Magicians Breath

• Ruby Flynn, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2014

It’s no more than a whistle that she creates with her breath. It’s no more than the slightest ounce of knowledge that, if you blow down into the gum-nut, it will create a sound somewhat like that of an instrument. It’s no more than a smile painted plainly on her mouth that she directs at me; a smile that forces her lips together tightly, fracturing the sound of the gum-nut for the second that the smile lasts, making the whistle dip low like a heartbeat and rapidly back up again in the creation and destruction of a moment of happiness. It’s no more than a scratchy, high-pitched scream as she blows all the air from her lungs down into a hollow sphere that can only hold one square inch of it.
It’s no more than my hands forcing themselves together, applauding a girl who’s simply breathing. Despite the knowledge that smiles splinter whistles, she grins at my applause anyway. The sound her breath and the commonplace instrument creates stops in an instant when I start clapping and cheering and yelling for an encore. She can’t do an encore though, because she can’t stop smiling. The smile is a musician’s nemesis. There’s a mock-furious glint in her eye. She wants me to stop clapping so she can start whistling again, but I will never do anything to stop her smiling, so she just cannot start.
It’s no more than a smile she shoots me even though she doesn't want to, just like it will be no more than a smile in ten years.
In ten years, my hands will be as they are now, forcing themselves together like parts of a heavy machine as she stands in front of me and screams the weight of her lungs into a different kind of instrument. The hat in front of her will overflow with gold coins and purple notes and seashells from those without money. We’ll be standing on a pier in a town we haven’t yet even heard of, but unlike now we won’t be alone. In ten years, she will stand farther away than she does now, and we’ll be separated by masses of curious bodies instead of simple thin air. I’ll still be able to see her around these bodies though. I’ll always be able to see her.
In ten years, my clapping will be just as loud as it is now, but that loudness will be lost amidst the applause of hundreds. Even in the mass of sound, though, she’ll return the smile on my face with one of her very own.
She will be a marvel in this strange town, a magician, a musician, a miracle. And miracles always attract the masses and masses always have ideas about the source of her brilliance, so when some people listen to her scream they’ll believe that the instrument is the source of power. I will know better.
I’ll know that it’s not the harmonica in her hands that is magical.
It’s her.
The magic is all her.
Of course, I know none of that now as she smiles and I clap. I know none of the magic that is to come as she sits in front of me and creates toneless, scratchy whistles from the most common of things. I know none of it now as I smile and she breaths; it’s all some beautiful surprise for the future. It’s the brilliant destination of a journey that begins with a mere gum-nut.
At the moment, I know nothing.
At the moment, it’s no more than a whistle. No more than a breath.