The Conjuror of MB4

A university is a place of wonder and mystery: such were my sentiments as I escaped the noxious fumes of the university toilets whilst trying to account for the mysterious shoe-prints I had just witnessed on a toilet seat. How they got to be there is not perhaps as mystifying as the frequency with which I seem to find them there. Why? Who?
With relevant questions in my mind I moved towards the Main Block when with a small ‘pop’ and a puff of smoke there appeared by my side a bearded gentleman whose lively countenance betrayed a noble nature and an almost lustful need to scamper about, interfering in everything.

“Well, well, and what might you be?” said the apparition, addressing me in courteous tones.

“Lost is what I am, old chap!” I answered in a surprisingly crisp British accent, which stymied my companion for half a second, but who regained composure almost instantly.

“Why don’t you join the Debating Society?” he asked me suspiciously as if I had committed a crime by trying to foil his impressive theatrical entrance with an unexpected accentual assault.

“And what, pray tell, would that entail?” I countered with a question of my own. I could sense it was to be a battle of wits.

“This university is a place of wonder and mystery; you will learn much!” answered the unknown specter with an air of grandeur and enigma that seemed to suggest that he had watched something odd when he was a child.

“Tempting…” thought I, but remained silent, expecting more.

“I offer you Glory!” he said and with a flourish, produced in his outstretched palm, a small transparent sphere within which I observed myself surrounded by vibrant rainbows. I further saw my miniature self to be swatting frantically at eight unusually large fireflies; seven of them were blinking their tail-lights on and off in sheer joy whilst the eighth looked frightened and was clearly signaling S.O.S. in Morse code...
With my old concept of ‘Glory’ in shambles, I looked up into the bearded gentleman’s face, whose eyes shone bright with manic energy.

“I offer you Fame!” he said and in his other outstretched palm I saw three monkeys playing in the mud.

“Right…” I said, feeling a bit awkward and unsure.

He spoke again: “I offer you Trophy!” this time I saw a clear image inside a third small sphere: The image was of an object upon which there shone a light, whiter than white. It stood majestic, upon a pedestal, bathed in all things silver and gold. Ephemeral but sufficient, the vision disappeared in a flash that left my soul yearning for more, my blood warmed at the sight, my heart desirous of that same experience, my perception irreversibly altered, my life, forever changed. In the second half of my second year in my second university, I joined the Debating Society, in search of Glory, Fame, and the ever elusive Trophy. Little did I know that I had sold my soul for something almost unattainable; little did I know that…


-Before the illusion of great power comes great suffering…

Contrary to popular belief, there is neither a mystical potato that reveals unto us the knowledge of all things rhetorical, nor are we ethereal mediums, channeling the spirits of a thousand failed writers, whose subjects were ever, and always, Karbalah and Kashmir. Our emblematic ramblings are not inspired after a healthy dose of any opiate whatsoever and our metaphoric allusions to all events grand yet bloody are not the result of a deranged mind. In truth: it’s all a consequence of extensive brainwashing or as the elders like to call it, Training.


My 'Taining' began in that most sacred of rooms, the MB4 and a grueling preparation it was indeed. The elders of the Society had devised a clever medium of instruction, primarily on a day-to-day basis of humiliation, suffering, and an almost unending chain of disappointments handed out in more or less equal measure to all the debutants.
The elders would usually stand in rows on either side of a red-hot coal pit, upon which a young trainee would have to jump about, practicing delivering his speech with a straight face whilst being repeatedly struck with fat strips of leather. This program of initiation also included feeding, massaging, and praising the elders endlessly. Doing odd jobs for them was not obligatory but saying ‘no’ meant a demotion to the exclusive post of Secretary of the Dustbin for months on end. Once a satisfactory amount of time had elapsed, a hooded elder called a meeting which lasted nearly four hours and achieved absolutely nothing. It was frustrating indeed but the illusion that something spectacular was just around the corner was very effectively maintained.
Many months were spent learning the art of not believing anything and then trying to justify everything. This may seem less painful than all the other mindless exercises conducted so far but in essence it was this skill in particular that truly robbed a man of his bearings in this world and restructured his perceptions entirely and thereby, ultimately resulted in a complete loss of faith on all frontiers of life. Eventually, with the aid of some method of evaluation with which I am entirely unfamiliar, it was decided that I was ready to learn the secret of writing an actual speech. I had been informed earlier that this might also help me understand the inexplicable presence of shoe-prints on toilet seats, but by this time I was ruthlessly cynical.

-History will always smack me hard, because somebody else intends to write it…

And then one day, stripped of my sense of self and utterly woe begotten, I lay panting at the threshold of the bearded gentleman’s lair. I had had enough! No more would I suffer for the sake of the much coveted fireflies or monkeys! The elusive trophy was just that, too elusive! It was over now, once and for all, and so I hitched up my pants and knocked at the door to the twelfth dimension, the entrance to the lair. But just as I was to hand in my resignation the bearded gentleman slapped me on the back and said, “Well young man? What say you if I offer you a post in the Society?” he was an accomplished prestidigitator: he could make food disappear before your very eyes! But I know how to keep my cool. I had brought a magic lamp of my own. I had been informed by a reliable source that the lamp contained Winston Churchill's ghost and it was said that he never failed to help the wronged by taking up their case against oppression by throwing his book quotable quotes at the enemy.

“Actually old chap I was thinking more along the lines of quitting…” I said quite calmly and noticed how my breath suddenly smelled of fish n’ chips as I nervously fingered the lamp in my pocket.

The conjuror of MB4 looked at me with an appraising glance, measuring the strength of my character perhaps or trying to see whether I had the will to defy him or not. “Ha-ha! You can’t leave! You can never leave!” announced the man of super strength as he grew in stature right in front of my eyes. Ten feet tall he grew and towered over me! I had anticipated this move; by now i had learnt enough in the DS to counter such smoke and mirror strategies; I took out the magic lamp and rubbed it! Winston Churchill appeared amidst us like a genie; he took one good look at the situation, weighed the pros and cons and then gave me a savage beating. Apparently the bearded chap and Churchill were old friends. It was clearly pointless to struggle now. With my soul gone and my will shattered there was not much I could do; after all, a university is a place of wonder and mystery...

...and we are all just prisoner's here, of our own device!