Can You Hear Me Now

Can You Hear Me Now?

A Modern Bedside Tale

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. But there were now, Sightings of them in the Alps had increased over the years, but they were not on the minds of the good people of Rothenburg as they entered Christmas Holiday festivities and the city began to look even more like a Christmas card.

This was many many years ago, before you were born, before I was born, even before Granny was born, far across the sea in the smallish walled town of Rothenburg, Germany, there lived a street magician called Bumbles who occasionally got into trouble. This was probably because he never finished magic school. He got tossed out because of the baldness spell he put on poor old Limpid Gruley, a first-year student, and then not being able to reverse Limpid’s baldness when he forgot the magic words he had used to cast the spell. You see magic spells have passwords sort of like the passwords you have for your smartphone. If you forget it, all kinds of bad things can happen, like not being able to call Mom to pick you up.

Well, Bumbles knew just enough magic to do magic tricks at birthday parties, like pulling a hedgehog out of a hat or turning a bat into a dove, but nothing good enough to earn admittance to the magician's union. That, however, did not stop Bumbles from experimenting with real magic when he was in his room alone. The magic he was currently working on was how to pull real silver dollars out of someone’s ear. That’s a really useful bit of magic if you can do it. Imagine always being able to conjure up money for ice cream or bus fare.

Then early in December when the stores started putting up their Christmas decorations, he had, after hundreds of failures, worked out a spell to pull real silver dollars out of the shoe on which he was practicing. Talk about happy. He was happier than a waiter getting a hundred-dollar tip, or a child waking up to find a real unicorn in their room.

Anxious to amaze everyone by pulling silver dollars out of their ears, he rushed to High Street where the Christmas Market was in full sway and shoppers grouped round the stalls. At a stall selling ornate steins he saw his old friend Tomas.

“Tomas” he called. “A moment of your time, please?” he said grandiosely, garnering the attention of the group with whom Tomas was conversing. “Ah what is that?”, he asked while reaching for Tomas’s ear. 'Silver dollars in your ear, Tomas?” he said, opening his palm for all to see. But there were no silver dollars. Bumbles held Tomas’s ear in his hand.

“Ah, I uh I can fix that. You hear Tomas, I can fix that!”, Bumbles blurted. ”I'm so sorry.”

“I’m the one that’s sorry. Sorry I ever called you friend. Do not, I repeat, do not try to fix anything. You’ve done enough. Just give me my ear and begone!”

Stupefied at the horrible outcome of his magic, Bumbles slowly retreated and returned to his room. All that night and all the next day he went over what he had done and tried to pull coins out of his shoe. But no success. He just kept pulling the tongue out of his shoe.

He worried about his friend, well, former friend he guessed, who might well spend the rest of his life with only one ear. After weeks of bemoaning what he had done to Tomas, he decided to approach Tomas and beg his forgiveness.

He found Tomas at the same market stall where he had found him weeks earlier. To his surprise, it was already Christmas Eve. And to his utter amazement, Tomas had both his ears and seemed to have no difficulty hearing.

In the spirit of Christmas, Tomas forgave Bumbles, and explained that he had gone to the head of the magic school who restored it to its proper place on the side of his head.

“And he gave me a message for you Bumbles," Tomas said.

Bumbles gritted his teeth awaiting the admonition, but none came.

“He said the magic password you forgot was ‘Please’.”

By the way, I know Bumble’s spell for pulling silver dollars from your ear. Want me to show you? Afterwards we can talk about the dragons.