There I was, eleven years old and quivering with the arcane thrill of my first magical performance. Before me sat a motley crew of skeptical Japanese children, faces betraying a lack of total comprehension, fidgeting revealing an equal lack of interest. From my pocket i procured an ornate deck of playing cards, backs adorned with depictions of cherry blossoms in April.
"Greetings, mere mortals." I proclaimed in a voice thick with a heavy Slavic accent rendered immutably false by my prepubescent vocal tones.
"I am...ZARKOV THE MAGNIFICENT!" (I felt that it was something of a betrayal to the magician's craft to adopt something as pedestrian as my given name. Given that the extent of my previous exposure to magic went little beyond seeing Rasputin summon Elder Gods in Hellboy, I was taken to believe that being Russian was in some form an asset to the trade)
There was a modicum of meagre applause as I took an exaggerated bow, flourishing preposterously with my heavy cape. I took my seat upon the weathered tatami mat, gazing solemnly at my makeshift audience as I removed the cards from the shelter of their cardboard abode.
"This...'trick' was taught to be by one of the old masters of the mystical arts in his harem in Barcelona." i informed the children to their involuntary interest. In truth, I'd learned it from a cousin four years my senior the previous summer in an apartment that smelled faintly of tobacco and faded sunlight. Even he had ceded the admittedly pedestrian nature of the trick he showed me. It was an act of simple deception accomplished only through the merit of storytelling; by engrossing the audience with a tale of arson and the four Kings' punitive response, they would be blinded to the mechanical simplicity of the trick. A good magician never reveals their tricks, and I'm sure similar restrictions apply to the mediocre ones as well. Suffice it to say that I was forced to at first advise the audience not to look under the table as the trick was prepared. Such was the quality of Zarkov the Magnificent's act. One child muttered quietly to my host, and while the language was foreign to me, I could infer from the inflection that he was inquiring as to why a legitimate magician couldn't have been procured. She hushed him, then turned to me with a sheepish look on her face. I shrugged, then proceeded to adopt my Slavic persona for a more permanent use.
"Ladies and Gentlemen...before you, you see a normal deck of cards...but, let's imagine for a second that this deck is a hotel, and that the king's are the happy co-owners. Now, much to the dismay of these erstwhile hoteliers, there is an arsonist on the loose!"
The kids with a more advanced grasp of the English language gasped in shock, whereas others merely sat with blank expressions until one of them asked what an arsonist was.
"They light shit on fire." I said wearily, abandoning any pretense of my Russian origin.
"Cool!" the boy cheered, eyes suddenly alight. "I'm an arsonist too!" He then recognized the penetrating glare of his mother and shrank to avoid her maternal disapproval.
"Regardless," I continued with renewed vigor "The Kings are out to put an immediate stop the arsonist's pyromaniac shenanigans. They agree to move throughout the hotel and look for him. The first starts in the basement." I deposited the card at the absolute bottom of the deck.
"The next starts searching in the lobby." I explained while sliding the second card into the lower middle of the deck.
"The third goes to the top floor and the fourth heads directly for the roof." I said while placing the two cards in their respective positions. Eventually, or so the story goes, the Kings congregate in the middle of the hotel with the apprehended culprit between them. It's at this point that i reveal all four kings with the jack in their midst at the direct center of the cardboard 'hotel'.
"Whooooooooo!" shouted my host', clapping enthusiastically, glaring at the kids that didn't exhibit a similar response. However, this was a negligible fragment given that the remainder of my audience was chanting "So-Called Magnificent" at the top of their lungs. My pride temporarily procluded me from informing them of their mistake, and I instead performed another trick. While my stage banter was forced (potentially due to the lack of a stage), the rest of the performance ran smoothly. At the end of the show I was rewarded with rapturous applause, a humbling praise for my so-called magnificence.
