"Apparition"
A Harry Houdini Story
By John Pirillo "Harry Houdini" The Eighth Wonder of the World. The sign read. Boldly, loudly, and just the way he wanted it to do.
Harry adjusted his tie and grinned at the mirror image of himself in
the box-office window of the Globe Theater, which had been newly
remodeled and the invention of Edison to project moving pictures
installed and a huge screen. None of it affected him, however, as there
were now two possible venues in the grand old Shakespearean theater. The
live stage and the moving stage as the Brits were wont to call it.
The Parisians had gotten their first glimpse of the new cinema as it
was being called nowadays when the Lumiere Brothers had scared them out
of half a day's wine chugging when a huge train had appeared to be
running amok into the theater.
He chuckled. How naive we are as humans to think that everything that
can go wrong, or even right is about us. We are but specks on the great
mantle of God's cloak called Creation. He mused to himself with a
twinkle in his eye. He tweaked his mustache, swept his coal colored hair
back from his forehead and bowed to a lovely lady who had stopped near
him.
"Mademoiselle. Your timing is impeccable."
"And your hubris equally so." She teased.
He smiled and then gave his sister a big hug, as she did him back.
"Well then, shall we see the new play? I hear it's a robust one that
Shakespeare hammered out over the weekend. Will spoke to me on the Tesla
Phone he and Edison had put together this last year and told me
everything about it. Something to do with a King who sells out his
country and his citizens in order to accumulate their wealth."
"Rather sounds like some merchants these days. More intent on grabbing
wealth, than spreading quality of service and product." She announced
somewhat stiffly.
He gave her a double take. "Lady Shareen?"
She gave him a startled look. "How could you know that?"
"I've heard the spiel many times by now, having been and continuing to
be best friends with her and her bronzed giant mate, Lord Graystone."
"Ah yes." She admitted. "I rather fancy that would make a difference.
Shall we?" She offered him her arm and he took it. They went to the
front of the old theater, which had been polished up and repainted for
the new act he was presenting later in the evening. The Shakespeare side
was not quite so rowdy looking, as Will tended to be more laid back and
comfortable with staying in the background, rather than garnering stage
presence. Though he was known to occasionally dress as a maiden when
one of the female actresses failed to show up.
Lately, the Brits had accepted the introduction of women into the
acting profession, which had taken a great load off those men more
inclined to close lips with a beautiful lass, than a handsome rogue.
The Ticket Taker smiled at Houdini. "It's so good to see you again, Harry."
"Good to be here, Mary. This here is my sister, Wendy."
"So nice to meet you, Miss Houdini."
"Oh, my last name is not Houdini. That's just a stage name my brother concocted. My real last name is Astor Smith."
"I like that." The Ticker Taker replied, then handed the both of them a
ticket. "Old Will is personally taking tickets this afternoon.
Something about wanting to see the audience reaction in every way
possible."
Houdini winked at Mary. "Thank you. But that shouldn't surprise you;
Old Willie is somewhat of a perfectionist. After all this rhyming poetry
is truly despicable when it comes to writing it. I could never do such
if you paid me a million pounds to do so."
Mary smiled. "Not that you need the money any."
He winked at her, and turned to Wendy, his sister. "Shall we?"
They entered past two marble columns sculpted with demi-gods and
fierce mythological creatures. Wendy looked at the creatures a bit
fearfully. "Good thing those awful things only exist in the
imagination."
Houdini didn't remove that thought from her mind, even though he had
personally been responsible for removing at least two of the monsters
from existence with the help of the Brotherhood of Baker Street.
"Yes. It would be a...uh...extremely difficult thing to do, wouldn't it?"
Old Will...who was in fact no older than Harry, dimpled when Wendy was
brought to him to offer her ticket up. He immediately bowed and took
her left hand and kissed it. "Who would have thought such a lovely young
creature could ever have been related to Harry here?"
She dimpled back at him, touched by his words. "And I'm sure Harry agrees, don't you Harry?"
But Harry was gone. He had seen something in one of the top balconies.
Something that should not have been there. He probably should have
warned Will and Wendy, but he didn't want to arouse any fears that
weren't based in fact, so he just swept up the heavily carpeted, red
cloth that lined the swirling spiral of steps to the next floor, leaving
them perplexed in the rear.
"I guess Harry's found someone else to chase." William said, an amused look on his face.
Wendy turned to look at his face. "Truly. My brother has wandering eyes?"
"Oh, please forgive me for being so boorish. I didn't realize you two
didn't speak of such things." William said, his face reddening with a
blush.
She smiled at him. "No matter. It fits rather nicely with his larger than life image now, doesn't it?"
"I imagine so. I hope he doesn't miss the prologue. I wrote it especially for him in honor of his show tonight."
"Really." She said, thrilled to hear it. "What is it called?"
William gave her a long look and then said. "The Fall of Man through Narcissism."
She laughed. "Oh Harry will find that ever so funny."
William let out a relieved breath of air, and then offered his arm.
"Come now. He may be late, but I still have time to show you to the box
seats. Best seats for hearing everything perfectly."
"I thought the acoustics had been much improved."
"Oh, they have, but there are still certain portions of the old theater that drop words. This way."
He guided her along two aisles, then up a short sweep of steps into a box seat that had room for four.
"Oh, but this is much too large for just Harry and I." She said as he seated her.
"Don't worry. I will be seated behind the two of you watching the stage...and my actors like a hawk!"
She burst into laughter. He gave her a good-bye kiss on her right
hand, then hurried back to the ticket taking spot and hurriedly took
tickets from what looked to be a Lord and Lady. She thought it might be
Whittleson, but she couldn't be for certain because of the lighting in
the house being dimmed.
===================================================
Harry reached the second level of the theater and went searching
through the rows of seats he had seen earlier where the apparition had
first appeared. If it had really been there, his senses would light up
like a roman candle when he came close. It was when he went to the far
right of the level and near the sweeping stairs that lifted to the Booth
of Royalty, where the Good Queen Mary of Scots had perpetually reserved
seats, that he felt the essence penetrate his senses.
It tasted to his awareness like foul soup that had been embodied with
sewage and rotting corpses. Hovering over the Queen's chair was
something barely visible, but it had enough of a presence for him to see
its general outline. Male. It saw him, but ignored him, its eyes on
something to its right. Harry looked that way just as Conan burst into
the booth, carrying an odd looking scanner in his right hand and a bag
of salt in the other. "Be gone, foul demon!" Conan had cried out, and
then flung the salt at the presence. The salt spread into a light cloud
of particle and enveloped the presence.
The lighting in the house, which was fueled by the new Tesla power
generators, flickered horribly, dropping the theater in utter darkness
one moment, and then flaring brightly the next. This went on for several
seconds accompanied by a high pitched wailing sound that everyone in
the audience below could hear and clapped hands over their ears, or
fainted from the intensity of it.
Conan ran closer to the presence, and then pulled out a mirror. He
held it towards the presence. "This is what you have become. Shall you
still call yourself human and claim that Divinity?"
The presence suddenly became as solid as a real person for several
long moments that Harry would never forget. It was a tall gentleman with
a face that had been scarred horribly. But his eyes were that of a
child's. He fell to his knees before Conan. "Father, forgive me."
Then he vanished utterly. Every light in the house went to full blast a
long second, and then fell back to their normal luminosity. Within the
theater the audience slowly stood up.
Will stood nervously at his ticket-taking spot as everyone turned
slowly around to face him. He was going to be thrown bodily out into the
street. He could visualize it even that moment, as the men and women
fixed their eyes on him, but then a very, very strange thing happened.
They all broke into applause. A standing ovation.
"Hear, hear!"The shouts rang through the levels of the theater.
Harry and Conan stood at the edge of the Queen's box and beamed. "He
really deserves the recognition, even if not for this once."
Harry smiled. "I trust that Will will not disappoint them." And laughed at his double entendre.
Conan smiled and patted him on the back. "As to the father thing, it was not I he was asking for forgiveness from."
"I rather fancied so, Conan, you really don't look like the fatherly type." Harry laughed.
Conan gave Harry a hard look for a moment, and then laughed. "I
suppose I don't." But then as he was exiting the booth, he turned back
and said. "But I rather fashion you will not be either."
He left the booth barking like a seal with laughter so loud that some below looked up to see what was going on.
Harry hurried down the steps to the booth for him and his sister,
entered and sat beside her. "Will's off to a nice start, isn't he?"
She gave him a searching look. "So you say, Harry. So you say!"
