On Magic

1
The assignment was to write something using magic, a reaction to Harry Potter. I decided to criticize it, comment on the dangers of escapist literature but also talk about me.

	By the time you read this message an hour will have passed. I scheduled it to be sent by then. It’ll give me plenty of time for it to kick off.
	This is my confession. My shrink said I couldn’t tell you, that you wouldn’t understand, but I’m sure it’ll help. To see more clearly, to understand why I did this. Where to start? I’ve already told my life story to my psychiatrist, to several psychiatrists and psychologists. It’s tiring. I guess what matters is I always thought I was different, that I couldn’t connect with others, but I figured it out around college. By the time I started Tomás and Lautaro didn’t talk to me anymore, so I had started reading a lot. To pass the time, fill the silence. Right, so I stumbled upon the stories of Howard Parker. The teenager’s adventures and how he came to understand he was the chosen one changed my life. There never had been, never would be something like that. It was unique, yet it seemed to describe me perfectly. What a contradiction. It was like Howard had been through everything I had, only he finds out he’s the chosen one, so he can handle everything. Nobody came to let me know my destiny, right? So I had it harder, but the book helped me understand everything. I was a Howard. At first I thought I was one of the “chosen ones”, like Howard, but I was young, I find it funny now. I know it was rubbish. Howard’s tale was fiction. You can look up the author on Wikipedia. No, I had to be something else. For a while I was convinced I was an elf, then I thought I was the reincarnation of someone famous -- a writer, probably -- that’s why I had greatness in my genes. But I realized it went deeper than that. I wasn’t just great: I could do magic.
	One day, while I was taking a bath I tried practicing meditation. I emptied my mind and focused on the water. And then, bah, I know you won’t buy it, but after this message it won’t matter. I swear I saw the water changing its flow depending on how I stared at it. It all made sense then. I got to reading, researching, and stumbled upon the history of Atlantis. I was descended from those evolved people. You adopted me, did you think I wouldn’t tell? When I told my shrink he said well, I have your eyes, there’s the baby photos… That doesn’t mean anything. The thing is this face I see in the mirror, that I see reflected on the screen while I type, isn’t my real skin. As I grow older this shell decays, and my real body starts showing itself, half-fish. Like a snake shedding skin. Of course I don’t want people to notice, I don’t want them to know my secret, so I try to stop the change. When I told my shrink he didn’t take me seriously, see? That’s why I have to be doing a constant mental effort for my skin not to fall off.
	Really, it all made sense. I mean, doesn’t it explain everything else? That when I leave my house the pains start, the knot in my stomach, the shaking, the sweating. The doc said that was because home was my “comfort zone”, but he just doesn’t take me seriously. I placed a spell around the house, that’s why I’m okay inside. But it’s harder outside. And it’s worse when there’s people. The more people there are the more I sweat, and I get more upset, and everytime I blink I feel my eyes wet, even though I can’t manage to cry. That’s because my body channels water, which is my true source. The thing is when they’re strangers I have to dedicate all my concentration to my skin not falling off, and that’s where the effort comes from, that’s why I sweat. It’s nothing more than that. Since I’m an aquatic creature, being out of water, out of home is like holding my breath; anybody can do it, just not for long. When I was around Tomás and Lautaro I could relax my concentration a bit because I kind of wanted them to see my other skin, I trusted them. I hung out with them before reading Howard’s saga, right? But the skin thing had been happening for a long time, I just took a while to figure it out. They were super cool, even though they laughed at me and they had this song, this song about me everytime I dropped water or did anything wrong. But it was all in good fun, of course. I couldn’t get mad at them. I don’t know why they stopped texting. By the time I started college they were gone. I think they sensed my secret and got scared. That must have been it.
	So, that’s why I had to drop out. The mental effort to keep my skin from falling off was too much. If I hadn’t read Howard, I probably never would have realized my secret, and maybe I would’ve kept going and really hurt myself. The thing is you didn’t like this. You didn’t want me holed up inside. In the end I ended up signing up for another degree, many years later. See what you did? See where we ended up? But I mean, of course it’s not your fault, you didn’t know my secret. How could you? What a shame.
	I had spent many years inside, healing, strengthening my magic. So when I started college again I felt I could do it. The shakes, that stinging pain in my head were gone. But it didn’t last; one day people came from a drug prevention center to give us a lecture. They started describing the symptoms that could make you get into drugs, that whole deal, and the shakes appeared out of nowhere. Maybe it was because they used all those words I didn’t like. Depression, isolation. This is embarrassing to admit, but I moaned out loud in the middle of class. The girl sitting next to me gave me this look you can’t imagine. She could tell. So much effort so they wouldn’t tell my problems, and she could tell. She glimpsed at my secret.
	Now the pains won’t stop. My heart is rushing so much I can’t stop moaning, as if I was running. But I rushed back home, to my room, within my protective spell. Why do I moan? I’m lying in bed, why do I run? My magical side wants to be free, it wants to explode, but it can’t. If the world knew nobody would accept me. All the other atlanteans, the others like me, they’re hidden from the world, right? That’s why nobody knows about them. If I went public they wouldn’t get involved, so as to not expose their kind. I had to stay hidden, discrete until they detected me and came looking for me. Until that fateful doorbell rang. But they won’t come. And it hurts. I wouldn’t mind staying like this all my life if it didn’t hurt. I wouldn’t mind if Tomás and Lautaro never text me again, even if I’m waiting for them, I wouldn’t mind staying alone if only my mind would stop screaming at me. I already took today’s pills, but they didn’t do anything. First it was one a day, then two, then three. No effect. We’ve already gone through seven brands. I was thinking about that when I came up with a solution. You never clean the meds drawer, all the stuff from years ago is still there. Even the first meds I tried. I grabbed them all, the seven brands, brought them to my room. I emptied them in a cup and mashed them while casting a spell to make them more powerful. This will stop my skin from wanting to fall off, for sure. It will stop my mind from burning. You follow the logic, right? You want me to stop hurting as well. That’s why I’m writing this message, so you know what happened if you find me asleep. It doesn’t matter if you know my secret anymore, since the brewage will cure me. And since my magic won’t be able to come out, it’ll accumulate and grow in my body until my people can detect me. They won’t be able to miss it. Thanks, Howard, thanks. For helping me realize. It’s tough, being the only one in the world with a problem, nobody being able to relate to you. Being special is tough, isn’t it? You believe me, right? I’m getting sleepy. Now that I drank this stuff, will I be cured? I’m having trouble seeing the letters I’m typing. Will I be able to forget all of this? Read this when you get home, okay? I have to lie down, sleep a little. Bye.

2
The assignment was to write about “the first time your character encounters magic.” I kind of had already covered that in my first story, so I took the chance to deepen the character’s backstory.

	I had started my first year and I still hadn’t seen my magic for the first time, I just read Howard Parker’s books innocently, not giving them much thought. It wasn’t until Elliot’s visit that I figured it out. Lautaro and Tomás didn’t talk to me anymore, and every time I walked into the classroom I had trouble breathing, so I didn’t approach anyone. So I didn’t have anyone to speak to, to talk about my books with… That’s why I got into online forums. That’s where I met Elliot, an American boy who was my age. We liked the same things, we were similar, so I was happy when he told me he was visiting my country soon. I told him I couldn’t wait, but the fact that we had only been chatting for a week made me uneasy. What if the shakes came? The sweating?
	But he arrived, he would arrive whether we hung out or not. When we met it was awkward, but we made up for it with laughs. The thing was filling the silence, that beast that was always crawling behind me. I wouldn’t shut up; I spoke about anything for the sake of avoiding any silence. And he was always so polite, so well-mannered, nodding to everything. Never any complaints. He looked different than the photos… I tried not to think about that. But he kept staring right at me in the eyes.
	We tried going to the theater, but every movie was dubbed so he couldn’t understand them. I started panicking, but he proposed something that I think he had been thinking about for a while. “Want to go to a hotel?”
	I looked at him. He wasn’t what I considered attractive, but there was no question about it. I had to be as polite as him. “Damn right,” I said.
	So we went to a hotel. He paid, of course. It was him. We sat in a red, effulgent bed, and when he put a hand on my shoulder I realized I was shaking. “You okay?” he asked. “It’s okay if you’re not ready.” “No, no,” I said. I had to be polite.
	So his hand moved lower. He started unbuckling my belt. I couldn’t take any more than that: “Stop” Uh… “I want to take YOUR clothes off”, of course, that’s what I meant. So I did. I stared at his naked body and felt absolutely nothing. He moved me closer, so I felt him, explored him, tasted him, but couldn’t manage to feel anything. I felt I was miles away. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll try then.” Oh, yeah, he spoke in English. I forget the strangest things.
	Back then I didn’t understand why I didn’t want anybody to look at me; I instinctively knew it was wrong. That he’d hate me. But he went right for it, he took my clothes off and said nothing. He always had the same polite smile that might as well be no expression at all. Then he lowered his hand, touched me and that’s when it happened.
	It was like when your leg falls asleep, that painful electricity, only throughout my entire body. I moaned, but he misunderstood why. I had to get him off me and run to the bathroom. I washed my hands, I wouldn’t stop washing them, trying to wash the electricity away. Everything hurt.
	So yeah, that night everything made sense. That my body was different, that I wasn’t human, that if I tried to be intimate with humans we wouldn’t be compatible. That night all my hours reading Howard Parker clicked and I understood I was just like him.
	Elliot never wrote to me again.