The Fraudulent Magician

For seven days I perform magic for a crescent 6 year-old girl. I bring rainbows indoors with an arc that wraps itself around her curiosity. I bring stories/fairy-tales to life. Fire-breathing dragons: secret potions, kings, princes and of course the princess in a castle---all this, under the umbrella of sprawled worn blanket that reminds us of comfort. This is our castle. I take such things as “owies” and tummy aches and make them “go away” (as she asks) with a simple kiss from my natural lips and reluctant smile. I spin nightmares feverishly until the demons become bright-colored-big-eyed unassuming creatures (How cute she says giggling) I am a true magician, a magnificent walking circus---that is, until she leaves me for 7 days. There is no “magic” within those 168 hours. Fireflies mock me for 10,080 minutes. No bioluminescence during twilight. A shadowless window frame. I am no match for these 604,800 seconds---I can’t apply pressure to them: run, run, run faster! The concept of speeding up the process does not exist here. These seconds have proven to be adversarial, each and every one of them. I am not a magician. Rather, a father, missing his daughter searching for reminders for 7 days within a home filled with lifeless dolls: clothes waiting to take form, walls waiting for that echo--a raspy little cartoon voice. Floors anticipating to be destroyed by little feet, she is their Monster! There is a reminder in everything, everything lacks her substance. I walk through the weight of the day contemplating how I am going to one day tell her that daddy is not a magician, just a fraud. And just when I think I have my grand speech perfected I look down at my left wrist: a pink hair tie, a black hair tie, a purple hair tie, a yellow hair tie, a rubber band---each day it’s different; subconsciously I have wrapped one around my wrist. And no matter where I am (and many times at the most unexpected places), at that very poignant moment, with that one reminder I start to think to myself “maybe, just maybe, I am…...”