Spells Only Work If You Want Them To
She swept upstairs to the top of his tower with determination.
The midnight air surrounding her came alive with a crackle and a spark. The wind parted ways to make room for her presence.
The contrast of her light against the darkness was both visible and palpable.
There was no not noticing her entrance.
And that was precisely the kind of entrance that she wanted to make.
She was adamant that she would not take no for an answer.
“I have been looking all over for you.
I need your help.
I need a potion to help me forget him — or, better yet, a spell to help me remember that I don’t have time for the risks of love.
And speaking of time, maybe that would help…instead of a potion, perhaps a magical clock, so that I may turn back to a time before him.”
The wizard looked at me in a way that led me to believe he was already completely exasperated with me.
I thought to myself… What?? Today may be a bad day to ask for potions.
“Are you out of these specific potions?
Okay, okay, I get it, my timing must be impeccable…I will take a magical pocket watch with one of your spells, then.
It must be a spell to release me from this desire I have trapped myself in.”
I even asked him if he could hypnotize me to help me stop thinking of you.
“Okay, so listen, this is how hypnosis works… Are you ready?
I know you wanted to write these four things down, so let me know when you're ready…”
I quickly retrieved my clipboard and pen and gave Ron my undivided attention.
“Okay, I am ready.”
Ron looked away from me as if he were somehow looking at the office wall next to me into his past… and then began,
“Okay, this is how you get hypnosis to work…
There is a 10% chance of hypnosis being effective if you focus on what you truly want.
There’s up to a 20% chance of it working if you think about it and write it down.
There's up to a 50% chance of it working if you think about it, write it down, and say it out loud.
There is up to a 100% chance of it working if you think it, write it, speak it, and believe it as if it has already happened.”
I attentively listened, taking notes as he wrote.
Then, all of a sudden, he stopped going into more detail and said
“My sister is here, I have to go.”
When he left, I contemplated the idea of hypnosis and thought to myself, how could I use this to get myself to stop thinking of you?
I shook my head from my wool gathering and firmly chastised myself.
I was at my weekend Senior Assisted Living receptionist job, and I always enjoy many of the conversations I have with the residents.
Still, I wasn't getting my job done.
I was supposed to be working on making flyers for a Murder Mystery Event and a Cinco de Mayo event that was coming up.
Grudgingly, I put my notes in my notebook and put it away in my backpack.
These thoughts of hypnosis would have to wait for later, when I could be alone.
I was working on putting away the delivery at my store when she approached me and handed me a twenty-dollar bill with a dark brown counterfeit mark on it.
“Boss, is this real…?
It’s not, right?”
I told her,
“You are right, and great job!”
She said to me, “Thank you, but now what do I do with the customer?”
I could read her apprehension; I could tell my sales associate was afraid to refuse the sale without my support.
I told her, “It’s okay, I will go with you to the register.”
I told the customer, “We cannot accept this bill; it appears to be counterfeit.”
The customer turned to leave, and I went back to the delivery.
For the next hour, as I worked opening boxes and putting things away, all I could think about was you and all that I feel involved with you.
I think of everything about you often when I should be working, but these tasks are so mindless for me due to their repetitiveness that it seems I can’t help but let you into my thoughts.
And then comes the questions that my mind always wants to ask my heart.
Most days, the question I avoid most is… “Is this real?”
I don’t like this question because there is never any answer.
My heart, spirit, mind, and intuition all give me different answers.
Just then, in that moment of longing for clarification, I couldn’t help but wish for a magical counterfeit pen to use on you.
Then I can’t help but ask myself, how could I use it on someone that is so far away?
Nothing is missing.
I have a whole work life with coworkers who are like family.
I have goals, dreams, and love from my real family.
I have a whole life.
I tell myself that I am whole and complete without anyone.
But if I close my eyes and imagine lying next to you, there is a different kind of completeness, and when I open my eyes and return to reality, everything is missing.
Can you explain that?
I bite my lip, and I taste the salt.
Why tears for someone that I have never even had?
Maybe you were mine before, and that's why every inch of my body feels as if it remembers you.
Here in the darkness, I can’t help but run my fingers over my arms down to my hips.
It's not my fingers that I feel, it's yours.
It’s always the same. I reach out to you every night.
Awake, I dream of you and I making love as I stare into your eyes that are aglow with the passion that is mirrored in the depths of my own.
Touching you, I can feel the heat between us that is slick and wet from the excitement of where our bodies have met.
How many times have you been behind me with your lips on my shoulders and your arms drawing me back against you?
Do you know how many times I come close, only to have you withdraw from me?
Teasing me until all I want is to scream your name.
This isn’t enough for me.
I can’t replace you.
It's as if you are determined to keep me wanting you forever.
I know that you know this.
How many nights should I be sleeping, but instead, these thoughts of you keep me awake.
There is an ache in this remembrance of what could only be a past life with you...
The ache comes from the knowing.
It's knowing that you're right for me.
But it’s a knowing that that was a different life.
It was a different time.
In this life, in this time, this is all wrong.
The Wizard’s voice finally cut through her demands.
“Will you ever cease your visits to him?
Do you not see that everything you read is his own spells that have held you captive?
Do you not realize that he has already captured your soul with his own magic.
You’ve absorbed his words as if they were liquid potions, each one revealing a piece of his truth.
With every sentence, regardless of whether you agreed or not with everything that was written, you fell for his mind and saw deeper into the hidden depths of his heart.
In many of those words, you found a reflection of yourself, resonating deeply with parts of his essence.
Why do you think you are drawn to his eyes?
He is the other half of you.
If this is truly what you want, you must stop visiting him.
You must understand that any hypnosis, potion, or spell will not work unless you are sure that you want it to.”