Look at the wand
Look at the wand.
Such a simple, plain, innocuous thing.
And yet, with this simple instrument, a shortened stick really, with its oak handle and tail-hair of unicorn or feather of a phoenix or maybe even frog’s eye, anything is possible.
It could save a life. A simple flick of the wrist, a latin word pronounced just right, and a life threatening wound becomes a scar, maybe not even that. A decrepit, crumbling room becomes a grand library, with velvet curtains and redwood shelves and perfect, exquisite stained glass windows while a fire crackles merrily in the fireplace. Glasses broken? A wave and a whispered word and voila! Fixed. Hungry? A swish and a flick, presto, a three course meal. It is a doctor’s Elixir of Life, the Holy Grail of architects, the Philosopher’s Stone of all decorators everywhere; the perfect solution to man’s woes and ills.
It can kill a person. Rotate the wrist, whisper the hated word, and a green flash; the stench of death. A father rapes his twelve year old daughter, who drools as her mind goes the same path to nothingness as her voice, and the father is screaming and crying and screams Stop, stop, but he can’t because watching is a jilted lover with a wand in hand and a Cheshire grin. A woman is violated again and again and while inside she screams and begs and whimpers outside she is moaning like a whore and enjoying herself like a slut because the man and his friends all have wands and are forcing her to do these things that she doesn’t want to do but cannot stop. A man is burnt inside out, screaming as his intestines broil and his fluids dissipate and flesh sloughs off while a party of drunk warlocks laugh and giggle and be merry. The mind breaks as the wizards coldly whispers again and again and a rock hard secret agent breaks and cries and pleads and begs. It is a terrorist’s dirty bomb, the crack of rapists and murders, the atom bomb of dictators; the Final Solution for the black hearted.
Save a life. Take it. Make a house. Blow it up. Grow a tree, cut it down; make a dead baby’s heart beat again, or wrench it out of its chest; enchant a car or bike or motorcycle to fly, curse it to become a mad killing machine; a little charm to make her beautiful, a hex to give her the pox; hold in mid-air a falling cat, turn it inside out and scare the little child as blood and guts pour down in gory rain.
This is the wand.
Such a simple, plain, innocuous thing.
And yet, with this simple instrument, a shortened stick really, with its oak handle and tail-hair of unicorn or feather of a phoenix or maybe even frog’s eye, anything is possible.
It could save a life. A simple flick of the wrist, a latin word pronounced just right, and a life threatening wound becomes a scar, maybe not even that. A decrepit, crumbling room becomes a grand library, with velvet curtains and redwood shelves and perfect, exquisite stained glass windows while a fire crackles merrily in the fireplace. Glasses broken? A wave and a whispered word and voila! Fixed. Hungry? A swish and a flick, presto, a three course meal. It is a doctor’s Elixir of Life, the Holy Grail of architects, the Philosopher’s Stone of all decorators everywhere; the perfect solution to man’s woes and ills.
It can kill a person. Rotate the wrist, whisper the hated word, and a green flash; the stench of death. A father rapes his twelve year old daughter, who drools as her mind goes the same path to nothingness as her voice, and the father is screaming and crying and screams Stop, stop, but he can’t because watching is a jilted lover with a wand in hand and a Cheshire grin. A woman is violated again and again and while inside she screams and begs and whimpers outside she is moaning like a whore and enjoying herself like a slut because the man and his friends all have wands and are forcing her to do these things that she doesn’t want to do but cannot stop. A man is burnt inside out, screaming as his intestines broil and his fluids dissipate and flesh sloughs off while a party of drunk warlocks laugh and giggle and be merry. The mind breaks as the wizards coldly whispers again and again and a rock hard secret agent breaks and cries and pleads and begs. It is a terrorist’s dirty bomb, the crack of rapists and murders, the atom bomb of dictators; the Final Solution for the black hearted.
Save a life. Take it. Make a house. Blow it up. Grow a tree, cut it down; make a dead baby’s heart beat again, or wrench it out of its chest; enchant a car or bike or motorcycle to fly, curse it to become a mad killing machine; a little charm to make her beautiful, a hex to give her the pox; hold in mid-air a falling cat, turn it inside out and scare the little child as blood and guts pour down in gory rain.
This is the wand.
posted by Lawrence Wang | Wednesday, March 29, 2006
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