The Creature in the Corner

I was staying at a friend's house a couple of weeks ago and I got up in the middle of the night to take a leak. Not wanting to wake her, I tried to navigate the hallway without turning on any lights. As I walked past the open door of a room on my way to the bathroom, I saw some sort of creature in the corner, sitting in the dark.

It was about four feet tall, it looked like it was maybe covered in long hair or something, and it had two glowing eyes staring right at me.

I couldn't make out any other details because the room was illuminated solely by the moonlight coming in through the window, and this creature was off in a corner, away from the main shaft of light.

I paused. I stepped back from the doorway so I couldn't see it (or, rather, so it couldn't see me).

I peered in. It was still looking at me.

I took a step towards it into the darkened room, but it stayed where it was.

I took another step. It didn't flinch.

Another step. Its eyes were frozen.

One final step. And it started feeling considerably less animate than it did on first glance.

I reached out and my hand cast a shadow across one of the glowing eyes.

I touched the cursed monster and realized it was an exercise bike with a jacket hanging off the display screen. The "eyes" were the silver plugs on the ends of the handlebars that curved forward and inward around the jacket.

I let out a deep breath. I was significantly less concerned this thing was going to kill me or steal my soul. (On the negative side, it wasn't going to grant me wishes either.)

Did I ever really think it was some kind of hairy goblin? Probably not. But it was the middle of the night, I was half asleep, in a new place. So while I wasn’t sure it was a creature. I wasn’t sure it wasn’t either. It was just this mysterious thing until every step I took stripped it of its mystery a little. The closer I got, the less dangerous it became, the less alive, the less capable of becoming anything.

A lot of magic gets diminished the same way. Not by being explained, exactly, but by being over-defined.

If, at breakfast, you put a strawberry under a coffee mug, mumble some kind of incantation, lift up the mug, and the strawberry is gone, your friend watching might wonder what they just saw. Especially if you seem to not fully comprehend it yourself. Was it a trick? Was it a glitch in the matrix? Did she really see a strawberry in the first place? What was that incantation about?

Now exchange the coffee mug for a spun copper cup. And the strawberry for a crocheted ball. Add two more cups and more crocheted balls. Exchange the placemat for a close-up mat. Don't simply vanish one thing. Make the balls vanish and appear over and over. Have them penetrate the bottom of a cup. Have them all gather under one cup.

Every additional beat of magic or bit of polish you add to a trick ends up clarifying the category of the experience for people. It tells them, "This is a magic performance. This has been engineered. This has been practiced." In some contexts, that's exactly what you want.

But I think the most affecting amateur magic occurs when they're not sure exactly what they just saw. It must have been a trick, of course… but it had all the rough edges of…something else.

Consider that before adding another phase, a second climax, or using special props that look only like something you'd get at a magic shop.

Are you sure you want to take that step forward if it ends up making things safer, smaller, and more easily understood?

Sometimes the best thing you can do is keep them in the doorway a little longer, let the eyes keep glowing, and let the creature remain a creature.