Showing Howard Hullman

A WIZARD JENKINS Short

“Mind what you believe,” Trunkin reminded Stuart as he often did when they arrived in Sky, for here more than other places belief had power, and believing the wrong thing could have disastrous consequences. This was true for no one more than wizards.

The difference between wizards in Sky and normal folk—apart from the funny outfits—was certain a suppleness of mind. Unlike most people, they could believe things on purpose, and believe them strongly enough that reality itself made accommodations. Where they differed from priests, lawyers, and politicians was that they didn’t require an audience to do it.

Trunkin believed himself a wizard, and so he was one. Stuart fancied the idea, but in his heart of hearts he still needed some convincing.

Not being natives, they’d got to Sky by way of golden lampshades, a rare variety of glowing mushroom that liked to hide among terrestrial water plants and which for convenience sake Trunkin now grew in a fish tank in his guest bedroom, where they’d left their bodies. They tasted, not entirely unpleasantly, like dirt.

Stuart coalesced crosslegged on the floor of Trunkin’s city apartments, eye-level with his friend’s knees. Gone were Trunkin’s shabby bohemian pajamas, his patchy beard, replaced by flowing purple robes and luxuriant brown bristles birds would fight to nest in. His smiling face was haloed by a stiff yellow brim.

Stuart made to rise but Trunkin stopped him.

“Stay there a moment. I want to try something before we leave.”

Frowning, Stuart settled back onto his bum.

Trunkin nodded. “Close your eyes.”

Stuart closed them.

“You stand before a temple gate. Across the courtyard, the abbot sweeps the steps. He sees you and calls out.” Trunkin’s sounded faraway and like it belonged to somebody else. “‘Ho there!’ He’s waving now. Wave back.”

In his mind’s eye, Stuart waved.

“‘Stuart!’ the old monk calls, ‘Why do you stand there outside the temple? Why don’t you come in?’”

Stuart knew the answer. “Because I do not see myself as being outside.”

“Good.” There was a grin in Trunkin’s voice as he clapped Stuart on the shoulder. A firm, downward pressure. A clear message. “You’re back in my apartments now. Are you ready?”

“I’m ready.”

“Then open your eyes and let’s go.”

Stuart stood and looked around, feeling, as he always did visiting Sky, as though he’d stepped back to sometime round the turn of the nineteenth century. Hardwood floors under colorful rugs and plaster walls hung with tapestries only muffled the men with megaphones and the growling of primordial engines outside. In Trunkin’s silvered mirror Stuart considered himself, his own beard scraggly as ever and the riotous colors of his blanket robe somehow diminished. He grimaced.

Trunkin’s hand was on the doorknob. “Don’t dawdle.”

“—for your mayor!” a droning voice demanded, suddenly deafening. “Fight for your city!”

They were halfway through the door when a man in a top hat whizzed by in a belching green motorcar, honking. A handful of horse-drawn coaches jounced along the cobblestone streets behind him, their drivers shouting obscenities.

Trunkin dragged Stuart into pandemonium and shut the door behind them with a wave. Dragged him through town past street-corner preachers and amateur propagandists. Garish signboards and posters howled at one another while propeller planes buzzed overhead trailing clouds of leaflets.

The journey took ten minutes when it should’ve taken thirty. Walking with Trunkin reminded Stuart of travelators at the airport.

Their destination was The Jungle, a trendy restaurant. The host at the door greeted Trunkin by name, guiding them briskly toward the back between tables where fashionable couples dined amidst tropical plants and birds and savage-looking carvings, silverware tinkling on fine china. He left them at an alcove thick with broadleaves and drooping fronds, beyond which was a shadowy corridor, an unmarked door, a flight of stairs with another door at the bottom. Trunkin rhythmically rapped.

The door opened to reveal a dusky young man in rolled-up sleeves. He ushered them in, grinning at their arrival, and locked the door behind them.

“Evening, Damien.” Trunkin pushed back his hat, taking in the smoky room, thick with bodies. All eyes were on a spotlit pair on a raised dais, facing off behind twin microphones. They were arguing.

“…why the rule of a beneficent king will always better serve the common man than turgid democracy!”

The echoing pronouncement garnered boos and cheers.

“Going up?” Damien asked, and Trunkin shook his head.

“Here for him tonight.” He nodded at Stuart.

“Shame.” Damien paged through a ledger. “Markham’s in, and I’d love to see you wipe that smug look off his face.” He handed Stuart a chip embossed with the number three before mounting his wheeled ladder and gliding off to write Stuart’s name on the wall beside the name Hullman, marked with a four.

They went to join the crowd.

The debates were fierce, more than one contender carried away unconscious or groaning. Now and then a spectator collapsed as well, at some particularly violent disillusionment. Stuart’s nerves ratcheted upward as he strove for outward calm.

When he heard Hullman’s name, he knew his time had come.

The announcer’s mic dangled from the shadowy ceiling. “Ladies and gentlemen, a special treat. Join me in welcoming the Wizard…Jenkins!”

Stuart flushed at the cheers and whispers that greeted his name—or rather, his title—forcing himself to breathe evenly as he climbed the stage. Hullman, a young bank clerk, took Stuart in, his faded robes and tasseled cap, and sneered. Stuart blinked then frowned. Didn’t he care what slippery debaters wizards were? That they might convince you that you couldn’t see the color blue or that your hair was on fire?

The crowd hushed as the announcer addressed them. “Gentlemen, you know the rules. Ranked debater chooses style, challenger the theme. Hullman?”

“Proposition and rebuttal,” Hullman said, dripping arrogance and disdain.

Stuart’s eyebrows rose. A daring choice, against a wizard. Stuart might propose anything at all, and Hullman would be forced to argue against it. It was a good way to leave the bout a vegetable—literally or figuratively.

The announcer purred into his mic. “Master Jenkins, the floor is yours. Let the argument begin.”

A bell clanged.

Stuart resisted the urge to search the shadows beyond the dais for Trunkin, whose voice now echoed in his head. “Whatever your thoughts on God or the universe, keep them out of that ring. Believe in everything and nothing. Therein lies the font of wizardliness and good argument.”

Stuart searched and found a thought, and though it frightened him, he believed it as hard as he could. He licked his lips. “There’s a hole in your pocket,” he told Hullman, “and it contains the universe.”

The audience gasped.

The clerk made an inarticulate sound but recovered quickly. He turned his pockets out. “Fah! There’s no hole!”

“Not those pockets.” Stuart nodded toward the slit across the front of Hullman’s waistcoat.

Hullman looked down. The pocket rippled as though a breeze passed through it. He squirmed free of the garment and hurled it away.

“I-Impossible,” Hullman stammered, but his obvious fear of the hole only reinforced Stuart’s belief in it. It crystallized in his mind.

Stuart raised his hands, swelling with confidence as Hullman shrank. “Of course it’s possible, my poor, inflexible friend, for here we are in it. Outside it. A recursive loop, infinitely small, infinitely vast…”

A moaning wind whipped up around Hullman’s waistcoat, turning slow circles on the floor. Stuart sensed the audience backing away, clamoring for the door.

A giddy laugh bubbled in his chest. Argument. Pah! Things were different when you could manifest reality. As well argue with a stone. As well argue with G—

“Holes do not exist.”

Stuart looked at Hullman. “What?”

“Holes,” he repeated. “They don’t exist.” His voice sounded faraway and like it belonged to somebody else. His whole demeanor had changed, as though possessed by some tenacious spirit.

“You said the universe was in a hole in my pocket, but a hole is an absence, not a vessel.”

Stuart scoffed. “A semantic argument, and a weak one. Do your eyes lie?” For there was a hole now, and no sign of Hullman’s waistcoat or the center of the stage. Only stars. Boundless. Eternal.

But Hullman laughed. “Your imagination’s gotten the better of you, wizard. You’ve convinced no one but yourself. You argue impossibilities. Mad ravings of an unhinged mind. You expect me to believe that piddling whiffle you’ve conjured is God’s own breath? Open your eyes, you fool. Open your eyes!”

The stars shuddered, then Stuart’s forehead stung as if struck with a pebble. He staggered backward, clutching the spot. What?

“Open. Your. Eyes!”

Stuart opened his eyes in time to watch Trunkin flick the space between them.

“Ow!” Wincing, he fell onto his back.

Trunkin loomed over him, scowling. “Yes, let’s kill everyone for the sake of showing Howard bloody Hullman. How many times must I tell you? Mind what you believe!”

Thanks for reading.

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