge my existence and beelines out the door into the darkness.

Nine o'clock p.m. Time to close for the night and forever after. I don't reflect on past memories. I don't soak it all in one last time. I don't even look over my shoulder after locking the door for final. I must move on and accept reality.

Gasoline is real. My book of matches is real. Existing without my father's burden will be sincerely true.

The flames begin flickering where I ignited the wall's studs, a technique I chose to convince the investigators to believe this was a random, accidental, unintentional, electrical fire.

The scorching phoenix rises, dances, and intensifies.

All the dodgy ungents, novelty obelisks,  mass-produced chalices, the numberless knicknacks, it all fuels the inferno with fanciful hues.

Nice night for a long walk home.

I wish the fireball behind me was the breath of a blue-eyed white dragon, but I have to swallow the truth; passion and hope are dangerously flammable.

Dread takes over my psyche. I feel the curse immediately, all the way down to my marrow. I literally feel is swimming within my bones.

The arcane country road is deathly still save for a matted beige fuzzball. His words are inaudible, but it does not matter, I feel his message. Mr. S slashes furiously at his velvetine wrist, dropping the bloody medical bracelet free.

I summon the fortitude to magically disappear.