The Magician...

[Steve]

There once was a magician who finally got his big break and got a job as a head-liner in Vegas. So, he was out doing his first performance and was just wowing the crowd! I mean they were eating this stuff up! Every trick he did had perfect timing; every trick came off so believable! He was on a roll.

He got down to his last trick and asked for an audience member to assist him. Even with how well he was doing, everyone in the audience was still hesitant. Finally, he pointed to a man in the audience and reluctantly the man came forward.

"Welcome sir! I will ask you to please take this mallet that I have here and, after I have laid my head on this block, I want you to smack me in the head with that mallet as hard as you can," the magician said.

Well, of course the man was shocked and refused to do it.

The magician replied, "Sir, have I not wowed you tonight with my magic?"

"Well, yes you have but..."

"No buts, sir! Do you not trust that I am a professional magician that knows what he is doing?"

"I guess so," the man replied.

"Well then, when I say I want you to smack me on the head with this mallet then I mean it. Trust me sir, I know what I'm doing."

"Ok, I trust you."

So, the magician lays his head down on the block, the man from the audience raises the mallet, the crowd gasps, the man brings down the mallet on the magicians head...and the magicians head is split clean open. Blood everywhere.

The magician is rushed to the hospital not looking too well. After hours in surgery, the doctors explain that they have sewed up the magician's head but he is in a coma. They won't know anything until he wakes up.

In the meantime, the man from the audience feels just horrible. He knows it's his fault. He stays by the magician's side every spare moment he gets.
Reading to him, telling him stories, all in the hope that one day soon the magician will wake up and he can apologize for this horrible thing he has done.

Four years this goes on. Then one day, out of the blue, the magician begins to stir. The man from the audience calls in the doctors and friends and family. Everyone is standing around the hospital bed waiting to see if he is going to be okay or if he can speak.

The magician opens his eyes and attempts to sit up in bed. He looks around at all the loving attention he seems to be getting from his family and friends. He sits up all the way in bed and looks around once more and says, "TA-DAA!"