Interview with a Wizard

by Timothy Everhart

hand, many others can only do one thing and most of those don’t even realize that they are witches and wizards, they think that they are just really good at something.”

  “And do you know many of those?”

  Nodding, the wizard chuckled. “Many of the ones in my family fall into that last category.”

  “Your father?”

  “No…” the wizard responded with the slightest shake of his head. “He was really good at several different types of magic. He knew exactly what we were, that’s how he recognized what was happening to me. In contrast, his father, my grandfather could only do one thing, but he did it very well, and he didn’t even believe in magic.”

  What sort of wizard was he?

  As he heard the way the question was phrased the wizard’s face took on a satisfied expression. Maybe this fellow can learn, and in doing so, he just might be able to teach others, he thought. “My paternal grandfather was what I call a one-way telepath. He couldn’t hear the thoughts of others, he just unknowingly projected his thoughts into their minds. To put it simply, he changed people’s minds, made them think what he wanted them to think. He used his powers to get people to vote for the candidate he was campaigning for. The man never actually ran for a political office himself, but every candidate he supported just happened to be the one that got elected. This, needless to say, made him a very popular campaign manager. But even with such a perfect record, he always believed it was simply his superb powers of persuasion that changed all of those minds. He never had a clue that what he was doing was magical in nature, that he was really a wizard.”

  “And you say that there were many like him in your family?” the reporter prodded.

  A simple nod confirmed it, but after a glance at the recorder, he explained. “They were alike in the fact that they didn’t know they were witches or wizards yes, but no two of them had the same powers. I had a great grandfather that absolutely could not be beat at billiards, he spent his entire life hustling people out of their money. He never once realized that it was his mind that made the balls fall into the pockets he wanted them in, not his skill with a cue.” He chuckled as he remembered watching the old man play, seeing the slightest curve in the paths of the brightly colored balls as they aimed themselves for the pockets. I never understood why nobody realized that the odd movements of the billiard balls were quite impossible, especially great grandfather, he thought. “If he’d ever tried, he would have found that he could have just as easily pushed the balls into the pockets without ever taking a shot.”

  “You’re talking about telekinesis?” the reporter deduced.

  “That’s right. I’ve also got a great aunt, still living by the way, that’s a healer. The old woman thinks she’s got a gift from god. You wouldn’t want to even mention that she may be, let alone actually imply that it was even possible that she might be a witch…take my word for it young fellow…that would have been a bad day, a very bad day.”

  “Didn’t you say that your father was really good at several different types of magic?” the reporter asked. Seeing a nod of confirmation from the wizard he asked, “What all could he do?”

  “Dad was a true telepath, he could hear nearly anyone’s thoughts as well as if they had spoken directly into his ear. He could also place his own thoughts inside their minds just like his dad did. He was also a bit clairvoyant,” seeing that the reporter was unfamiliar with that term he explained what he had meant by it. “In other words he could see inside closed containers and focus on places that were far away from where he was. Because of that ability he was real good at finding things people had lost.”

  “Remote viewing?” The reporter surprised the wizard by knowing that, when he hadn’t seemed to understand what a clairvoyant was.

  The wizard gave another simple nod. “Yes, exactly. Dad was also a bit of a prophet as well. He got glimpses of the future at times but he didn’t have any control of that, it just happened, mainly in his sleep, prescient dreams. That caused him more grief than anything else, knowing a bad thing was going to happen but not being able to stop it.”

  “I can see how that would be disturbing.” The reporter agreed.

  “Yes it is.” The wizard told him as he remembered waking from a number of similar dreams himself.

  Seeing the look on the old wizard’s face the reporter asked in a low tone. “You’ve had dreams like that yourself haven’t you?”

  After a simple nod he returned to the subject of his father. “Another thing that he excelled at was his control of anything electrical; TV’s, Radios, signal lights, hospital equipment, you name it. He could change channels, volume, and balance, whatever. I’ve saw him speed through a city at sixty miles an hour, all the signal lights changing to green just before he reached them. And if anything had a digital readout on it the man could make it display anything he wanted it to.”

  “Amazing.” The reporter remarked sounding impressed.

  “Yeah, Dad played with it, he made it fun.”

  “It certainly sounds like it!” the reporter agreed. “Well you’ve told me about the rest of your family, what about you, what all can you do?”

  “I’m what comes along occasionally, in some magical families, a wizard that is actually endowed with full control of a wide range of magical abilities. But just like everyone else, I too excel at one thing, my specialty, like my great-aunt, is healing.”

  “What all can you cure?” the reporter inquired.

  The wizard’s clap, quite loud in the small room, startled his interviewer. “Not realizing it, you’ve actually hit the nail on the head. Healing is another ability that is greatly misunderstood. We can cure only what’s curable, we can’t cure things that are incurable like cancers and such. We only stimulate the body’s ability to heal itself. A lot of what we do could be called empathic healing. For example, I can absorb someone else’s pain, take it away from them like a sponge soaking it up, and then deal with it inside myself.”

  “Then…why didn’t you go into medicine, become a doctor…help people?”

  Once again the old wizard chuckled before answering. “Healers, of one form or another, are the most common type of witches and wizards that there are. Ironically almost none of them go into formal medicine because modern medicine isn’t about healing the sick.”

  “If it’s not about healing the sick, then what exactly is it about then?” he asked with a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

  “ It’s all about making money, which means keeping the sick people sick so you can sell more drugs …set up more doctors visits…it’s certainly not about healing them.” The wizard explained it in the same manner as he would if he were talking to a small child.

  The reporter’s face screwed up in a puzzled expression. “Somehow…as I listen to the way you talk about it…it just seems that you are implying that there’s a really large number of witches and wizards in the world. I would’ve thought, at least before this interview, that it would have only been a very small percentage of the population.”

  “Well…if you count all of the magical folk, even the ones that don’t realize what they are along with the ones that do, I’m sure that the number would be quite large, but it’s a really big world and we’d probably still be only a very small percentage, I’d say two percent or less.”

  Hesitantly, as if he were trying to visualize the amount. “Two out of a hundred is…a really big number. If there’s so much of this magic in the world, how do you manage to keep it a secret and why did you agree to this interview?”

  “Actually, the answer to both of those questions is really one and the same. All of you Nomags, or at least most of you anyway, simply refuse to believe in all things magical. No matter what happens right in front of your eyes, you’ll always manage to come up with a logical explanation of how it happened as well as a good reason for it. On the other hand, if it’s so outrageous that it cannot be explained away, then it must have come from God and man is not meant to understand it anyway. So keeping it a
secret is no big deal, most of you refuse to believe no matter how many times your nose is rubbed in it. As far as why I agreed to do the interview, it’s mainly to prove what I just told you. Where ever you publish the interview, whoever reads it, it’s not going to make one bit of difference. It will be considered nothing more than a work of fiction, valuable only for what entertainment the readers will be able to derive from it. So although I wish you luck with it and I really do look forward to reading it, don’t expect it to enlighten the world about something they don’t want to know about because it’s not going to happen…sorry.”

  At the end of his little speech, the wizard got up and took a couple of steps toward the vista of space that made up the back wall. “Good bye my friend.” He said as he turned to the right and silently disappeared.

  The reporter remained seated for a long moment, staring at the point where the wizard was when he vanished; wondering at what the wizard had told him. Could he be right? Will no one actually believe this? Do I? Slowly he reached for the recorder, switching it off before sliding it into his pocket. He nodded his head once as he realized the truth of it, he’s right of course, but maybe a couple, or even just one. Yes, he thought firmly, if just one will believe…question their reality, then I’d have made a difference.