-=- Ginsu Mage -=-

S1E1: Kitchen Magic

-=-=-

I kept refreshing my browser, waiting on election results. This year, 2020, had been hella suck. First, COVID-19. It wasn’t a plague as such, but it killed lots of old and sickly people so a quarantine was mandated in March. Social distancing, facemasks, hand washing, alcohol sanitiser. My company sent everyone home to ferment in their own juices until it was lifted and sometime around the beginning of April I came down with a slight cough. Then it developed into bronchitis. Then I tested positive.

And recovered.

It’s been seven months, two people I know have died and I have lung and heart damage. I still get short-winded when exerting myself, but I survived, returned to work, and things returned to mostly normal. Then we played apocalypse bingo with wildfires, earthquakes, double hurricanes, typhoons, scandals, allegations, celebrity deaths … ugh. Fuck 2020.

Now I’m waiting on the results of the Presidential election.

**DING! You have mail!**

Thank you AOL guy. You’ve served me well this last quarter century.

I flipped the tab on my old Macbook Air and waited until it finallllllllllll…llllllllly… opened gMail.

You have 99,999 unread messages.

Yeah. I’m one of those people.

Scanning through the latest emails I spotted two from my kids that I needed to answer, and the one that addressed me personally.

“Good Evening, Mr. Harold Johnson!

You’ve been selected for an all expenses paid excursion to another world! Excitement! Adventure! Rescue our Princess! …”

I gotta admit, the “Rescue our Princess” bit got me. I opened the email in a sandbox so there was no chance of viruses or nasty bits infecting my naughty bits, and read on. It wasn’t your standard Nigerian Princesses scam. Instead, it promised magical powers, hardship, a life of adventure, and maybe even the hand of the princess in marriage if you rescue her (click HERE to see princess and agree to transmitigation).

I laughed out loud.

I’m on the wrong side of 40 with the wrong kind of knees to be considering adventure or teenage princesses. Hell, it was enough trouble raising my own kids and getting them into university, I certainly don’t want to raise the spoiled brat of some monarch that can’t keep tabs on his own daughter.

“I wonder what she looks like?” I mutter aloud. I admit, I’m a curious man. Just because I’m half a century old doesn’t mean the majority of my spank bank isn’t half my age.

Although I do prefer the kind of lady that can slay dragons over the kind that are kidnapped by them.

I clicked the link and a picture opened in 90s fashion, one scan line at a time. I waited patiently for the screen to fill. One. Scan. Line. At. A. Time. Brrrrr.

Annnnd, okay. I gotta admit, she’s hella cute. If I were 30 years younger I’d definitely fall for her. Beautiful ebony hair in loose ringlets, amazing hazel eyes, pouty lips. She stared at me through the screen as if we were on a videochat.

I’d definitely set my oldest son up with her if she were a real person.

A tinny voice scratched its way out of the laptop speakers. “Help us, Mr. Johnson. You’re our only hope.”

“Do something about this old body and I’d definitely slay a dragon for you,” I joked, booping her cute nose with a finger covered in bacon grease.

My screen filled with garbage that even Neo himself couldn’t decipher. It stopped scrolling after a moment, resolving into a strange looking sigil, some sort of drunken Viking rune composed of ascii revolving around the screen.

Chortling, I took a sip of my coffee. Do your worst, Scammer. My friend Gary is on the team that wrote that sandbox you’re playing in. Your little virus isn’t going anywhere.

The screen exploded.

The whole thing happened in slow motion. I watched shards of glass fly towards my face in a glittering ballet that promised lacerations and imminent blindness. The glass slowed, then reversed into the laptop screen with an unearthly howl. Time reasserted itself and flowed normally, sucking everything into the depths of my laptop.

I’m not ashamed to admit I screamed in soprano.

Gripping the granite topped counter, I resisted the suction and held on for dear life against hurricane force winds. Everything in the kitchen around me was being hoovered up - blender, toaster, fridge, microwave… The coffee machine flew past me and vanished into the void. I considered following it - the last of my 100% Jamaican Blue was in the carafe.

The void expanded, consuming the kitchen sink, walk-in pantry, and stove. When the drawers behind me opened and cutlery started flying, I let go before a 12” Ginsu knife carved me up like a Christmas goose.

Stygian darkness surrounded me as I tumbled through nothingness. Then I began to glow.

The contents of my kitchen orbited my body like Jovian moons. Knives, forks, the toaster, my beloved coffee maker, all swirled around me and were sucked into the glowing mass of my body. As each one was absorbed I could feel their essence - the sharpness of the knives, the flames from the stove, water from the sink, ice from the fridge… everything in my kitchen was impacting my glowing body and overwhelming my senses.

A thunderous crash filled the void as the tiny portal of the laptop imploded. I watched in horror as the hard aluminium unibody sailed towards me and held up my hands a moment too late. It impacted my forehead with a meaty thunk and daddy went night-night.

*Calibrating attributes, reticulating mana, inscribing phylactery, populating spell bindings…*

* * *

“What a crazy dream,” I groaned, stretching under the sheets and enjoying the popPopPOP of old joints snapping back into place. “I need to lay off the booze.”

A cultured masculine voice caressed my ears and startled me into full consciousness. “I’m glad to see that you’re awake, sir.”