Casey Gilfillan

Originating in the ash and the smoke, from it you seemed to appear; perhaps it was a planned cover? The magician you are, always a single step ahead of the pull; always one foot ahead of the flatline. I could not remember when the path had narrowed so fine, or when the sun’s brilliance had been swallowed by the overcast. I did not remember when our paths intertwined, but there it was, the stem of our fork. There you were, cloaked and guarded by the fabric of atmosphere. Anyway,

You and your sauntering, your grand-standing and your suffocating vocation; they have repelled me. I know better, yet my feet carry mine and yours bring you to the same stem, that single and confined trail forward. I know better, yet I stop to turn before advancing, I turn and look to you. But you are not the kind of magician who pulls rabbits out of hats or saws people in half. You just started tearing, ripping those crimson ribbons like linked tissues from my forearms; pulling at that seemingly endless stream of red, red, red. Anyway,

You played your tricks and I stood there like the fool I am and watched. Red ribbons flowing down to the floor, coiled like two sleeping snakes on the floor beside me, still connected. You put on your show, you played your tricks, oh the magician you are! I remember you had told me about your magician’s philosophy, something about the fantastical nature of being alive, something about the fantastical phenomena of forks and roads, something like that.