Ben was still sulking. It had been a month since his boyfriend, Rick, had left him
for a football jock, but he was still depressed. His straight friend, Gary, was
trying to cheer him up by taking him to a magic show. Ben was a fanatic about
all sorts of magic and supernatural stuff: sci-fi, fantasy, mythology, meta-
psychology, cryptozoology, you name it. The headliner was a hypnotist who
claimed he could hypnotize anyone.
Ben seemed to be a little happier, he was fascinated as the hypnotist made
volunteers do crazy and embarassing stunts. Gary watched with a pitiful humor:
he knew hypnotization was just capitalizing on the weak-minded to make a
profit. But when the man asked for another round of volunteers, Ben eagerly
raised both his and Gary's hands.
"Hey, cut it out, man," Gary complained, "I'm not going up there."
"Why? Scared you'll fall into a trance? I thought you didn't believe in this stuff."
"I don't, I just don't want to ruin this guy's show by staying coherent."
"Phbt," Ben made a raspberry and dragged Gary up on stage when the
magician pointed to them.
"Ah, a couple of fine young gentlemen," the showman announced. "You two
look like you're strong of body and mind; but none have escaped the control of
my charm!"
Here, he took out a gold medallion suspended on a chain. Instead of the usual
back and forth, he twisted the chain and made it spin. The two sides of the
coin, while abstract on their own, seemed to form a blinking eye while they
spun around. Gary watched the medallion for a while, then heard the audience
clapping. The hypnotist urged them back to their seats and asked for another
pair.
"Wasn't that cool?" Ben asked, excited.
"What do you mean? He didn't do anything."
"Yeah, right," a man sitting next to him remarked, "so that wasn't you jumping
around like a monkey just now."
After a thoroughly confused "What?", the man showed Gary a video he'd taken
of him and Ben jumping up and down and shrieking like monkeys. Gary was in
shock, how could he not have noticed? After the show, he decided to get to the
bottom of this. He brought Ben backstage as the hypnotist was ready to leave.
"Wait!" he called out.
The man stopped and turned around. He must have recognized them; "Ah, I'll
bet you want to know how I hypnotized you. Well, I'm afraid I can't reveal a
family secret, but I can azure you that no one but me could possibly hope to
hypnotize someone as alert as you. No mere pschology can shake a
constitution that solid, you should be proud that you resisted as long as you did.
Good night!" And with that, he shut the van's door and drove away.
"Well, that was...odd. Right, Ben?" Gary remarked, but Ben wasn't paying
attention.
Ben was holding a golden chain with nothing other than the hypnotist's
medallion swinging on it. "How long do you think it'll take him to miss this?"
"Sucks to be him," Gary shrugged. "By the time he gets to his next show, we'll
be back at campus. And it's not like if we leave a gold necklace laying around
someone won't steal it. You might as well take it back and try to find some
contact information tomorrow morning."