A Flash of Magik
James Patrick
*
Days of Old
“Egad Einstein! We’ve actually done it!”
We join a team of scientists in a sterile lab for a breakthrough that overlapped present and past. Dr Jefferies with alchemist sensibilities that shone through his work, face gleamed with accomplishment. He ran his fingers over his grimoires, the sense pride with this breakthrough the transmutation of lead into gold. He joined the outstanding Dr Chalmers within her office; with a spark of confidence, he breached the doorway with charm.
“The hallmark of this breakthrough makes me wonder…I’ve always had a passion for esoteric knowledge.”
“I know you have Dr Jefferies, this must make you feel like you’re inhabiting two worlds, the past and present.” Dr Chalmers with a sensation palpably awestruck this loftiness made her heart flutter.
“That theory for life you talk about Dr Jefferies? I’m charmed by it, but it seems to elude you?” Dr Chalmers always took his personal inquiry anecdotal.
“I’m so glad you asked,” in good faith sneering back.
“Back when Alchemists spoke in idioms, metaphors and symbols to elicit a world around them profound with personal narrative and imbue the everyday with magical realism. This metaphysical experimentation within the Middle Ages would allow these individuals to entice a metamorphosis, a deep, personal, psychological change”
“You haven’t mentioned this before. You came across crazy when trying to explain these in the lab, albeit you’re caught between two realities.”
“Well, if I have the floor now, to take one personal transformation in my life is the stage of elucidation. Alchemical transmutation symbolized by great methods like Albedo, helps me understand my reality, in order to turn the abstract real. To wield the philosopher’s stone and transform lead into gold. Overcoming your material conditions is first achieved through insightful metaphysics.”
“Why this route though, Rik?”
“Well, in an overly rational world, the one who gives themselves a subjective narrative fairs better than others.”
“I find that quite intriguing,” she leant into the words.
“It’s been a real trip… You’re the only one who really listened to Dr Chalmers…It’s… been a real honour to work under your leadership. Perhaps, there may be a museum exhibition going on now, a potential display on micro-organisms, where you walk through a charming miniature universe?”
“Was that a statement? Or a question doctor? After all, you’re the man so certain of himself to turn lead into gold.”
Leaving the office, Dr Jefferies had an era-defining smile written all upon his face. Time passed as all things do. Always debatable, the uncertainty of further potential for the Hadron Collider. However, the breakthrough of lead to gold will always live vividly in Dr Jefferies mind. He walked the sterile lab, the halls echoed with footsteps.
Candlelight succinctly lit up the stone walls, revealing timeworn banners of unknown kingdoms. Soft echoes of festive lutes, harps, and drums consumed his sensations. An era of Kings and Queens pleading for truth in alchemical omens. These mysteries of the past were abstract therapy to Dr Jefferies. As esoteric faith coated his present surroundings, forces brought together these far apart worlds. Encapsulating visions of these alchemical stories provided an escape from the lab… but, only he applied meaning to this realm like no other. Delusions, perhaps. Fiction, yes. A convenient-self narrative, of course. And yet he confronts all time with a venture in spirit, and a date.
*
Mes Mots Magiques
The ground beneath my feet shuddered with expectation. After eons of vetoed policies, and laws, the people had primed themselves for a national catastrophe. This revolutionary assembly, and the voice I operate will change that. A new government will be born, an image I crafted over centuries. Sure, I am a Frenchman today, though I have worn many faces through my time on this Earth. Some things never change, like the scar across my cheek that flashed forth past failures. Failures I wouldn’t speak into being ever again. This cause and effect I had on words was powerful. I have changed reality, started revolutions, ended civil strife and war, all with words that sent people on voyages through ideas. I took the podium in 1792, this French National Convention.
“Estates First, Second and Third.” My voice silenced the chamber. “This must be done. We cannot continue at each other’s necks. Words must be said, written down and spoken to amend the monarchy!”
The assemble hall parliamentarians cheered, and the room replied. Genuine brick and mortar shifted with the emotion. Unbeknownst to those that filled the space… those words had changed the very operations of the world itself.
“It has been a long-fought victory for the third estate, and that battle will continue, I know. We WILL,” with every emphasis, “bring this world into adopting immutable universal laws of humanity. These principles, these myths, will describe the era of people in this modern world.”
The podium began to shudder under I, the speaker.
“On these walls, words burned themselves into rock. Not carved by chisel but seared into consciousness like fire. The revolution will be anchored in Liberté, égalité, and fraternité.”
My words materialised, and above me, each syllable shone heavy with illusion, already bending beneath the weight of interpretation. The parties clash, and I, I let them quarrel. In hopes, they strike like flint against stone. Perhaps, from the sparks, people themselves would find the true beacon in freedom.
“I…” the room softened, though some persisted, “speak for all, through the many people who have entrusted me with this power. You shall now have a council to vote, to persuade people of your subjectivity, to once again have democracy.”
These words appealed to them, unconsciously they agreed to these sentiments. Their futures shaped deliberating democracy. Their cities began shift; cracks separated from castle and church. Becoming secular through metaphor and physicality.
“Within this assemble voters are represented by politicians, but it is the artist who contextualizes the voice of this time. I mustn't command nature but simply give it a voice of its age.”
I, the speaker, felt this: my jaw shuddered, tears began to form.
“I, like many of you felt that whip of our leaders, to coerce us into unfulfilling work. To barely put food on the table, to suffer without meaning or destination. To see and feel the hopelessness of our loved ones, to only lose respect in our leader who doesn’t represent us. This will now change. For a new century readies its cradle, and itself for its first footsteps.” A gentle loving wind brushed the speaker’s face through the window.
“Now, you must forget me and own the world that I have spoken into being.”
With those final words, the Speaker vanished. Reality? Completely changed. Be it for better, or for worse.
*
The Merging
I dreamt of existing.
“They’re saying it all over the tele. That planet is about to hit ours. We could die!”
“They’ve said that bullshit since forever.”
The street down below was boisterous with activity; people were truly nervous about things this time. I sit aloft in my building protected from it all. I quit my job anyway. All colours had run from my walls. The pictures on my walls were grey. The ink bled from the canvas. I had lost all hope. People were in fact my enemy, cruel they are.
I traversed the stair to the roof of this apartment building to watch it end, for certain. Called ‘The Merging’ these crazed metaphysicians, a religious cult suggested the title, it was a bizarre event. It made sense…at least, to me, somehow. The echoing of my feet walking up the stairwell made this event feel meticulously slow, as if I had separated myself from this. This thing.
When I reached the roof top the dusk settled my nerves. I lit a personal joint I had in safe keeping. Then, I whipped out the lawn chair and stretched and squeaked myself into some comfortability. I let out a sigh of relief.
I could hear people talking on the streets all the while.
“You know that looks like it’s getting closer”
“Ehh we’ve always had this problem you see, that ‘first world’ has always been outtah reach, we’ve got it good here that’s what they're jealous of, this is heaven! It’s in our hearts.”
They couldn’t be more removed, I wanted something real, that could make me feel again. When they said the world was going to end in the news I didn’t believe them. Inhaling deeply on the joint, I saw it come closer, that other world. It felt real, like this was about to happen. Exhaling, that anxious breath gave me worry, however, something felt truer, as if I was on the precipice of something. Or it’s just the weed talking.
“Look how close it is, I guess they were right, it will be here eventually.”
“You’ve just got too much imagination, stuck in the third world.”
The people on the street gave no mind to imagination, too stuck in ‘reason’, and the second world. I for one welcomed the first world crashing into us. It came closer though, I saw it clearly.
The colour was mesmerizing, like the first time I saw such a thing. I got up out of the lawn chair. It was so close, I felt more engaged than ever, as entrenched in this world that I was, I was naked to that one. My eyes pierced through deep oceans to see a world like this so close. The building and I were the closest to this earth more than anyone else. I reached out to touch it. The ocean of another planet appeared so near, vibrant, within reach. I touched it. Then all life changed for me, colour had entered my eyes as nothing before. My mind, body, and spirit were all one.
No separation, no distinction between earths.
All blues and greens, all yellows, all one.
James Patrick is a speculative fiction writer who feels that knowing himself is a bit like holding sand, a collection of dusty opinions heard on the street. Patrick is playing with words, writing a novella, and researching Australian literature, all the while trying to persuade himself to commit to the writing world. Patrick lives in Queensland, Australia, undertaking a creative writing/anthropology degree at Macquarie University.
