#time matters

I didn't become a magician because I liked magic tricks. Far from it. In fact, at the very beginning, I had no clue what careful planning each act required, all the hidden cogs and careful details. No. Not the tricks. Those were fun to learn and master, but even after learning everything that old John had left to teach me, the tricks still felt hollow, more like a means to an end than a passion.

Oh no. I became a magician because of the itch. Not any normal itch, mind you, but the kind that comes from the inside. The kind of itch that eats away at you from within, a sort of gnawing emptiness in the gut that stems from desire, that can't ever be satisfied. Like hunger, it sits inside of you, distracting you, bothering you, giving you nausea and heartaches, and won't go away until it is filled. There would be a brief period of relief, only for it to return in less than a day. It wasn't as if it were agonising all the time, however. *laughs* It just...hurt.

But I digress. 

Yes, I became an entertainer to get rid of the itch. It seemed like a good solution at the time. There was the audience, there was the performance, and there was me. Everything that I needed to keep the itch away, and to keep that desire happy.

And for a few years, it did make me happy. My master was skilled, and taught me all he knew. The audience was mostly focused on my master, but were willing to spare the assistant a few encouraging praises. The itch was but a mere speck at the back of my mind, and sometimes, I was even able to forget about it. Everything seemed perfect, my days were spent wandering in a blissful dream of magic and trickery. I was content to spend long nights fumbling over techniques my hands and eyes couldn't keep up with, so that I could show him the fruits of my labour the next day, and see the satisfied glint in his usually cold eyes. To walk up on stage and perform my little side show, and hear the crowd clap for me and commend me for my "talent".

"You'll light up the stage one day, Servais," that's what the old man used to say. On some days, I almost believed it too.

But unfortunately, motivations stemming from desire can only grow and give way to greed. The more you have, the more you start to want, and the more you want, this "want", starts becoming a need.

For the itch came back three years after the day I first stepped onto the stage, more frequent and more...distracting than before.

No one wants to spend their life as a prop in a show. Everyone wants to take centre stage.

Everyone wants to be loved.

Now, I'm not a good person, not in the slightest. I do things for myself, and even if I knew clearly that doing it were wrong, I’d still do it, if it meant that I could have the only thing I really wanted.

And so I did a terrible thing, and the man that was like a father to me was gone.

But the world leaves no space for regrets, and couldn’t care less if you just fell over from all the guilt and bled out on the spot. What's done is done, and no amount of pleading will remove that stain on others' impression. If you’re not liked, if you’re not trustworthy, if you’re not useful, then to the rest of them, you’re no different than an old toy, good to play with from time to time, but easily replaceable, lost, and forgotten.

I suppose that’s the least of what I deserve, in a way, for being selfish in my decisions. Perhaps there had been another way, an ending that could have left everyone happy. But this was the route I chose, and so I ought to follow it to the very end. Fortunately, when one door closes, another opens the way. The persistent itch of wanting had dulled to an ache through the years, background noise that I’ve gradually gotten used to, and learned to hold back. After all I’ve done, and after all that I’ve put them through, I can’t hope to satisfy that old desire again.