Of All That Is Magic - Working TItle for a Work in Progress

Two women there were who pursued the King of All that is Magic. One was the fairy woman Philipa who lived beside the seeing pond and saw herself holding the king’s son. The other was Phaedra, her half fey half witch friend, who lived in the arbor next to the seeing pond and cast a spell for love. Phaedra knew that the seeing pond sometimes gave deceptive images of what would be. Pippa said she was holding the king’s son but who’s to say it was also Pippa’s son?

As Phaedra traveled to the palace to work the last part of the spell that would bring the King to her bed, she didn’t know that Pippa, fulfilling what she had seen as her destiny, had bedded with King Nathone and already felt the quickening of the child within her. Pippa needed no spell for love. Findle stopped Phaedra to let her know. Ever since the day Phaedra had refused his suit, the fey king had worked his own kind of binding magic so that love would always elude her. For Findle knew no spell could force love and the fey king was unforgiving.

Seranine, the archer who loved the fey king, found Phaedra weeping in a ravine on the path to the palace and took aim at Phaedra’s heart. Speaking slyly and with feigned reluctance, he told Phaedra about the binding magic. Phaedra decided Pippa was to blame for the fey magic that lost her Nathone’s love. She also knew that the only way to unbind fey magic was to leave the Land for the Mundane. Besides, Phaedra hoped her heart would heal where there was no magic to bind her or remind her of the Land, of the king’s son, of loss, of betrayal. But Phaedra forgot that she took her magic with her.

Pippa found Phaedra gone when she rushed to tell her the new vision she had seen in the pond. When she searched for Phaedra in her scryving mirror, Philipa only saw that Phaedra was no longer in the Land.

This was the year winter came early and stayed late. This was the year spring burst forth fully grown and groomed for battle. This was the year summer scorched the roots and left no leaves for autumn’s fall.

~       ~       ~       ~       ~

“Majesty,” spoke the court bailiff, “someone has cast a lasting love spell.”

“No such thing,” proclaimed Nathone. “No love spell can last beyond a year. Only true love endures.”

“This spell has lasted.”

“Who? Where?”

“Not in the Land, Majesty.”

“Mundane spells? Pshaw! They’re powerless to bind.”

“Yet, your Majesty, this one binds.”

Thus, Nathone sent a chevalier into the Mundane to search for the power that could cast a spell that no one in his Land could cast and hold.

New to the Mundane, Rhys knew the only weapons he could take was the magic he held within him and Rhys' magic was in the stories that bloomed from within himself. His stories could keep danger enthralled and conquer fears throughout the Land but he had never tested them in the Mundane. With his magic, Rhys parted the curtain between the Land of Magic and the World of the Mundane to seek what the King commanded. He stepped forward with his magic and lost his way.

~       ~       ~       ~       ~

         “Are those jonquils, Mr. Ritter?”

         “Oh! You startled me, Mrs. Seaghan. Mr. Ritter paused in his weeding to dust the soil clinging on his upper thighs. His eyes narrowed to block the sun as he looked up to speak with the lady passing by the garden.

         “I’m sorry to interrupt your work.”

         “No problem. The work’s for you anyways.” He smiled and dipped his head.

         Smiling at the deference that Mr. Ritter never failed to show her, she reiterated her query. “Are those jonquils?”

         “No, no. They’re just daffodils.” He picked up his sheers, carefully snipped a blossom, and, with another dip of his head, handed it to her and while pointing with his shears. "Jonquils are over there."

         With the daffodil pressed to her nose, she inhaled deeply and smiled. “That’s so absolutely lovely and fragrant for a just flower. I feel so foolish not knowing the difference.”

         He returned to his weeding. “It’s understandable. They’re in the same family. Kissing cousins, you could say.”

         “Thank you for the cousins, Mr. Ritter.” She left on a laugh, leaving Mr. Ritter to weed and prune with his smile.

         No one was home but the house never felt empty. She liked to imagine that love lingered there waiting for her family to return. The kitchen first to find the smallest bud vase they had before heading to her office at the top of the house to wait. She left the daffodil as a spot of sunshine on the small table by the door.  This was her favorite part of the day – the waiting by the window for joy and wonder. As she watched, Thomas stopped for a brief animated conversation with Mr. Ritter. Like her he entered the house laughing.

         “Mom!” Why did he bother to call? He knew she was there but she played the game anyway.

         “Upstairs!” His climbing footsteps were a soft staccato floating swiftly to the attic office. Both their arms opened at the same time for a grunting embrace. When they separated, she smiled on his face.

         “What’s wrong?” He brushed a hand across his lips.

         “Nothing’s wrong.”

         “What’re you looking at then?”

         “Joy.”

         Perplexed, he stared a beat then shook his head as if clearing a fog. “I’m gonna make a sandwich. Want one?”

         “Thanks. I’m fine.” She watched him go before turning once more to smile out of her watching window.

The smile faded when she saw Paul stop to speak with Mr. Ritter. Although laughter did not follow, he bounced into the house.

“Fay!”

It was time to leave her tower.

Opening a book

A book is for more than reading

A book is for touching

With clean and dirty hands

Lovingly creasing the binding

Folding corners of pages to save them

Writing thoughts and flights of fancy

Or doodling

in the margins

A book is for refusing

To join the babbling by-plays

To tear away what my skin touches because life calls

A book is life

Lived as you recall or

As you could not live it

A book is life calling me

To follow Euterpe and Calliope

A book is for leaving

Before you are done

And waiting anxiously to finish

And starting again looking for new treasure in old veins

A book is a struggle that gives life meaning

The art of making something out of nothing

A burden you gladly carry

Because then you know it’s there

Waiting for your return

A book is for feeding

And leaving love signs of what you shared

Accidentally, distractedly

As you ate and read

Baptizing with drips of coffee or juice

Wrinkling the paper

Love signs

You can’t love a screen

If you fall asleep with it

It won’t warm you

Or open to pull you in

Through the night

It won’t reach out and call you

Back

And when you wake

It won’t be changed because of the time away

A book is more than words upon the page

Pictures between the words

Leaves yellowed with time

A book carries memories

The page that ripped when you couldn’t wait

To read the next page

The water stain when it fell in the puddle

After rain fell unexpectedly

And you weren’t looking because

In your mind

You were reading

The blue crayon scribbled across four pages

By a three-year-old who couldn’t know

Words have their own color and need no enhancement

When people die

Books remember them

If you touch their books

Or if they’ve touched yours

You have them

And feel the memory from their fingers through yours

A book is for more than reading

Opening the Curtain

            Let’s Make a Deal is back on the air with a new host, Wayne Brady instead of Monty Hall. But audience members still dress in idiotic costumes like aliens who don’t quite understand how to pass themselves off as natives of Earth. And contestants can still choose what’s in the box or what’s behind the curtain. Sometimes you get a prize and sometimes you get a zonk. Amazingly, many people are willing to risk losing a lot of money they’ve already won for a look at what’s behind the curtain.

            Every time there’s a curtain choice, I think of the Great and Powerful Oz. Until the curtain is pulled, he inspires adulation from the people of Munchkinland and other parts of that world over the rainbow. At first, he’s just a rumor but even the wise Glenda speaks his name in awe when she suggests that Dorothy seek his help to get home safely. Did good witch Glenda know what was behind the curtain already and was just wise enough to know that Dorothy had to take the journey or had she too fallen for the Wizard’s PR?

            The revelation scene did not amuse me. Don’t you remember? Behind his curtain, the Wonderful Wizard sent Dorothy on a mission that was certain to end in her death if not for the cleverness of the Scarecrow, the care of the Tin Man, and the courage of the Lion. “Bring back the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West!” he ordered. When she returned with it, he was clearly shocked at her success. Since she was not expected to return, he tried to flex his Wizard muscles to intimidate her so he wouldn’t have to fulfill his part of the contract. Dorothy and her friends stood there shaking, the Tin Man’s knees knocking, the Lion cowering in fear, as if they were contestants in silly costumes waiting for the MC to show them the prize. Meanwhile, the little dog Toto, of all the characters, causes the curtain to part, revealing the zonk waiting for them. Was Toto the only truly wise one in the bunch? Now that I think about it, he wore no silly costume like the others in the movie. Did Frank Baum dress his characters as foolish-looking in the book as they did in the movie?

            The song tells us that Oz gave nothing to the Tin Man that he didn’t already have. He was able to reach into his bag and find symbols for a brain, a heart, and courage but there was no home. The plan was for him to take Dorothy home but Toto put an end to that notion as well by escaping the Wizard’s box. Maybe that balloon was the prize it seemed to Dorothy that would give her everything for which she longed. But I’d like to think she was wise to escape with Toto. The Wizard was just a con man, after all, a carnival huckster. Who knows what would have happened had Dorothy taken off in that balloon with him? He was so inept, the balloon might not reach its destination nor land safely anywhere.

            Then along comes Glenda to tell Dorothy that, like her friends, she already had what it takes to get what she wanted for herself. She could get home on her own power but she had to learn it for herself. Doesn’t that make Glenda like the Wizard? Perhaps Dorothy’s journey to Oz was a learning experience, but she almost died a few times! Isn’t that child abuse?

            The ending is my least favorite part of The Wizard of Oz movie. It was even less satisfying in The Wiz, the movie more disappointing than the play.  Michael Jackson could pull off playing younger than himself but I knew that Diana Ross had a decade or more on me. Judy Garland, at least, was a teenager when she played Dorothy, and adolescents can be rather scatterbrained and oblivious when danger lurks. But Dorothy as old as Ross should have known better.

            Her journey mirrored Judy’s but with jazzier music and more dancing numbers. The Oz of The Wiz was less believable than the one in The Wonderful Wizard of. The Wizard himself also seemed crueler in The Wiz, his actions more intentional and less bungling. But maybe that’s because I knew too much about Richard Pryor and I’d learned not to trust drug addicts.

            But Toto was the same. Toto was the most stable of all the characters in both productions. He had the good sense to pull back the curtain. But Toto is a dog. Dogs lack imagination, I’ve read. They see straight to what is.

            In theater, the 4^th wall is the audience. The actors on stage treat them as not present. That’s called acting. Somebody pulls the curtain to reveal the play to the audience but the actors are not supposed to notice that people are watching them. They have a part to play and pulling the curtain starts the story.

            I wonder what happens to all those costumed contestants after Let’s Make a Deal goes off? Did they enjoy their prizes or was that Mediterranean cruise on a ship that was hijacked or sunk due to poor maintenance? Or maybe there was a plumbing failure. Was that car one of those recalled or one of the ones whose brakes failed, making them a statistic leading to a recall? Did the Lion get to be King of a Forest as he imagined? Did the Tin Man find love? Was the Scarecrow able to solve the problems in his corner of the world? Did Dorothy never leave home again?

            Maybe Toto should not have pulled back that curtain. What would the Wizard have done then? Would Dorothy have stayed in Oz? It was definitely a more interesting place than Kansas. With the two wicked witches no longer factors, Oz might have been a fun place to live. I’m sure Glenda could rig up something so that Dorothy could contact Auntie Em and say, “Hi. I’m having so much fun in Oz. Maybe you should come for a visit.” The Wizard may have been a bust but there was definitely magic there.

            Yeah. I like that. Who would choose Kansas over magic anyway? Don’t pull back that curtain. And if someone else does, just ignore the man standing there and play along. After all, you came to the show with nothing. So what if you lose it all.