Magicians Anonymous

Hi. My name's John, and... I'm a magician. [hi john] Thanks... umm... well, it's good to be here. It's been about five months since I last found the four of diamonds, almost a year since I’ve sawn anyone in two, but... umm... I’ve had a bad week. It started off ok, it was my niece's birthday, my brother invited me to the party. She's three. As soon as I arrived I knew I was in trouble. They'd saved up and bought her a rabbit, it was sitting in the garden chewing a leaf. The way it was nibbling, I couldn't help myself, it just looked so... produceable. While they were cutting the cake I snuck out and stuffed it in my baseball cap. I came back in as they were singing Happy Birthday, I was going to pull it out right there, but they kept adding bits to the song. By the time they'd sung 'for she's a jolly good fellow' I looked inside the hat and he was limp. I put him back outside with a carrot in his mouth, but you could tell, even from distance. I left without saying goodbye, without even a slice of cake. On the way home I didn’t have money for the bus, so I pulled a coin from a boy’s ear. His mother punched me in the face. I lost it after that, I went to the park and started producing doves, hundreds and hundreds of them, startled ones, sleepy ones, hungry ones and scrawny ones. They massed on the fountain, ravenous for breadcrumbs. I levitated myself high above them and began to pull cards from the air, plucking handfuls from clouds, fistfuls from nowhere. As the doves arced over me I got carried away, I produced scarves and silks, small red balls, small yellow balls, candles, canes, boxes of dancing girls, cages of lions, I produced a full size bear and turned him into a rug. People came from miles around to watch, they clapped and cheered, and I played them like the saps they were. I know I've let myself down, but for a minute there, it was almost worth it.