I am Clark August, and I will never again look upon my own face in a mirror.

That is the truth.

I will never again walk with the power of my own limbs, or speak in my own voice, or taste with my own tongue. I will never know the sensation of touch through my own fingertips.

I can still listen, but even that is debatable.

I stood looking down upon myself in this sorry state. Melodramatic? Certainly. But you would do the same if you, too, can see your own comatose body as it lies before you in a huge, state-of-the-art hospital bed. The body was covered by colorful wires, and the face obscured by a mask attached to a respirator. The mask was hard, barely translucent plastic, and the face beneath it blurred and difficult to make out. That was my face, and I was assured that I am now grotesque to look upon. I wouldn’t know. Not even those who have cared for me for years now have gotten up the courage to remove it—to see for themselves what I’ve become. Frankly, I don’t think anyone (myself included) can blame them!

My ‘eyes’ traveled over the body to the railings. All four sides were barricaded, and within, my body lies face-up like a corpse in a coffin. I am still alive. Of that, I was assured by doctors. But I was alive only in the very imprecise medical definition of what it means to be truly dead. It is a thin line to cross, and besides, haven’t we all seen the movie? It’s still one of my favorites, along with the book upon which it is based. So many infinitely quotable passages, and the magical charm that is Cary Elwes and the timeless beauty of Robin Wright. But I distinctly remember my favorite being the hilarious debate of what it means to be dead (mostly, truly, or all).

Well, it’s not so funny anymore, is it?

I ‘sighed’. To be honest, even if I had the best Miracle Man working on me right now, I think my current state would have stumped even him.

I looked up from the bed to the walls. My unblinking gaze trace along the wires running along the molding. In a corner of the bedroom sits a sleek medical monitor, and the wires connected it to my bed. There, at regular intervals, tubes feed nutrients directly into my bloodstream, keeping me alive. More helped to track data pertaining to my medical wellbeing. Sadly, there was no advanced mechanics to help dispose of personal waste. That task was left to my family, though a social worker from the government comes once a week to help.

The bed had cost a genuine fortune, and was purchased through one of the top private hospitals in the world. The social worker was localized, a product of public Canadian health care that, for all its faults, does try its best. The rest will be familiar if you’ve watched any daytime hospital TV shows. A man in a coma, waiting patiently for his loved ones to revive him through sheer determination and affection. The props included my bed, the wiring, and the aforementioned beeping machine to assure all who look on that I was not yet beyond help. When I looked at it, the black screen in the corner seemed to stare back at me. Wavering lines crawled over the surface, indicating my blood pressure and heart rate. On one side, scrolling digital information was beamed directly to my wife’s smartphone so she can be alerted if anything goes amiss. I stand over my own physical body and cannot hear my own heart beating; and yet, I am assured by my high-tech sarcophagus that the physical vessel continues to work as intended—for all the good it does me.

Finally, I’ve had enough. I stepped away from the bed and looked to the bedroom door. The place isn’t spacious, but very cozy. My sanctum was now the guest bedroom in a two-bedroom townhouse located in downtown Toronto, where I’ve been living for years now. There is a calendar on the wall emblazoned with 2019 on the cover. The month didn’t matter. It was late winter, and the holiday cheer was out in full force.

Christmas.

My favorite time of the year.

I thought as much as I took a deep breath into my non-existent lungs. Snow and song; and I even missed the commercials. I looked down at my hands and wished I could use them to pick up a steaming mug of hot chocolate, or to put up the stockings on our modest fireplace. I turned my hands over, and they seemed solid enough to me. Yet, I knew no one else could see them—just as I no longer had any use for them in the physical plane.

One of the enduring mysteries of my current state is that I am never quite sure how much of myself still exists. To the best of my understanding, I am now a projection of my own consciousness. A ghost, or spirit. The layman’s term will suffice for lack of any better definitions as I look back to my bed. I now know for certain (probably better than anyone in human history) that both of those things did not exist—

—and yet, here I am.

I coughed. I heard the sound but no one else did—or would have. The body in the bed did not respond. Years after being diagnosed as ‘mostly-all-dead’, and doctors have repeatedly assured my wife she would not be blamed for wanting to give me up. I was a constant case of touch-and-go, and she hasn’t pulled the plug, yet. As for how I ended up this way, well, I can explain in one word:

Magic.

~

Arcane arts have different names all over, but were ubiquitous to every culture. Chinese Tao. Indian Chakra. Slavic curses and Aegean witches. All existed, and not only in myths and legend.

I walked over to my own body and stared at the neck. A loose red string was wrapped around it, and hanging from it was a small jade pendant. Mary had given it to me when she was, years ago, still only my girlfriend turned fiancée. We’ve known each since childhood, and sweethearts—over the course of decades—barely described our relationship. I remembered meeting her in the sixth grade, and we were friends long before becoming lovers. She helped me with homework, and I listened to her complain about the boys she was dating throughout high school. She teased me about the girls I liked right up until the moment she became that girl—and the fate which she accepted (in her own words) with a grudging sense of bemused inevitability. Her family had immigrated to Canada from Hong Kong, and still frequently visits on holidays. The pendant was a gift obtained for me from one of her trips. She picked up from an airport drug store specializing in overpriced tourist memorabilia and edible tree roots. While I can’t speak for the quality of their ginseng, I can now vouch for the awesome mystical powers of protection their dollar-store charms possessed.

The beeping interrupted my thoughts. I threw the machine an annoyed look. It ignored me, and I looked down at my hands again. My body was dressed in the same clothes as when the incident first took place. I saw combat fatigues and body armor; and my theory is that my corporeal form retained the appearance from my own memories of the exact moment the charm had gone off. That was when I was literally blasted out of my boots by a roadside IED, which happened in the desert only months after deployment. My first tour as part of the Canadian armed forces in another part of the world, and it had ended with me being shipped back an invalid, tethered to my own projected consciousness that was forever trying to find some way to get home.

I swerved my head around. The door of the bedroom sat before me and I knew I was powerless beyond there. I cannot even attempt to cross the threshold without my world fading into a pale glow. Somehow, I understood that was one journey from which there was no return trip. I was not brave enough (or willing, at this point) to make it. My room—my prison—was all bookshelves and black wooden flooring, with pictures on the walls showing my marriage and the life I no longer had. I saw my hoard of science-fiction and fantasy novels, as well as no small amount of comic books and videogames. Mary had moved them in here in the early days of my ‘illness’. Probably she had hoped surrounding me with my treasured effects will help in some way with my condition. I had watched her do it, gritting my teeth all the while, and almost being driven crazy by the fact that I cannot in any way tell her that I am—in a manner of speaking—still okay; or that what she was doing wasn’t going to work.

Thanks, Obama! (yes, this is relevant information—which you will see later)

That’s when I noticed the time. A digital clock on the medical monitor turned over another digit, and I blinked in time with the change. Then, I uttered a loud expletive which, as with everything else I did in my corporeal state, went unheard. I slapped a meaty fist into a palm and heaved a long, anxious breath. I was going to be late if I didn’t hurry, so I whirled around, my eyes going to the floor of my bedroom. There, one of the boards was loose, and beneath it I’ve hidden a small bag with a human molar tucked inside. It was the foundation of my spell, and with a gesture, I activated the magic I have placed over it.

The result was instantaneous. Be forewarned though, it could also be as jarring as—

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