The Last Magic Trick

Stupefied, the little girl sat in her chair while her grandfather repeated the same card trick again and again. She watched him shuffle the pack. “Pick a card. Look. Don’t tell me. Put it back and here, I shuffle it again. The card is gone, right?”, he wore a mischievous know-all smile and took out the same card from his pocket. “How do you do it? You have to tell me.”, Samantha insisted. “I will teach you. Now go, help your mother with the dishes.”, he would grin.

Samantha always believed her Grandfather to be a magician. “Grandpa is the greatest of them all.”, she would tell her friends. Her grandfather’s trickery never failed to amuse Samantha to the fullest. He made a coin disappear and pulled it out of her hair, put a piece of cloth in his coat and brought out a bunch of roses. Samantha would clap and laugh.

Samantha-7 years old, pale yet beautiful and fair haired- lived with her mother and grandpa in a summer house. Her father was always travelling for work. Johnson came home once in a blue moon. “Why don’t you stay? It will make me happy.”, Samantha would tell him. “I will, darling. Someday.”, he replied.

Samantha was a much loved kid. While her father stayed away, he wrote a number to letters to her. Her mother, Julia, would read Samantha a letter everyday before putting her to sleep. “Daddy is working very hard for his little girl. He wants you to grow up into a beautiful and kind lady. Be nice to everyone, will you?”, Julia would tell her. She always replied with a nod- nod of agreement.

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“Samantha Linhares, Warden calls. You’ve got a visitor.”

Samantha walked down the stairs to find her Dad waiting. She has grown into a fine lady. Her hair is a mess but she is still beautiful and adorable. “Hello?”, she greeted her father as coldly as it could be. “Hey sweetie, How are you?”, her father tried to make a conversation. He examined his daughter head to toe. All this while, Samantha only wondered if she was dressed appropriately to be seen by her father. Her ways had changed since last time they met. “I see you have dyed your hair red. Looked better before. You had beautiful hair.”, Johnson soon realized that he might have hurt sentiments of his daughter. “This. It looks fine too. It does.”, he approved.

Ten long years had passed, since Samantha saw her family last. She was 18 now and with each year passing, she only got angrier with her Dad for being away all the time. Johnson did return for his daughter but too late. Samantha had joined college and stayed as far from home as she could.

“Grandpa is not well. He wants to see you.”, Johnson said. “I don’t plan to see him any sooner.”, Samantha replied. “Sam, it is bad. Please come see him once.”, Johnson said helplessly.

“It is bad.”, these words kept ringing in her ears. Samantha had hated her grandpa all these years for a reason. But all of a sudden all the reasons seemed stupid to her and she realized that she had known it for a long time. She just never was strong enough to face her grandfather again or to justify her behavior.

Samantha left with her father to see Grandpa one last time. She recalled her time with Grandpa and cried all the way to the hospital. As soon as they reached, she was taken to her Grandfather. She found the old man lying in his bed with a number of machines synchronized to his system.

Samantha had seen similar machines long time ago. That was when Julia fell ill. Samantha, in her thoughts went back to that time. The beeping of the machines got louder and she could see Julia and everyone there. She saw herself younger again. “What are you doing, darling?”, Grandpa asked. “I am writing a letter to daddy. I will tell him that mommy is ill and he needs to come back to her.”, Samantha replied.

“Her condition is deteriorating. I am worried that we won’t be able to help her any further.”, Samantha was there when doctor told them this. That was the first time when she was angry with her father for not being beside her.

“Help her. Why don’t you help her? You are a magician. Use your magic tricks and bring her back to life.”, Samantha had expected a lot too much from his magician grandfather. “She died because you did not save her. You killed her.”, those were her last words to the oldie. After that there was just hatred and anger. 

A pat on her head pulled Samantha out of her thoughts. “Grandpa, you are awake. I wanted to apologize for my behavior.”, Samantha held his hand. “He can not talk. He wrote this for you.”, the nurse took a diary from the trolley and gave it to Samantha. Samantha opened the diary.

On the first page was a roughly written note:

 ‘Dear Sam, Grandpa loves you. I am sorry my magic did not work when you wanted it to. Please do not hate me anymore. I had promised that I will teach you a magic trick. Here is a step by step instruction that you need to follow.’

Second page:

‘Raise you hand and hold your fingers together.’

Third Page:

‘Now place your hand on my chest. Feel the heartbeat.”

Samantha did as instructed. She felt the heart- Once, twice and a flat line showed on the heart monitor.

Next page:

‘Hey Magician, you just made my heart stop.’

AN AFFAIR

Every foot step they took left an apparent mark on the white tiles he had been brushing for an hour now. Off he would scrape one, and other may appear. Each flock of visitors brought in a new muddy pattern as it had been raining whole day, still was. Akka had been appointed as a cleaner by Farash Sahab who paid him Rs. 250 a week for cleaning one diminutive lobby and two itsy-bitsy rooms of his bantam hotel/restaurant. The blue plank with the writing ’Farash Hotal- Rooms and Wazwan available’ in red, that stood at the top of single storied building was the only immense thing and the second most attractive thing in the hotel- first most attractive thing being the tiled lobby which was fairer since the day Akka joined.

As he scrubbed off the marks one by one, his heart cried inside. He only wished if he could ever undo the things he had done in his life- things he regretted- like he cleaned mud off the tiles. While some old break up song played in his ear, he rubbed even harder and sang along until one of the seven customers staying in one room fussed about it.

Akka- seemingly in his early 40’s- was a tall, partly bald and sported a not-so-handsome goatee. He had eluded from his house about a year ago. “Village life does not suit me.'”, he would tell his people. But the actual reason, he knew in his heart, was that no woman in the village wanted to marry him. Akka unlike many men of his age was a single swinger. Even in the city he made advances, all went astray. His first spot was landlord’s daughter Samina. He had to lose his second home because of this deed and then he kept changing abode every weekend.

“That is enough for today. Go ring your vocal bells elsewhere. You will scare away my customers.”, Farash Sahab handed over Rs. 250 to Akka and showed him the door. Akka was not as coquettish now as he was back then. Something had changed him. He made no kittenish remarks, passed no playful comments.

Akka’s current dwelling was just fifteen minutes walk away from his workplace. Unusually, he had been staying at this one for more than a month. He had dinner at Farash sahab’s daily. He prepared his bed, peeped out of his window to find the window of the house across closed. He sighed and lied down on the bed.

When Akka first came to live there, he was a cruiser. He made many flirtatious advances on the girl next door- Aasifa. In the beginning, it bothered Aasifa a lot but soon she started responding positively. This change in Aasifa’s behavior changed Akka’s ways. He turned into a much decent guy. He finally started to believe that he had found his last love. He channeled all his efforts to further impress his beloved. 

Akka cursed the time when he unintentionally broke his sweetheart’s heart. He couldn’t sleep. He had not slept properly for last 7 nights.

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Aasifa, on the other hand, was despairing and furious. She only looked at the window of her room and wept like a baby. She knew that on the other side were two eyes looking at her window wanting to catch a sight of her beauty, deep down she knew it.

It was not easy for her too. After having hated Akka for his playful nature, she had started to like him. The thought of forgiving Akka came to her mind many times but she could not do it.

Next morning when Aasifa left her house she found an envelope with nothing written on it at her front door. She put it in her purse as she was already late for school. However dedicated to her job, she couldn’t keep her mind off the envelope. She knew what was in it and who kept it at her door.

As soon as she reached home, she locked herself in her room and started reading the letter. As she thought, the letter was from Akka. It said:

 

“Dear Aasifa,

How are you? I want you to know that I couldn’t sleep last night. I hardly sleep now. I only wish that you could give me a chance to explain my situation and apologize for my misbehavior.

I still remember when I first came to this place, you were the only serenity in the wildness. And how can I forget the good soul that used to wake me up every morning. I loved that voice so much that I could just sleep all day and let it try to wake me up.

But Aasifa, you got to understand that since I joined Farash sahab’s I worked late. And I could not tolerate that sound waking me up at such an early hour anymore.

Had I known that the rooster was so dear to you, I would never have committed the crime of grilling it in the Drum Tandoor and serving it to my thankless friends. But my love, let me swear on your life that I did not have a piece bigger than a ‘Kulfi’.

My darling, let us be together again. Forgive and forget.

                                                                                             Yours and only yours,

                                                                                              Akku.”

Aasifa folded the letter, opened the window, threw the letter out and closed the window to never open again.