Magic Man

Chapter 3: Part 1: Star Dust

Magic Man stepped into the portal, most of his body disappeared into what appeared like a living galaxy. His face shone with peace; a splendor of light coming off of his face, radiating like an almost natural glow, yet also like one that could be supernatural.

He leaned his upper body forward out of the portal and kept his hand extended out towards her, "...I have to leave soon. I am not from this world." He said softly.

Finally, she cried out as he started fading away into the portal, "Wait, don't leave without me! Wait, please, wait!!" She ran at it just as the portal was closing and he was almost completely disappeared into it, retreating into it his last fingers. She stuck her hand inside of the shrinking portal precisely and suddenly something freaky began to happen. The portal tightened around her wrist so tight, it began to cut off her circulation. Her hand disappeared into it but from her wrist up to her arm began turning purple blue, and her limbs were essentially dying. "Ahhhhhh!!" She let out a cry.

Magic Man gripped a tight hold of her fingers and reacted quickly, then he grabbed hold of her hand and he began to stretch open the portal. Her whole arm began to regain it's sense of feeling as the sensation of pins and needles invaded the area and infested deep into her skin, the portal began to burn but suddenly Magic Man made the burning cease and he turned it into sparkles of wonder, of freshness, of breeze, of cold, of stars. Instead of cutting into her, her body was able to trespass to the other side and he pulled her inside and they both fell on the ground hard and the portal closed.

Lexy sat up awfully panicked, and so did Magic Man, they were instantly transported from the night outdoors, to an indoor bedroom. It was an old small residencial apartment and it felt vaguely familiar.

She looked around at the plain light off-white walls. There were some butterflies on the walls. They were made out of crafty materials, googly eyes, pompoms, pipe cleaners for antenas, a couple of other things.

Suddenly they got up off the wall and started flying away up into the sky. She looked at the little girl sleeping in her bed who suddenly got up. She was about four years old; had two little buns at the top of her head. She had short hair, a few bangs, she was wearing really cute pink pajamas, they looked like strawberry pj's with cartoons on them. She was short and chubby and she got up out of bed and ran around the room, she started playing with her dollies and running around in doors with her kite.

Suddenly Lexy's attention was drawn when she heard distinct fighting in the background. Suddenly as she turned to look appeared a door that was not there before. She walked out of the room and Magic Man followed her through this house slowly, patiently.

He watched as did she, as drawings appeared on the other side on the living room wall and they started moving, they were very vivid cartoon drawings that looked very colorful and covered the whole wall. It was a man and a woman and the two of them were first laughing together, and then the drawings started walking across the wall to the living room wall, then the dining room wall, fighting, arguing, screaming and insulting. "Well if the navy's that important to you, then go to the navy, Lexy doesn't need you and niether do I!" They went from hugging and kissing until the woman followed him out the door. The drawings ceased and suddenly she heard a noise coming the other side, a woman crying.

She followed the sound. Magic Man followed her, intrigued. Lexy opened one of the cabinets. There she saw a small model doll of her mother, she was crying, sobbing. She looked like a little Christmas ornament yet also like a cloth doll with hair that was made up of light brown yarn. Real tears rolled down her eyes for a minute, light blue construction paper tears did too. Lexy grew saddened. Suddenly out of one of the other cabinets, a little girl ran out, she looked like a very cute and very miniature barbie child with two short pigtails. She had come running with her toys at hand until she looked across to a small brown lonely door that appeared and she got close to it real awfully slow, until she whispered, "...Daddy?"

Lexy opened the other drawer and it was her bedroom as a child.

Suddenly she felt a hand lay at her shoulder, Lexy turned around and gasped.

It was a little girl, a real vivid live little girl. Lexy touched her gently to the face. She was no hologram. She was no dream. "...Everything is going to be okay." The little girl whispered.

Suddenly Lexy noticed that Magic Man was gone.

Lexy turned around and the little girl had vanished, there were only tiny sparkles of star and dust all over the place.

Magic Man was behind her when she turned around, "...It was me." Lexy whispered awfully confused and saddened. The cabinets were back to normal. There was nothing there.

"Shall we go on?" Asked Magic Man.

Lexy frowned, "I thought you said you couldn't take anyone to the past or to the future."

"Lexy, my dear, "In case you haven't noticed. We haven't left the present. We left your world...and entered mine. We are inside of Magic Land, but right now, we're inside of your memories. You blocked them out. You were so hurt. Your brain erased some of them by default, but...I have the power to see inside of your brain and take you to see any memory that you cannot remember. It is in hopes to bring you some sort of solace and consolation."

Suddenly he walked away inside of the frozen images inside of her mind, and she followed him through, their were really bad toddler drawings all over the living room wall.

Magic Man looked from the cute and ugly toddler drawings of monsters and cute stick people, and smily faces with legs and he read the sticker above the chimney, and kept walking. "Live?" He was confused.

Suddenly all of the drawing climbed out of the wall and personified becoming 3-dimensional and they began to talk among eachother.

"Hey, move out of the way," they nudged and pushed and shoved.

"...Yikes." Magic Man uttered softly. "But it's alright, everything you drew was nice, even the monsters you drew were nice, because...everything in you was light."

Lexy watched a bit panicked as her old cartoons came to life yet at the same time in deep astonishment.

"...How do you know stuff about me?"

"I walk through your memories." He answered.

"How so...?"

"Right now, I'm inside of your brain, I make your memories come to a certain sort of living form, but the memory isn't actually here, you're seeing slides and holograms and things, now from your memories, I take images, I make imitations, and I cause things from them to be duplicated, or cloned. The drawings are alive. Once we leave your memories, the drawings will continue to be alive...forever."

"How come I can touch things in this Magic World if it isn't real?"

"That little girl was an illusion. I create illusions my dear that you can touch...but not keep, if it's a person. I mean, wouldn't it get messy if there were two of you Lexy? Look at her." Magic Man pointed and the little girl was there again. "You wouldn't want her to suffer what you did?" He made a pause. Lexy looked over and almost wished that she did, it didn't seem fair until she realized, that little girl was herself. "I can create something particular for you, something permanent, but you have to wish for it, I cannot give you something permanent that you do not wish for. It's Magic Man's rule." He said.

"Why not?" Asked Lexy, "I mean, it's not like I want anything but...what if it's a gift?" She asked. "Are you not allowed to give people gifts?"

"...That is the only time I am able to." Magic Man thought. "But for Magic Man, it's hard. I can only give one gift to one person, ever."

"...What if it's love?" She asked. "Are you allowed to give love?"

Magic Man looked down as he thought long and hard for one minute, "...I have never loved anyone." Then he looked up, "I wouldn't know."

"How can you not love anyone? You're Magic Man...isn't Magic Man caring? Isn't Magic Man full of love? ...You cared about me?" She wasn't sure if that last line she was telling him or asking.

"I did...feel something, but care...is a strong word." Said Mágic Man. "I was showing you kindness. I was concerned for your anguished soul."

"I believe that's what caring is." Lexy raised her eyebrows and shot him a sort of smile like she knew that he already knew deep down inside even if he wasn't mentally prepared or physically capable of admitting it.

"Don't bet on it." Said Magic Man looking down slightly ashamed. He really believed that.

Lexy looked away in disbelief, "You give me no reason to believe in Magic Man, I don't want to believe in a Magic Man that doesn't care about anyone but himself." Upon pronouncing these words, the whole portal fell apart and Magic Man vanished into star dust. She was there alone in the darkness, once more

Time proceeded and everything that had been frozen here on earth right along with time itself, returned to motion. The watch on her wrist started ticking. She hadn't noticed when it stopped.

"Magic Man!" She gasped. He was no where.

Lexy ran home as fast as her legs could carry her and she was lost and could not find her way, the only thing she did find after going up hills left and right in the dark, and passing lots of run down, three story, Connecticut houses was an old abandoned bookstore, which was already broken through. She threw a rock in through the window in the hopes that this would break it more. Lexy squeezed her way through, phoneless, and afraid that the night would fall on her here, when suddenly she turned on her flashlight and picked up a book, suddenly upon opening it, the stars began to come out of it and Magic Man appeared beside her, "I've been looking for you everywhere, what'd you do that for!? I was worried sick!!"

Lexy gasped. "...Do what!? How did you get here!?"

"You destroyed my portal! You said you didn't believe in me anymore! I'm worried about you Lexy! I will always protect you, from afar, from close, it doesn't matter if I have to travel to the ends of the earth, I promised I would!" He cried.

"...What!?" Lexy gasped. "This is downright outrageous!!"

"Lexy, I know we just met...but I do care. I care about you, I don't know why, I never cared for anyone before, but I do now! I just want you to let me help you. It's not good for you to be lonely, after everything that happened with Cody! I saw your memories, I walked through each of them and I'm sorry, but when I walked through them I also cried with you, every single time that you did.

"How is that possible?" She whispered softly.

Magic Man moved the books with his magical pile of dusted stars, they came out of his hands. "Stack yourselves, I haven't got the time today." And each book grew a pair of hands and feet and began making towers and stacking eachother up in piles all over the place.

Magic Man handed her a unique book with an old grey worn out cover full of lots of dust. "Why don't you open it?"

Lexy turned the paged and watched her mother pushing her out in the car. It was the night of Lexy's birth. Her father crying and helping her mother through it, "It's going to be okay, it's going to be okay..." The screaming was endless. The blood was too much.

Suddenly Lexy and Magic Man were sucked into the story book.

"Is she going to make it?" Asked Lexy concerned, "They might need our help!!" She was pressured with urgency.

"Shhh..." Magic Man whispered, "Sit still."

Her mother was almost dying.

"How can you ask me to sit still when she's dying!? She needs me!!" Lexy cried, and ran at them.

Magic Man held her back. "Wait. Everything is going to be fine."

Her father wept sorely. He looked up at the night sky, there was nothing.

"Nick, the baby! The baby, she's not breathing!" Her mother cried.

"She's dead!!" Cried Lexy sobbing. She still hasn't realized that this same woman was her own mother or that this baby was her. Her father cried so hard and he looked up once more at the sky. It was so, so awfully dark and the night could've wept with him as the rain did not cease from pouring and he saw a shooting star. He whispered, "I wish..." Suddenly before he could finish speaking stars appeared and took the form of a man but she could not see him.

"...Is it you!?" Lexy gasped.

"...No." He answered. "It was one of us."

"Magic Man, who are you?" Lexy asked pretty confused, somewhat terrified, and a little distrustful.

"Please tell me, I need to know." She said when he did not respond.

He froze the memory, skipped her memory, fast forwarded it so that she wouldn't see what happened, to when they were in the hospital with her, and she saw her father walking through the room and throwing away his leftover hospital food meal. She was on her mother's chest, feeding off of her natural milk, awfully quiet, suddenly she let out a cry. It was very tender and adorable to hear but Lexy felt awfully melancholic. "I really miss having a daddy, I wish I had my daddy in my life." She said softly.

"That is your daddy." said Magic Man, "You don't recognize him."

"Wait, that my mom?" She gasped, "It's been such a long time...since I've seen my dad, and mom looks nothing like herself. Why is this memory so blurry?" Lexy asked.

"You tell me." He said. Suddenly Magic Man destroyed the portal with some quick movements of his hands and he caused a very strong and loud thunderstorm to occur.

All of the books began flying around real wildly and Lexy began screaming as a very intense, stormy, wildly untamed wind came up from beneath of her bum with heavy dust mounds and lifted her up and carried her in circles, away with the books. She suddenly shut her eyes and dropped into her bedroom, right on her fluffy red comfortor. She looked down at her clothes and she was wearing her warm cartoon PJs and a red warm robe over it.

Lexy got up, her head still spinning, she removed her cute pink eye mask and got up and walked out of the door when suddenly as she was heading down the stairs she saw her father rush in and instantly kiss her mother passionately, he was so passionate he would have almost rushed off to the bedroom with her mom but Lexy ran at him and threw her arms around his neck, "Daddy!! You're home, you're home!!" Lexy cried heavily, interrupting him, her heart full of new life and overjoyed.

"Hey, that's right, I'm home!!" He exclaimed happily and hugged her, "So, what's the joy to see me, you see me every day!? What makes today so special!!??"

"It's just...that you're here!!" She wanted to tell him but she just could not.

Suddenly her phone rang, she picked it up, "Hurry upstairs," it was Magic Man.

"Please tell me this was real...!"

"This was very real. I made your dad come back home. Look at your parents, they're so in love and happy again, they're going to be like that for a very long time...guess how long?"

"...How long?" Lexy worried suddenly.

"Try the rest of their lives." He winked at her.

"...Hey," she whispered softly, "...You did good Magic Man." She winked at him and smiled, "Oh-!" She threw her arms around him speechless, "thank you! How can I ever repay you?"

"Come with me...let me in...one more time, please?" He asked.

"...Into my memories?" She asked, uncomfortably.

"Yes."

"But why?...That's my weak spot, my vulnerability."

"That's exactly why?...I want to make your life happier than it was. You deserve to be happy Lexy. Maybe there is something that I can do, but I can't do it without this..." he touched his mind but pointed to hers.

"...Okay-" She said hesitantly. "but its hard for me to trust you. I don't know what else is in Magic Land and you still haven't told me who you are."

"I am a star." Admitted Magic Man finally.

"I am a wishing star. Everytime a star dies, as it shoots across the sky, it can grant only one person one wish, before it becomes a person, not just any person, a magical person. I was born. Like you, I was a baby, I was born of a normal couple but...I was a star first. Magic Men don't fit in among your folk, so Magic Men leave. We're people Lexy, but we used to be stars first. There's lots of us. That's why alot of wishes come true."

"What about the ones that don't?" Asked Lexy.

"Not every star is wished upon, not every star is seen. If a star is not wished upon before it dies, it is never born, and never becomes a Magic Man." He answered.

"Are there Magic Women too?" She asked, intrigued, fascinated, & amazed.

"Yes, but they are different. They give dreams." He replied. "Different kinds of dreams, all kinds really."

"Do Magic Women and Magic Men ever fall in love?"

"...No. Once human, we are forbidden to fall in love with a past star, we must only coexist with them. We are obligated to."

"What do you mean?" Asked Lexy.

"They are sort of evil..." Said Magic Man opening up her bedroom closet. He moved the clothes aside which was hanging inside of her closet. Behind all her clothes and accumulated junk, there was a passageway to another world.

Intrigued Lexy immediately felt an impulse to follow; typical eighteen year old bright eyed young girl, but she hesitated just before stepping foot inside, "Wait!" She gasped. "I don't want to go back to Magic Land, I want to stay here, with my Dad! I finally have him back, and I miss Cody! It feels wrong to come to Magic Land, please don't make me go." She whispered softly.

"Nobody is making you do anything. You follow because you know in your heart, that you want something more."

"I do...but it's not something that you can give me. I wish that I could see Cody one last time." She uttered softly.

"Just one time?" He asked.

"Well...maybe a couple."

Suddenly Magic Man disappeared and the rest of her bedroom transformed into Cody's old bedroom. There were pictures of him everywhere, mostly with her, and some with his parents, his grandmother too. Cody wasn't good at organizing sometimes, but he had a perfect balance between neat and messy. He never let either of them become to overwhelming for him.

Suddenly Cody walked out of the bathroom in his pj's and bedhead hair, looking exhausted, sweaty, like if he'd been running.

His body was in tact and perfect, not a scar from the accident.

"Lexy!" He gasped. "What are you doing here!? You don't belong here!!"

"What do you mean I don't belong here! I belong wherever I'm with you!!" Lexy cried.

"No, no, Lexy, you don't understand-!!" He began panicking. "It's not safe here!"

"Lexy what happened to your neck!?" He panicked even more when he saw the neck brace.

"I broke it, in the accident, but that doesn't matter!! Cody, please talk to me-!!" She exclaimed really panicked, more now. This was no memory. She recognized that even though all of this was really strange, that was Cody, the real Cody.

"No, I can't talk, there's no time! You need to get away from me!! You need to forget me, just don't ever forget the only thing that matters the most, I love you, I always have and I always will!!"

"Cody wait!! Cody don't go!!!" Lexy was left screaming as Cody returned through the bathroom door and shut it. She pounded at the door restlessly, and heard complete silence. She slid down on it and rested at the foot of the door. "Cody, I need you!!" She sobbed. There was no response.

"That wasn't some simulation. That was real!" She exclaimed and demanded an explanation from Magic Man.

"You wished to see him one last time."

"I wished for a couple-! You better let me finish that conversation Magic Man, I need to know that he's okay!!"

Magic Man looked at her real serious, he didn't like her attitude.

"He was afraid...afraid that you'd died. He was worried about you. He knew you have so many dreams, such a life ahead of you. Cody wasn't worried about himself. He was worried about you." Said Magic Man. "And another thing," he c****d his head. "One, a couple isn't infinite, and two, I don't like the way that you talk to me, so be careful how you use your visits with Cody because after a 'couple'" he emphasized, "they're going to run out."

"That's it, that's all I have, only 2 visits with Cody-" She exhaled deeply frustrated.

"Exactly, because a couple stands for two people or two creatures, so it also applies to visits with Cody. I suggest you use your last one wisely."

"But that was no fair, Cody left---he didn't even want to let me talk to him."

"He was trying to protect you. Lexy, do yourself a favor, and wish something for yourself."

"Like what?"

"Like that neck brace off and perfect health." He suggested.

"I do wish to have perfect health and I do hate this neck brace." She said it unconsciously but was instantly healed.

"Oh wow, thanks...!" She exclaimed under a huge relief. She sighed, feeling a sudden peace, "Really, thank you...but there's honestly nothing more that I want other than to have Cody back. I wish that he were alive, that he were here."

There was something that Magic Man wasn't telling her. There was one thing that he could not bring to the border of his lips.

Not only was Magic Man jealous of Cody; Magic Man also had the power to bring him back to life, however it would cost him something far too valuable to trade for anything in the world. It would not just cost him losing Lexy, it would cost him his life. Lexy could not under any circumstances know.

Magic Man was determined that would conceal his secret even if it meant he had to watch her suffer, or suffer with her.

Either way, if he brought Cody back to life, Magic Man would die, he feared this all too much, only he wasn't the only one who would have to suffer dire consequences.

Magic Man wasn't prepared to die, he died once, as a star, but he wasn't prepared to die as a man. He didn't know what would happen if he died, where he'd go, what would become of him. In a sort of sense Cody had the answers that he didn't. What if he just stopped existing? Magic Man had never delved so deep into death as he was now with Lexy and it was scaring him as he sought to discover what was beyond the unknown. He pondered if he could face it, if he could bare it, if he could sacrifice himself for the sake of this girl who he was so worried for. He knew in his heart that he could love her but he didn't feel love for her, he felt love in all sense of the word but not true convincing love. Magic Men don't love anyone, because if they love someone they are capable of sacrificing everything for her. ¿Why? Not only because Magic Men have abilities beyond normal world beings, but because they usually aren't accepted by human beings.

Lexy looked to Magic Man, "Bring Cody back, even if it's the last time I see him, I need to ask him whats in the afterlife, I need to know that he's okay."

"Lexy, I don't know what's out there, but maybe things are better off without knowing them. Sometimes having the answers you want becomes something you'll have to live with for the rest of your life. What if you regret it?"

Lexy became a bit stiff, then fell mute, and her hands started shaking.

Magic Man took out a small wand.

"Wait-!" Lexy exclaimed. "Not yet, I'm not ready!" She cried.

Magic Man changed the background scenery again. It was raining heavily, Lexy could feel the rain, she was getting soaking wet, "Magic Man!" She exclaimed in desperation, "The rain, it's really cold!!" She ran to him, "The least you could do is wish me an umbrella!" She cried.

"...So needy," he grinned with a chuckle, looked at her a bit cocky and smiled. She was squinting her eyes so tight.

"I can't see."

He opened up an umbrella which he made appear in his hand and he covered her from the cold rain.

"I wish you dry clothes and a rain coat." He said and they appeared on her like magic. It was a yellow raincoat.

He took the border of his jacket sleeve and dried her eyes.

Lexy opened her eyes and met with his, amazed, "...Thankyou," she laughed.

"I'm sorry I didn't anticipate the umbrella before I made it rain," he sighed, "Sometimes I think I suck at being Magic Man."

"How were you as a star?" She asked.

"...I was very bright. I formed part of a constellation, till, I left them behind. I got sucked into a whirlpool, I later landed in the Milky Way. I didn't know that of course until...I went to Elementary School a few years later. I'm not from here, in fact I often times wonder if I'm the only Magic Man in your galaxy."

"You can't be." Said Lexy thinking it over. "And also, you're not a total screw up." She smiled, "You brought my Dad back!" She exclaimed and wrapped her arms around him. Magic Man threw his umbrella which vanished as it was falling into the concrete, the rain ceased as soon as he wrapped his arms around her.

"Thankyou Lexy, for believing in me. I promise you Lexy, I will protect you for as long as I live, I will give you everything from me. I promise to make only your wishes come true, the ones that I can."

"Magic Man, how come you find it hard to love?" She asked softly. "I'm curious, I'm genuinely curious...don't you have a family?"

Magic Man exhaled deeply and sighed heavily, turning his head downwards at the concrete.