outtake from The Cheap Mechanics of Melodrama
The Indian Rope Trick: a man sits cross-legged on the ground and opens the wicker box in front of him. He plays a tune on his flute, strange and lilting and magical, so magical in fact that instead of a King Cobra raising its head and reaching upward it is a length of rope.
He is no snake-charmer.
The rope reaches and reaches until the fakir whispers a few words and it is stretched taut. The fakir claps his hands and a little boy emerges from behind him, bows to the crowd and places his little palms around the rope. The bazaar pause in their buying and selling, it waits. The rope does not waver.
The boy climbs and climbs until there is nothing but empty sky above him.
He curls one hand around the rope and waves to the crowd with the other and with a parting smile he swings upside-down and disappears.
The Indian Rope Trick: a fraud. A few faked photographs and a language of myth.
Tom does not know this.
The newspaper cutting in his hands does not say whether the boy ever comes back, but Tom is unconcerned. He tucks the picture into his shirt pocket and smiles; he does not intend to disappear.
It’s almost a month later when everyone’s at dinner that he pulls up the ladder to the Divinations Classroom behind him and seals the trapdoor with a hissed spell. He takes out the picture and climbs onto one of the tables, leaving scuffmarks on the cream lace cloths. He reaches for a teacup and transfigures it.
Tom holds a length of rope in his hands like a snake and carefully knots it around his neck.
He is no snake-charmer.
The rope reaches and reaches until the fakir whispers a few words and it is stretched taut. The fakir claps his hands and a little boy emerges from behind him, bows to the crowd and places his little palms around the rope. The bazaar pause in their buying and selling, it waits. The rope does not waver.
The boy climbs and climbs until there is nothing but empty sky above him.
He curls one hand around the rope and waves to the crowd with the other and with a parting smile he swings upside-down and disappears.
The Indian Rope Trick: a fraud. A few faked photographs and a language of myth.
Tom does not know this.
The newspaper cutting in his hands does not say whether the boy ever comes back, but Tom is unconcerned. He tucks the picture into his shirt pocket and smiles; he does not intend to disappear.
It’s almost a month later when everyone’s at dinner that he pulls up the ladder to the Divinations Classroom behind him and seals the trapdoor with a hissed spell. He takes out the picture and climbs onto one of the tables, leaving scuffmarks on the cream lace cloths. He reaches for a teacup and transfigures it.
Tom holds a length of rope in his hands like a snake and carefully knots it around his neck.