just an illusion

"I could go back and google how the trick was done. But I won't. Let it remain as magic"
-- R in the car at the end of the night

Saturday night. It was K's 47th birthday dinner-cum-drinks. (Has it been one year already?)

We stuffed ourselves silly at Beng Hiang Restaurant. I secretly thought that two suckling pigs were a tad excessive (for 12 carnivores, 1 vegetarian and 1 baby). I was wrong. We crunched every last piece of crispy skin and fat. To my horror, I later realised the suckling pig cost $180. Each.

After six raucous rounds of bilingual Happy Birthday songs -- the restaurant is popular for such celebratory events -- we adjourned to Bar 84 for drinks.

It was exactly how I imagined a jazz bar from one of Haruki Murakami's novels would be like -- tucked away from those not in the know with misleading signage to add to the confusion, understated lighting and decor, nothing too plush, unobtrusive music and waitresses, meticulously prepared mojitos which took 20 minutes to arrive and were topped with mint leaves sprinkled with icing sugar to look like freshly fallen snow. The fact that it was owned by a Japanese man who also performed magic tricks might have had something to do with it.

There were the run-of-the-mill sleight-of-hand tricks, which felt slightly old-fashioned compared to the likes of David Blaine and Criss Angel, but I liked them precisely because they were classics. Coins mysteriously appearing and disappearing. Rubber bands that stretched alarmingly then passed right through each other. And many many "pick a card, any card" type of tricks.

For the grand finale, three of us -- J, K and I -- each picked a card. We were instructed, in charmingly broken and slyly flirtatious English, to write various personal details on the card, mine being my name, the date and my (incomplete) address.

J's card disappeared from the deck and reappeared in a wooden box, folded into a little rectangle. Mine was found in the magician's wallet in a sealed Japanese red packet.

But the most amazing one was K's. He was instructed to pick one lemon out of three from the bar fridge, then cut it open with a knife. No prizes for guessing what was found, rolled up and marinated in lemon juice, inside.

It was one of the oldest tricks in the book, but to me, it was pure magic.

"The magician teaches us that romance lies in an unstable contest of minds that leaves us knowing it’s a trick but not which one it is, and being impressed by the other person’s ability to let the trickery go on."
-- The Real Work, by Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker