Penlifter: Part I

Sasha willed the spoon off the kitchen table. She had done it before. She knew she had done it. How had she done it?

She just … had.

And now she couldn’t do it. But she knew she could. Because she had.

“You need to focus,” her mother’s voice said from behind her.

“I am focusing!”

“No, you’re not. You’re thinking about the fact that you did it last time instead of focusing on what’s in front of you right now.”

“How do you know what I’m thinking?” Sasha grumbled.

“Because you wouldn’t be trying to do it again if you weren’t thinking about the fact that you managed to do it once already. And if you were able to clear your thoughts and focus only on what’s right here, right now, you’d be able to do it.”

Sasha didn’t have a response to that, so she didn’t say anything for a moment. Finally, she said. “I don’t know how.”

Her mother came up behind her and laid her hands on her shoulders. In a calm, low voice, she said, “Clear your mind of everything else. Focus on the spoon. There is nothing but this spoon. There has never been another spoon. There will never be another spoon. There has never been anything before this and there will never be anything after this. Everything is right here, right now, in that spoon.”

Sasha felt herself start to relax as she took in what her mother was saying. She cleared her thoughts of everything but the spoon. Not the spoon from last week. Not a spoon she would try to levitate in the future. Just this spoon, right there, on the kitchen table.

The spoon lifted off the table and Sasha’s spirits lifted with it. “I’m doing it!”

The spoon crashed back to the table.

“Dammit!”

Her mother smacked the side of her head. “There is no swearing in this house.” That rule enforced, she said, “Yes, you did it, but as soon as you realized you were doing it, you lost your focus. The trick is maintaining that focus. Keep practicing like I taught you and you’ll be able to do it without thinking about it.”

Sasha grinned at the thought. She focused on the spoon, trying to repeat the process, but to no avail. She was too excited and there was no way she was going to be able to overcome her excitement at having successfully pulled off the trick twice in order to do it a third time. After a while she gave up and decided to just revel in her success. She would worry about practicing some other time.

To be continued…