He turned to a recent page. “If I were to perform a truly original trick,” he had written, “it should be a metaphysical one.” He had divided the page into thirds: on the uppermost tier, he had drawn himself as a stick figure in a turban, with a wand, and written beside it, “For my next trick, I shall, without benefit of wires or mirrors, change my mood from sour to genuinely happy.” In the middle tier, he had sketched the stick figure now stiff with concentration, beads of sweat spraying off of its body. And at the bottom of the page, there was the figure, sour mood intact, now being pelted
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