Merry Spells it out

Chapter 1 – chance encounter

Third time lucky.

What do you mean “third time”? You’ve only just begun.

I deleted the first two. This is my third attempt to break through – to make contact.

Well – how’s it going?

Not bad. I seem to have found you.

Found me? I think it was me who found you.

You do?

Yes. I’m in the bookshop.

Which bookshop?

Oh – does it really matter? In the airport, if you must know – but please don’t ask me to tell you which one.

So, you’re in the bookshop and what happens?

Nothing so dramatic. I just happen to notice this brightly coloured book and find myself listing through the first few pages. Hey presto – here I am.

Precisely – here you are – and whether it’s you who found me or I who found you – we’ve made contact at least.

I suppose so – but I find it hard to believe you’re chatting with me now – I mean, you wrote this ages ago, and the book’s probably been on this shelf for weeks.

Four days, five hours and sixteen minutes to be precise.

Oh. Okay. And I expect loads of other people have taken a look at it.

Well yes – you’re absolutely right.

Then how can you say you’ve just made contact with me, like it’s all happening right now?

Funny time.

I beg your pardon?

Funny time.

Yes, I heard you first time, but it doesn’t mean anything to me.

Well, it’s a bit like different time zones. Story time, you see, is funny – not in the “ha ha ha” sense of the word, but funny in the “weird” or “spooky” sense.

Er – I still don’t follow.

Okay – story is a kind of timeless portal. It joins together whoever’s reading or writing it, no matter how far apart they may seem to be in terms of space or time.

Right – I get you. But that doesn’t mean you’re writing this now, does it? I mean – you’re not going to change what you’re writing based on something I’m about to say, are you?

Try me.

The fox among the hens…

The cat among the pidgeons…

But how?

How what?

How can you hear my thoughts now if you wrote this months ago?

Or years ago, for that matter… like I said – it’s known as funny time. It’s non-linear, to use a technical term.

But what about all your other readers? How come it’s only me? Where are their thoughts?

Believe it or not, Zen, there’s a space somewhere between what’s written down on the paper and where your thoughts are. Story can access that space. It can draw you imperceptibly into that space, so that you’re having an entirely personal experience, even when you’re looking at the same page everyone else is.

No, that sounds weird. I can’t accept that.

Fair dinkum, mate.

Fair dinkum – what did that odd expression come from?

Australia.

But why would you use it here?

Oh, I don’t know. One of the other readers was using it a moment ago.

You mean you’re in communication with multiple readers at the same time?

Like I said, Zen, this is a funny time zone. In actual fact, in your reality, that reader was reading this three years from now.

You mean three years ago? Amazing!

No, I mean three years in the future – but I don’t always deal with my in tray chronologically. Sometimes I go alphabetically, geographically, or by age of reader.

But…

Yes?

That’s impossible. How could you be reading and replying NOW to something that’s going to happen three years in the future. That breaks all the laws of physics.

Hey ho.

Hey what?

Hey ho – once you get more into this funny time phenomenon – you stop worrying about things like that, the same way you don’t worry that it’s evening when you skype your aunt in Australia, but still morning in Cardiff.

!!! Wait a minute. Who told you I have an aunt in Australia, and that I live in Cardiff?

Or that your name’s Zen? Who do you think?

I have no idea.

You, of course.

But when, I don’t remember.

That’s because you haven’t told me yet – you haven’t even bought the book, so get a move on or you’ll miss your flight, but rest assured, there’s no supernatural agency at work here Zen. You do, indeed, tell me all this and more not too far into your future, otherwise I wouldn’t know all this.

But why would I bother to tell you if you already know?

Good question. The thing is, you’re in this kind of mental chat room with me right now – while trying to decide whether or not to get the book. Now, the minute you switch back into normal 3D reality – this whole conversation gets filed away somewhere at the back of your mind, and you basically forget it happened.

Oh.

Precisely. O or zero or nada – because then you’ll be back in linear time. Now, if you get your act together and start to integrate funny and linear time – then you’ll have access to this conversation any time you like, and much, much more – but that’s another conversation. Right now you’ve got to walk before you run – so I’d suggest cashier number three – she’s quicker than the others.

Ok. Er – one more thing?

Yes?

This may sound stupid…

I don’t think so.

But who are you?

Look at the cover.

James Merry Davidson?

The one and same. But usually they call me Merry. James is a guy like everyone else, walking around in the same 3D reality as you. In fact, he hasn’t figured out a half of what it’s all about yet. He needs time. Lots of time.

So you’re…

I’m Merry, and so are you, if you’re reading this. It’s a kind of magick – if you get my drift.

Not really.

Well, not to worry, there’s plenty of time to deal with technicalities, but only if you make your flight – so one, two, three – snap out of it Zen, Zulifa, cashier number three awaits your convenience – don’t forget to show her your boarding card.

Oh… Okay.

Chapter two – Zoe’s dilemma

You mean to tell me that the book I’ve just purchased is of no literary merit whatsoever?

No exactly Zoe.

Then what? A Trojan Horse is how you just described it. In my book that constitutes gross deception or even fraud.

Yes, obviously I’m sailing close to the wind – I admit – but the world of magick always involves smoke and mirrors. What really matters is the intention – and the question is whether mine be honourable or not.

I hardly think the end justifies the means, Merry, or whatever else you choose to call yourself.

Merry will do, thank you.

So, I buy a  book of Spells – assuming it’s either going to be either or – verse or some kind of magick

And you score on both counts – verse it is, and a portkey designed to take the horse to water.

Oh – so I’m a horse now, am I?

You’re the one who can either drink this water, or refuse. I cannot drink it for you, nor can I compel you to do so.

But you’ve just admitted the Spells themselves are merely decorative.

Decorative, or you might say descriptive. They’re a little like flowers, but how else are you going to access the magicks you’re so keen to lay hold of.

By finding a book that actually teaches me something.

This is not Harry Potter, Zoe. You can’t just learn a formula and wave a wand – that’s not how it works.

Why not?

Because real magick is innate. It’s within you. It needs to be felt, to be experienced, to be known. It’s a part of you that sometimes emerges, in moments of crisis, but which is generally locked away.

But why? Why should it be locked away?

Why do you think?

Honestly, I have no idea?

Well, consider the world you’re in.

I’d rather not.

And why is that?

Because it’s so vicious, so retarded, so dull, so anal – like it’s been photoshopped to remove all the colour, all the passion, all the exciting bits.

You’ve not fallen in love of late, have you Zoe?

No, but if I had – that’s not going to change the world I’m living in, is it?

You’d be surprised – but if, as I suspect, you’re ripe for magick, then you’re not likely to allow love to distract you from the quarry you’re pursuing.

What do you mean?

Well, the 3D reality you’re in doesn’t work for everyone, does it? Some people are not satisfied, even if they have it all – career, relationship, money… There’s something else they’re looking for, something else they need, something else that gnaws away at them – that seems to be lacking, though try as they might they can’t put their finger on what it is.

And you’re suggesting I’m such a person?

You suggested as much when you bought a copy of Spells in Upper Winthrop last week.

I did?

Well yes. And your disappointment that the book fails to live up to your hopes or expectations is merely confirmation of this.

It is?

Well yes. You were looking for a pass, a formula, a golden ticket that could deliver what you’re searching for – and hardly surprisingly, the book could not.

Then as I said, it’s all been a waste of time, and you’re just a fraud.

Am I?

Obviously. You sold yourself under false pretences – like any snake oil trader might.

Ah, but you fail to realise that magick is not a thing that can be got or purchased.

No? Then what?

Magick is something you’re either ready for or not. It’s a growing awareness that the container you’re presently locked in is too small. It’s an awareness that there’s more – much, much more somewhere out there – and that “out there” might not be there at all – it might just as well be here inside me.

You make it sound like a change of states – a larva becoming a fly…

A caterpillar becoming a butterfly. Yes, that’s more or less what it is. It’s way too big, way too deep, way too fundamental to be something that can be taught.

Then why bother selling a book called Spells – if it’s innate – as you put it – if it can’t be taught.

To refresh the mind, to rekindle the heart, to excite the imagination, to restore a vibrant sense of things being way, way more than what 3D reality allows them to be.

Just words – all you’re giving me are words.

And this – what about this? Zoe finds herself waking up, so to speak, in a kind of dungeon. Real – there’s no question that this is at least as real as 3D reality. It smells, feels, tastes, sounds just as real as anything she’s ever experienced. More so, in fact, because there’s another sense, another factor, another dimension in play which is absent in our 3D world – a conscious-awareness which makes everything more connected, more vibrant and present in the moment than anything she experiences in ordinary life. It’s as if someone has removed the filter – a kind of cotton wool – and now she can sense that 3D is a derivative – a subset, perhaps even a distortion of where she now is.

And how, pray tell, am I supposed to get out of here?

No idea Zoe. You’re going to have to figure it out. The fact that you’ve actually made it here indicates you’re ready to advance to the next level. You got here under your own steam. I did nothing.

How likely is that?

The sleeper awakens. But hush – something tells me danger lurks in this dank dungeon. I think it’s time you considered your options.

My options? What do you mean?

Well, you can continue pretending this is all just a dream – in which case you’ll never have the energy to come back and try to break out, or you could take the plunge – commit yourself to dreamquest – even if it kills you, as it might, and thus get started – start to reclaim your lost and scattered magicks.

I thought you said magick isn’t a thing to be bought?

Correct. It needs to be fought over, it needs to be won. So what’s it going to be – the safety of Upper Winthrop or a mortal struggle for the crock of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Well I wish I had more time to think things through.

You’ve had all your life to think things through. The speed of thought will never ever get you airborn. Just consider the thought of turning your back on the quest – and if you can live with that – then go – you’re better off 3Ding it, but if something inside rebels at the thought, then now’s the time to take the plunge – now or never.