prompt: hawk, title: the pros and cons of disenchantment in "the next big thing" flash fiction

“So, if Mitzi was attracted to you but you’re not attracted to humans, why didn’t she ever, uh,” I tried to be delicate but some things can’t be put delicately, “fix that with her magics.” “What do you mean?” “I don’t know, turn herself into a lady yeti… yettess?” “Just like that.” “Yeah, just like that. Magic’s definitionally Just Like That, isn’t it?”

He looked at me like I was crazy. Which might not be wrong. “Just Wonder Twin it?” “I mean.” “Form of Hawk, Shape Of An Ice Ladder?” I paused. “Frank, when you put that way, it nearly sounds stupid.” He exhaled half a laugh. “I can’t myself conjure but I was raised around mages and that’s just not how magic works. Certainly not how their magic works, anyway.”

He reiterated how in some Jewish traditions, you’re not allowed any body modification, not even a butterfly tattoo on your ankle from Spring Break, lest you break covenant with the Big Y. Mitzi as a Kabbala magus, least of all. If she broke the Mosaic deal for a little interspecies strange, she would be cut off from her god and her magic for Eternity with a capital E.

“Granted,” I said, “I’m just a lapsed Easter-Christmas Catholic who took some world religion in school but how you describe her Kabbala doesn’t mesh with the academic understanding of it.” “Of course not,” he smiled his large broad flat-edged teeth, “all the faiths hide their strongest material from the uninitiated, you don’t want the powerful juju all out there all willy-nilly.”

“She mentioned the singer Madonna” (whose last name sounds like mine but oddly enough is spelled differently, thank Ellis Island, perhaps) “though she called her by the nickname Madge, she said her friend Madge had tried messing with advanced Kabbala as an untrained Michigan Italian Catholic and ended up getting possessed by an elderly British woman, real sad stuff.”

“Okay, okay,” I countered, “but then flip it. Why didn’t she use her whammy make you human? For sex.” “Oh gods,” he started, “I like you people and all but I certainly wouldn’t want to smell like you…” he trailed off the joke and looked me straight in the eye, dead serious.

“If I really am the last of my kind, I’m not gonna extinct my entire species just to get laid.” I told him I understood the sentiment though, there were points in my life where I would’ve considered that trade-off’s worthiness. Age tempers libido’s frenzied call after all, thank Christ Jesus. But he continued on from there.

“It’s probably the least Southern Californian lesson you could ever learn, but it’s a truth of any sort of intelligent life I’ve ever heard of, Mike. If you try to change yourself to fit the story you want to be a part of, you’re always going to screw it up. It’s always gonna conclude with tears. Human, yeti, whatever, whoever, eventually, man, you have to learn to live with what you are.”

Last updated February 04, 2022