magic trick

Älvedans, ’fairy dance’ in Norwegian. Also their word for fog or mist. I think it is one of the most beautiful words on earth. Wrapped in black, my heavy fringe almost meets the cashmere python around my neck as i dissolve into the älvedans. There is something soothing about this morning. The mist lets me glide without expectation. No stark edge of light and shadow, no boundaries to try and squeeze into or indeed find oneself pushed into. A lockdowned morning in central London where one can perhaps sense a veiled enchanted garden, just beyond a dreamed up eleborate rusty iron gate. A figure suddenly appears ahead of me as i perch on the little bench next to the hole-in-the-ground coffee man on Bermondsey St. A hand tipped with dirty fingernails stretches out a pack of cards and asks me to pick one. I sense inbuilt unease as i find myself confronted with ’run away or stay and play…’ and some mechanism tells me to smile. This gnome in front of me is wearing a black bowler hat and there is something frayed around his edges. It is a strange vision, one of tattered elegance and i reach out in a subdued state of panic, pulling at any card from the fan he has formed. 8 of spades, a solemn pattern. He turns away slightly and a grain of relief sinks through me in the hope that i might be now left alone. But with his battered charm, this magician continues to weave his web, at every thread procuring my infallible 8 of spades. A homeless magician needing a bed for the night, casting his spell through the älvedans as the world is turned on its head. ”One more thing..”. He tells me to open up my palm and places the whole pack of cards face down. ”Put your other hand over the pack” he says and while i again hesitate, due to my habitual hot panic of not following instuctions correctly, he takes my empty hand and puts it over the pack. ”Now take it away” he instructs and as my hand lifts i see something resembling a block of ice. The pack of cards have disappeared and in their place lies this transparent little block. I laugh incredously and with professional swiftness he removes it. I tell him the burning truth, that i dont have change or anything resembling the old school world of exchanging notes and coins. But i offer to buy him something from the man-in-the-hole. But the magician has already eaten, he says. He needs a bed for the night. A bed for the night. The haze around me diffuses slightly. So caught up in despairing about our looming little future, that uncomfortably non-specific word, we fail to see the urgency of now. The world is collapsing, the ice is melting and the magician needs a bed for the night. I tell him i’m often in the area and he replies, ”that’s alright, gorgeous”. He wanders off i and glide back into the mist.