Conjuring

Michael Smith

by Michael Smith

Story

A conjuror spends his working life deceiving people. He enjoys playing for an audience; indeed, the larger, the better. 

Many of his tricks are sleights of hand, planned meticulously weeks, or even months, beforehand. 

To make his tricks all the more believable, he may collude behind the scenes with trusted experts in deception.  


The real art of the conjuror is to keep the audience distracted by quite trivial, even mundane, events, while the real deception takes place unnoticed. 

He is sometimes assisted by a sidekick, whose chief purpose is to further distract the audience away from what is really happening.


For the most part, people in the audience know they are being deceived, but are happy to go along with it all, just for the entertainment value. 

And they are more than willing to pay the conjuror for the privilege of being deceived by him. 

The audience knows that what they are experiencing is far removed from truth and reality, but they remain content to be entertained by the deception.


And when he has finished his act, the audience will applaud. 

They will marvel agog at how they were tricked, yet seem happy to have been duped so easily.


Some members of the audience, however, understand how the tricks work; and most of these choose to remain silent, not wishing to spoil the magic spell woven by the conjuror. 

In fact, any brave, yet lonely, member of the audience who does try to call out how a trick has been performed is quickly and efficiently silenced by the majority who, it seems, are content to remain in their blissful ignorance.

Politics is a lot like conjuring.




© Michael Smith 2024-03-17

Genres
Novels & Stories