A family hung around the table, a lightbulb floating above them from a long black cord. It was like a scene from the theater, except more unexceptionally gloomy.
The man sipped craft beer from an expensive whiskey glass whilst the mother held a menu and watched the boy put a straw in his mouth, pretending it was a cigarette.
The youngest, a pig-tailed girl of about 8, coloured in landscapes with a lime green koki and an immunity of golden stickers. The mother yawned feebly (it seemed), as the man looked at his laptop.
Little did they know that the most significant event in their lifetime was about to happen, not 2m from where they sat.
Gregory Kind, wizard, economist, librarian and first of his kind was fiddling with a cold sore when he realized something extraordinary. This realization would have reverberations throughout the galaxy and indeed throughout human and extraterrestrial history. So it was important that Gregory not only remembered it but put it to good use. Gregory was dressed in shabby wizard clothing and was a poor shaman figure, but he had a certain regalia to his personality and decided to do something about it.
Unfortunately, Gregory had only understood his revelation intuitively, and had as yet no effective means of communication to express his insight. His cloak and hoodie made him look, in this day and age, like a homeless person.
Yet he just had a feeling and as he watched the family and the man with his callus laptop and the boy with his bored cigarette and the mother not talking to anyone, it seemed to Gregory more urgent (if shortsighted) to walk over to their table.
“Would you like to see a magic trick?” he asked them, twiddling his fingers. There was a mischievous look in the old man’s eye – and even though the “family” disliked him on sight, he was very charming.
The man looked up at him with suppressed hostility but the little girl blithely clasped her hands together in anticipation. The boy averted his gaze. The mother smiled up at Gregory like she was avoiding the topic.
Gregory spread his hands expressively over their dinner table, weaving this way and that. They were the only ones in the restaurant and the staff looked over from the kitchen.
“I’d like to begin with your imagination.” The man flicked his eyes apprehensively from the laptop to the wizard and back. Gregory however was unperturbed by the alpha’s nonchalance and carried on doggedly, throwing out gestures from sneaky angles. The waiters shifted awkwardly.
He pulled all his impressions from the fashion stores and the mist, from the crowds and the motorbikes, from the short skirts and the hipster beards, the hot smells and the hulking mountains around them.
“Now that I have your attention (the most valuable commodity in the world) let me ask you a question – do you know what each other feels?”
The family stared at him transfixed, the man’s rage audible. So, for that matter, was the woman’s. The kids, however, shouted excitedly.
“Will you let me show you?” said the wizard, performing a dramatic spin, stamping the floor. His spell worked and the children relaxed. With a light touch, on the boy’s arm he established a connection and then began to funnel into him his touch of a beloved world.
And indeed as he created this reality for them, the seemingly insignificant family rose to the foremost place as a practical example of Gregory’s insight. The wizard, being aware of this through his cyclical connection to the netherrealm, forged ahead with his analogy quite irresponsibly. For him, it was important to tell stories that changed the world, regardless if those whom he told were ready for his message.
And since the story was a transcendent act with the other side, it was the mother first who found God. She was not ready, of course, but nobody ever is. And indeed.
What she did is entirely up to you.
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