---

Serena sat on a grassy knoll overlooking a meandering stream of cool water. She smoked a cigarette and thought about life. “Ignorant dullards the lot of them,” she said aloud to herself. She tossed the burning butt into the stream and watched it bob and weave its way to another place and time.

“That’s polluting,” said an odd voice from behind her.

Serena whipped her head around. She was scared. There stood a young man in strange clothes.

“Who are you?” Serena wanted to know.

“My name is Paul. I’m an apostle of magic. Do you mind if I sit with you for a spell?”

Serena looked at him up and down. He was charmingly well-built, yet resembled a down-on-his-luck scarecrow who had wandered off from his field. “I suppose it would be all right,” she said. “But just so you know, my daddy’s farm isn’t far off, and he has guns, and a mean streak.”

“Don’t worry young lady, I’m not a violent person or a scam artist or anything like that. I’m just a traveling magician. I mean you no harm.”

“You don’t look much like a magician. Where’s your fancy suit and your top hat with the rabbit inside?”

Paul saddened a bit and looked around at the beautiful, natural world for an answer. “Right. Well, I guess you could say I’m not very successful at being a magician. And truth be told, I’m not really that kind of a magician. I’m not a birthday party magician. I’m a real practitioner of old-world magic.”

Serena burst out laughing. “Bullshit!”

Paul took grave offense. “But I am.”

“All right then, prove it.”

Paul got to his feet. “Okay. But you must close your eyes.”

“What kind of a magician makes people close their eyes?”

“Just do it, please.”

Serena did as he said and closed her eyes. “So, what sort of a trick are you going to do?”

“Hush now, girl. I need to concentrate. But if you must know, I’m going to make myself disappear. Keep your eyes closed and count to 10. Once you reach 10, you can open them, and if everything goes right, I will magically vanish.”

She heard him scuttle away as she counted. “Ten!”

Serena opened her eyes and looked around. Paul was nowhere to be seen. She got up and scanned the landscape. The area was thick with trees. “Hello!?” she cried out.

Someone suddenly tapped her on the shoulder. Serena spun around.

“Looking for me?” Paul said with a grin.

“Where did you come from so suddenly?”

“That’s my secret. Let’s just say it’s magic.”

“I don’t believe you,” Serena said. “You were just hiding behind that stump or something.” She pointed listlessly.

Paul looked up to the sky and smiled. “Believe what you will… What shall we do now?”

“I don’t know. But I want to know more about you. You said you were an apostle of magic. Who’s your spiritual leader?”

He gazed into her cyanic-colored eyes that mirrored the sky. He turned as he spoke, arms stretched upward. “The entirety of the universe, dear girl. Many stars, many planets, many creators, many motherships, many dimensions.”

“That encompasses most everything, which in turn leads me to believe you constructed that statement to derail my question,” she said.

Paul sensed that this one was much more perceptive than he expected. It was something the dreams failed to reveal to him. “Nonsense,” he professed. “Absolute nonsense.”

She studied his gentle oddness as she thought. “Do you go to church where you come from?”

Paul scoffed and slapped the air with his hand. “Puffing wishes to some imaginary old fairy man out by the moons is an exercise in utter futility.”

“That’s blasphemy!” Serena objected. “And you better not let my father hear you say something like that. He’ll have your hide.”

“And I’ll turn him into a three-legged mothman if he tries to lay a finger on me. And besides, who said anything about me meeting your father?” He smiled at her. “Unless. Are you sweet on me? Do you want to get married?”

“Eww, no!” Serena protested. “I’m not of marrying age yet. Don’t be stupid. And even if I was, I wouldn’t marry someone who has no belief in God. I don’t want my children going straight to hell the second they pop out of my belly.”

Paul chuckled out loud. He put his hands on his hips like an over dramatic Robin Hood and cast his gaze toward somewhere else. “You are an interesting and curious girl, and I would like to go to where you come from. I could meet your family, and I may even show them a few of my tricks.”

She pondered his request for a moment. He was strange, yes, but seemed harmless otherwise. “I suppose that will be all right,” she agreed. “But no bad mouthing the Lord. Do you understand?”

Paul rolled his eyes out of her view. “Yes, yes. All right. I’ll do my very best to be my very best.”

---

When they arrived at the house, Sarrah, Josiah, and Reverend Savior were sitting in the front room in a solemn silence staring up at the can of rabbit that just hovered there in the air, a mystifying soft glow surrounding it.

What is this!?” Serena cried out when she entered the room with Paul following.

The canned rabbit suddenly dropped to the floor with a thud as if suddenly let go by some unseen entity.

The room gasped. Paul went over and picked it up. He studied it for a moment and then looked around the room at the people there. “Who’s the master of levitation?” he grinned as he looked the can over before setting it on a table. “That’s quite a trick.” He nodded his head in the reverend’s direction. “Was it you, padre?”

“Serena?” Josiah said. “Who is this you’ve brought into our house?”

“This is my friend, Paul. I met him in the woods. He’s a magician.”

“And just what was it you were doing out in our woods?” Josiah wanted to know, casting an untrusting eye upon the suspicious young man. “Mixing up potions and conjuring evil, huh?”

Paul steadied himself before the pressing eyes of the room. “Nothing like that, sir. I just like to walk outside and think about things. I suppose I may have inadvertently wandered onto your property, and for that my sincerest apologies. However, I did have the good luck of happening upon your daughter. A lovely soul she is.”

Josiah grunted his disapproval over that remark.

The reverend cleared his throat. “Where are you from, boy? I’ve never seen the likes of you around these parts, and I know pretty much everyone.”

“You’re right, reverend. I’m not local to the area. I’m from up north near Livingston.”

“Livingston?” the reverend said. “That’s a bit of a distance away to just wander off from.”

Paul bowed his head. He wanted sympathy. “It’s where I’m from but I don’t have a home there anymore. My family ran me off. I suppose I’m something like a hobo or whatever you call someone without a proper place to lay his head at night.” He looked at Josiah to make a point. “I’m not evil, though.”

Sarrah shot up from her chair and went to him. Something she couldn’t control drew her to the odd young man named Paul. Sarrah felt an unfamiliar spiritual jolt inside her. She went to him and put her hands on his shoulders and looked directly into his bewildering eyes. Sarrah made sure he saw the words spill from her mouth as she slowly pronounced them. “Welcome to our home, Paul. Would you like to stay for supper?”

“Now hold on a minute,” Josiah protested. “I’m not sure I want a stranger joining us at our dinner table. Especially a trespassing self-proclaimed magician.”

“Are you not a self-proclaimed Christian!?” Sarrah shot back.

“Of course I am!” Josiah answered.

“Then act like one! He’s in need and we should welcome him, not just judge,” Sarrah scolded her husband. She returned her attention to Paul. Sarrah suddenly hugged him, and she enjoyed the feeling of his firm body. “You’re staying for supper, Paul. End of story.” Some great passionate force worked inside her.  She almost kissed him, but then made herself stop before she did.

“Yes, mam,” Paul said with a knowing smile. His heart pounded from being so close to her like that. The name Sarrah ignited and chimed in his head and heart. He glanced at the canned rabbit on the table and pointed. “Is that what we’re having to eat tonight?”

Everyone in the room burst into a fit of hysterical laughter.

---

They gathered around the table among a plethora of dishes and bowls and cups and platters: Bubbling, succulent pork chops on the bone, a potato casserole, a tossed salad, green beans with bacon, creamed corn, deep red beets, radishes, olives, cheese and crackers, a plop of sauerkraut, and a basket of the remaining Easter eggs.

Paul looked it all over with wide eyes as if he had never eaten a thing in his entire life. “Good golly Miss Molly,” he said out loud. “I haven’t seen a spread like this in what seems like an eternity.”

Josiah snapped his napkin and laid it out upon his lap and eyed the young man. “An eternity is an awful long time.”

“Yes, sir. I know it is.”

“Why don’t you say grace?” Josiah said to Paul.

“Grace?”

“A prayer,” Sarrah said. “We always say a prayer before we eat.”

“I really don’t know much about praying,” Paul stumbled.

“Pray!” Josiah bellowed.

“Now, now, Josiah,” Reverend Savior injected. “There’s no need to yell at the boy. If he’s never prayed, how’s he going to know?”

“The food is getting cold,” Serena said.

“I’d be more than happy to do the prayer,” the reverend said. “It is my job, after all.”

Josiah ignored him and pointed his fork toward Paul. “You just talk to God,” he said. “You tell him how you feel and how thankful you are for all the blessings he’s bestowed upon us.”

Paul looked at Sarrah and smiled. “But it’s your dear wife who prepared the meal, not a man in the clouds.”

Sarrah squirmed. She feared the worst for Paul over what he had said. She sensed Josiah’s blood boiling deep inside his body. There would be an outburst at any moment, she thought. A terrible outburst that would send dishes and food flying. Sarrah knew she would end up getting beat for pushing the young man to stay, but she just couldn’t help it. There was something moving her within the hope of desire. Sarrah also knew she would be willing to take a beating for Paul. With each strike of Josiah’s hand or belt, she would think of Paul and what would surely come. But how? Why? What was going on?

Josiah was trembling. He took a deep breath. For some reason he could not fathom, he was trying to calm himself. He was trying to take Paul’s side in the matter of religion. “I can’t blame you for not understanding the true depth of what God really is,” Josiah said. His own ears were in disbelief. “If you haven’t grown up with it, if you haven’t been taught the true way, then it’s not right of me to take offense. Instead,” he said. “I should help you learn the truth.”

Josiah pushed his chair back and went into another room. When he returned, he was holding a small Bible. He handed it to Paul. “Here, I want you to have this. I have others.”

Paul took the Bible and looked around the table. Everyone was gently smiling at him.

“That there is the mind of God,” Josiah said. “Explore it. Believe me, there is no greater gift.” He sat back down at the table. “That’s prayer enough,” he said, and they all began to eat.

---

After they had finished the bountiful meal and enjoyed a delicious dessert of strawberry Schaum Torte, Paul suggested that he would like to perform a magic trick for them.

“Now, I want you all to close your eyes and count to 43 very slowly,” he instructed. “When you’re done counting, you may open your eyes, and I will have vanished. I assure you all, you will be amazed.”

“I say, it doesn’t sound like much of a magic trick when you make your audience close their eyes,” the reverend complained. “Why, he could just slip out the back door and we’d never see him again, his belly full of a free meal.”

“Calm down, padre,” Josiah said in defense of the young man whom he has quickly taken a liking to. “Let him do his little magic trick. I want some entertainment around here.”

Sarrah suddenly shot up from her chair and started applauding enthusiastically. “Do it, Paul!” she exclaimed. “Show me your magic wand!”

Paul glanced at her and smiled. His warm soul reveled in the sight of her shapely yet meaty body, the sparkling of her bewildering amethyst eyes, the fullness of her intelligent breasts, the sensual beckoning of her mouth, her domestic simplicity. He wanted to take her like an animal right then and there on the table. He had no concerns over the cooling scraps of food or the sharp knives and other implements. He didn’t even care if the others stayed there and watched. Paul wanted to plow her like an autumn field beneath the grace of the universe.

Sarrah, Josiah, Serena, and the reverend closed their eyes and began to count. Paul quickly slipped away from the dining table and made for the staircase to the second floor of the old farmhouse. He stepped slowly and gently for fear of a creaking board under his weight giving him away.

When he reached the upper hallway, he slithered along in search of Sarrah and Josiah’s bedroom. He assumed they slept together. It was a grand room in one corner of the house with large windows looking out upon the pastoral surroundings in which they lived. He paused for a moment and relished the grandeur of the mountains and the sky above them before sitting down at a vanity table and looking at himself in a mirror.

“I think I’m going mad,” Paul said to himself as he slowed time. He cocked his head to one side. He studied his long, coiled hair. It was the color of polished rust. He looked at his geometric, chiseled face. He gazed into his own darkened yellow eyes. Burnt hazel is what they call it, he thought. “Am I truly the reason for all the disarray in this world?” His reflection became serious. “I can’t be. No one should take on a burden like that. Not even me.”

He got up from the vanity and went to what he knew was Sarrah’s dresser. He pulled the drawers open until he found her underwear. Paul removed a pair and held it before his face before crushing it into his nose and mouth and breathing in deeply. He went through them all, pair after pair, and did the same thing with each, placing them back into the drawer when finished. Except one. It was pink with a white waistband, and he stuffed it down his pants. They were drawing closer now, he thought. Imaginary touching slowly materializing into reality. This he knew with certainty. He and Sarrah in some obscure and divine loving embrace.

He suddenly stopped his thoughts, and his own mind opened his eyes wide and showed him. “It’s happening again,” Paul said aloud.

He restarted time and soon heard footsteps scrambling up the stairs. He made for the closest window and opened it. He peered out and it was a long way down it seemed. He gritted his teeth and stepped out, shutting the window behind him. He closed his eyes and let his body relax completely while in a transitory state. He just let go and tumbled down into the arms of someone who wasn’t even there. He embraced the ghost and ran from the house, through the tall fields of a spring day. He looked back only once and saw her in the very same window he had escaped through. His heart rushed for Sarrah as he fled into the forest.

More to come in this story.