The Programmatic Magic School

The dingy basement looked like something out of a horror movie. A few dirty windows, decaying walls, puddles on the floor, and one overhead light with a chain swinging back and forth casting a creepy shadow. I can’t help but think I’ve made a terrible mistake.

Footsteps pound behind me as more of my assumed fellow classmates descend into the unfinished basement. Every step creaks and bends under their weight. The staircase looks absolutely ancient.

They all stop when they see me standing in the middle of the room slowly turning around. Half of them looked like they expected me to suddenly reveal a knife.

“Hi!” I say relieved to have someone else to bask in the uncertainty. No one is moving. I try to break the awkward silence. “My name’s Para.”

Most of the students continue to go down shrugging and muttering to themselves. Not the most lively bunch: That is until a wildly androgynous Japanese graduate starts to make their way down the stairs. They have a purple beanie (just like me!) covering their short haircut, an intimidatingly impressive application of makeup, purple hoody, white belt, and yellow skinny jeans. The whole outfit seemed to fit them perfectly.

“Tomomi, they/them,” they report in a rather serious tone. “How about you? Any pronouns with that name, Para?” they ask.

My cheeks immediately blush and I can feel it. Shit. Let’s try to act cool. “They/them as well,” I choke out with a wonderful voice crack. Nice job me.

“Nice. Has the teacher arrived yet?” they ask another question.

“Not that I know of…” I trail off as as my new best friend loses obvious interest and walks to the other side of the room.

From up above, a giant voice roars above us shouting, “hello new students!” Almost as if the teacher had rehearsed their entrance, he runs down the steps, flips his briefcase open which slides out folding legs, tosses that briefcase (which now looks like a chair?) into the air, jumps after the briefcase, and lands on it holding onto a cup of tee that somehow sits unspilled in his hand. “Good evening. My name is Dr. Gray. That is G-R-A-Y and if any of you pronounce it with an E I will personally escort you off this planet.” The joke elicits no response. Everyone is a little bit shocked mostly by the fact that someone with a PhD asked a bunch of college graduates to meet him down in a basement and is acting like this couldn’t be more normal. “No? Nothing? Okay, fine. I guess I deserve this one.” He presses a button on the side of his briefcase-chair causing the passcode lock to go from reading “+000” to “-001”. “Welcome to the Programmatic Magic School!” he announces with much enthusiasm. “Here I hope to show you how humanities newfound understanding of artificial intelligence has helped unlock capabilities of the brain beyond the understanding of neuroscience.”

“Wait, this isn’t a comedy show?” asks one student standing between what is obviously a couple of their friends.

Dr. Gray chuckles. “Haha no of course not!” Suddenly his face deadpans. “I’m serious. Magic is real.”

Most students start shifting in place. I can’t blame them, we are standing in a sketchy building with a man who seems genuinely out of his mind.

“Nope,” states one of the students who immediately starts walking back up the stairs. “I don’t need this shit in my life again,” they mutter to themselves.

“Yeah, sorry wizard Gray. I’m not here for whatever this is. You’re acting really creepy,” another student says as they slowly back out of the basement.

Other students start to follow until it’s just Tomomi and myself left. I start to take a step back as well until Dr. Gray asks Tomomi a question: “why are you still here?” he asks.

Tomomi takes a few moments to think. Choosing their words carefully they respond, “while I do find your theories outlandish I don’t see any reason why your unpublished work can’t find grounding in academia.”

Well shit, I didn’t know there was homework we had to do. How the hell did Tomomi find this generic ass name of a professor’s work? If I Googled Dr. Gray there would have to be at least fifty Dr. Gray’s who would not be this man.

Dr. Gray’s eyebrows raise substantially. “I am surprised anyone under the age of 30 has looked into my research,” he says. “You must have gone to Oak Harbor Community College, right?” Tomomi nods. “I see,” he trails off as if this all makes perfect sense before turning to face me. “And why are you here?”

My hands start to clam up. If I had to be honest, finding other non-binary folks in Washington state isn’t easy: especially outside of Seattle. I would have joined the other students if Tomomi left. Instead of saying that, I blurt out, “curiosity and unimaginable boredom.” Tomomi frowns; Not in disappointment, more like a lack of understanding. At least that’s what I tell myself.

“Well, screw it,” Dr. Gray sighs. “That’s as good a reason as any. You both passed the first test: not running away. I would like to formally welcome you to the Programatic Magic School, but first we should probably get the hell out of this basement.” With one swift movement he rolls backwards while tugging on the front of his briefcase-chair launching it into the air. The legs of the briefcase-chair collapse into the closing briefcase while Dr. Gray lands on both feet holding his right arm out as if expecting to perfectly catch the item it as it falls. Somehow the handle of the briefcase slides right onto his hand without his arm adjusting to catch it.

Without saying another word he takes the lead and climbs up the old wooden staircase. Tomomi follows without hesitation. I’m the last to leave, walking through the old antiques shop that rests above the basement. A blast of cold air rushes in Skagit Bay as I open the front door. It’s the middle of summer yet somehow we are experiencing days as cold as sixty degrees. It sucks.

Tomomi motions me to follow as they cross the street with Dr. Gray. We follow him in silence until we take a turn into an alley. Without stopping Dr. Gray rounds the corner pulling out some keys. Tomomi stops at the alley entrance and asks me, “is this a stupid thing we’re doing? Following a strange man into a random alley?”

I shrug. “Probably. I’ll watch your back if you keep an eye out for me,” I offer.

They nod and move forward. We enter the back side of a building through an old wooden door immediately up another ancient wooden staircase to what appears to be a private investigator office.

“Welcome to my classroom/research office!” Dr. Gray says quite enthusiastically as he motions both of us in. We both look at each other with the same level of skepticism before stepping through the doorway.

To put it nicely, the place is an absolute mess. The man obviously does his research alone with all his notepads and random pieces of paper scattered throughout the room. Just like you’d expect in a PI office, a cork board has various pictures (of the brain?) pinned with an assorted color of yarn connecting one thing haphazardly to another. A small and old laptop sits on top of a desk with several dirty mugs and an unusually clean coffee machine (which explains the overwhelming aroma).

“I know it’s not much but rent is dirt cheap and my research doesn’t exactly get any funding,” Dr. Gray explains while resting his briefcase on one of the five desks crammed into the small office. “We’ll need to get you both chairs assuming you still want to study this fascinating phenomenon. “

“What exactly is this ‘fascinating phenomenon’ anyways?” I ask realizing how much I don’t know I’ve got myself into.

Unexpectedly, Tomomi answers the question. “Programmatic Magic is a theory that the human brain can be mapped and manipulated in predictable ways. If someone is able to achieve mastery of their thoughts, they can achieve unexpected things.” They look over at Dr. Gray for confirmation.

“Quite right. Almost right, that is. Mastery doesn’t just achieve unexpected ‘things’, but can actually produce superhuman phenomenon.” Both of them look at my heavily blinking face.

“Sorry, what?” I stutter.

“Too fast I guess,” Dr. Gray observes. “Apologies. Let’s start with something simple. You may have noticed how I seem to be extremely precise with my movements. I showed off a little when I set up that chair,” he explained as he gestured toward the briefcase that was sitting still. “That was not a well practiced act. I have an unnatural ability for precise movements. I know, at a very low level, how my to send signals to my muscles to produce the results I want. Observe.” Taking the office keys out of his pocket, he made a casual toss at a peg on the wall. The keys jangled as the key ring slipped onto the peg. “Even if I had practiced that shot a thousand times, it would be extraordinarily hard to reproduce that result, right?”

Tomomi’s didn’t looked convinced. “Do it again,” they demanded.

Walking up to the peg, Dr. Gray picked up the keys. Taking a few steps back, he gave another casual toss of the keys which landed yet again perfectly on the peg.

“Alright, so you’re a professional horseshoe player. What’s so impressive about that?” I ask. I know I’m not the brightest in the world but even I know this means nothing.

Unexpectedly, Dr. Gray starts smiling. “See,” he stops for a moment. “What’s your name again?” he asks.

I sigh. “Para. They/them.”

“Right!” He starts to pace. “If I were a professional athlete, this would be normal. The main difference is the way I learned to do this. I didn’t force my muscles to memorize a specific set of instructions. I have studied my own brain and learned that movement is very easy to identify and manipulate. Rather than throwing the keys a hundred times I have taken notes on what every single movement feels like.”

“Interesting,” Tomomi interjects. “What your suggesting is a different way of learning?”

“Precisely!” Dr. Gray shouts. “If you can understand the way your brain sends signals and reacts to stimulus, you can predict the outcome. It’s almost as if every ma-person,” he corrects mid sentence, “has a unique language they can only understand.”

Tomomi acts like this makes perfect sense. Apparently I’m the only one out of the loop. “How is this different to a professional athlete?” I ask.

“Alright, one more time,” Dr. Gray starts. “A professional athlete trains the body to repeat and memorize a specific motion. I studied how each muscle feels to be moved, memorized those movements, and call upon those memorizations. I literally took out a notebook, moved my arm, and noted the sensations. I repeated that process with every angle my arm could move. I can produce similar movements to an athlete, but the way I do is completely different. And this is just the beginning! Imagine if I could master more than just movement. What lays beyond that knowledge?”

I frown. “So when you say magic you don’t mean throwing lightning out of my hands?”

“No. Not yet. Who knows though! That level of thinking has never been achieved!”

“I’m in,” Tomomi says with a gust of finality. “Where do I start?”

“Good question. But before we start, are you in Para?” Dr. Gray asks.

I pause. Do I really want to spend my free time with a weird old man? No. That being said, there’s another half to the equation: Tomomi. For a lack of better reasons I say, “What the hell, I’m in.”