Magic in the World

Magic doesn’t exist.

That’s what your second-grade teacher drilled into you. You heard those words almost everyday for an entire school year. If you had dropped the subject and had taken assignments seriously like the other children, then maybe the teacher wouldn’t have been so difficult. They wouldn’t have docked points from your tests due to doodles of fairies and giants.

Magic doesn’t exist.

And you might’ve agreed with her if you had been younger and not so stubbornly set in your ways. You might’ve ignored your eyes and only have seen the everyday in the magical.

Magic doesn’t exist.

Well, certainly not like it used to.

In today’s age, magic has become integrated in strings of DNA that make us up. When humans didn’t want magic in the way it had been, magic adapted.

Take a walk through your city. Scroll through your phone. Watch for it.

You can see mermaids in the girl who always has a water bottle on her desk, in the boy who cuts through the water like it’s not even there, in the surfer who knows the strength and timing of the next wave, and in the woman who’s eyes crinkle at the corner when the ocean’s powerful waves bows to the land to just touch the tips of her toes.

There are giants in the blood of NBA stars and in writers who live at the tip of mountains.

Banshees bless the voice of the opera singer who shatters glass with her notes.

Lions, tigers, and bears are nothing compared to the wizard, warlock, or witch in your veins.

Every morning, you stop by the worst coffee shop in New York. You sit by the corner window and watch the breeze blow through the garden across the street. For a year you sat, waiting for the caretaker to come by, but they never do. Why? Because, in the light of the rising sun, just before the hint of pink becomes sky blue, you can see tiny specks floating between the leaves. Your teacher would call it a trick of the light, but you know better. You know fairies when you see them.

Your teacher could be right---everyone has a hill they choose to die on. Only, you see things different. You see their long sleeves and their dark clothing. Shadows bring them comfort, and they rumor always was that they lived in a haunted house. No wrinkles, perfect teeth, and every movement they make is calculated and graceful. Vampires can evolve too, sucking away joy and light from little children must seem like a good alternative from their normal diet.

They don’t believe in magic.

But you, you certainly do.