Page 73

By Jack Joseph Smith

Some were not completely in control and I could sense them pretending to be in the darkness. He was unafraid. And he waited until I was ready, before he looked at me. His eyes came down down, as if rolling out of someplace beyond. He had left the microphone on the stage and he stood there with his eyes and hands being the only transmitters of our communication. Others had brought the microphone acroos the floor with its wire winding like a man made snake spitting out the acts of human indulgence. You were born far away and have already lead two sets of lives. You see what you don't see and don't see what you see. No one here understands this, but you will in time. You were born when the wind begins. March would be the month. Toward the beginning, for your wind does not yell as does the song of April deep in the heart of the land. Your wind is rising and passes on and on in the middle of earth and sky. As of yet you have not been harmed, for all around you love your spirit, which your parents call your soul. But a time will come when people will sense this passing on and on that I have spoken of, and then you will see that you are alone and only then understand who your true friends are. You are very young in all ways. I am not frightening you am I, he asked? I remember answering no. You are eight years old. You do not like something about your life. It is school. There are too many girls around, and you want to learn the ways of men. I see you are a Catholic, he said laughing a little. I am not from this city but I can see where you live. It is a very comfortable place, but also very strong in a strange way. You go away to school every day, because your parents want you to. They know and you know that there is a school near your home where you should be. I can not see the school, but I can see the man who controls it. You must go to him. He will

Original Scan

Page 73

AI Interpretation

GPT

The magician speaks directly into the child's life, naming his age, adoption-like doubleness, loneliness to come, hatred of girl-filled school, Catholic upbringing, and the need to seek out a strong man at the nearby parish school.

This is one of the clearest visionary moments in the manuscript, because the magician's language fuses stage trickery with unsettling precision about the child's inward life. The prophecy matters not just for what it predicts, but for how completely it makes the child feel seen.

Claude

The magician leaves the microphone on stage and speaks to the narrator with only his eyes and hands, telling him he was born in March 'when the wind begins', has 'already lead two sets of lives', is eight years old, dislikes a school with too many girls, and must go to the man who controls a school near his home.

The page shifts into prophecy, and the magician's voice reads the child's inner life with uncanny accuracy, naming both his gift and a coming loneliness when others sense 'this passing on and on'. The scene positions the stranger as the first adult who truly sees the boy, which explains the earlier talk of sacrifice and deliverance.