Snzeelbinka and the Blue Note

It started out harmlessly enough. Few flashes out of the corner of my eye; little things started to go missing. It's not like I am unfamiliar with situations like this, I mean I do practice magick. But fact is, I'm sloppy. I hardly ever bother to cast a circle when I do a spell and I can't remember the last time I grounded afterwards. And yeh, I do suffer the consequences. Last year I spent an uncomfortable two hours in my closet trying to exorcise a poltergeist that had been conjured up from the excess energy left over from my workings. Thing is though, I need to do spells. I live in a crap neighbourhood. My neighbours are druggies. There are non-stop drunken parties every weekend and only the insane would venture out at night. Everyone gets burglarised at least once a year. So in addition to dead bolts and bars on the windows, I've got a couple of nasty magickal booby traps at play. Magick is a form of self defence round here. When someone is trying to break down your door in the middle of the night, you got to work your hoodoo fast and dirty.

Anyway, I thought it'd stop at the little stuff. Then one day I came home from work and found my TV gone. Well I presumed I'd been robbed, cursed my luck and upped my protection spell. Next morning I found the damn thing sitting in the middle of my kitchen floor. That's weird, but not that weird. I moved on. Next day after work, I found all my clothes on my bedroom floor, organised alphabetically and by colour. That made me very uneasy. The final straw came on my birthday, a week later. I woke up and found everything in my apartment blue; carpet, curtains, couch, paintwork, the bath, toilet, tiles, all my clothes, bedding, even all my books and paperwork. Worst of all, somehow or another, I was blue, skin, hair and teeth. I realized at that point I was in way over my head. I called in sick to work and hit the Yellow Pages looking for a shaman.

Strangely enough, there is no listing for "Shamans r Us" in the phone book, so I ended up ringing every New Age shop I could find. Unfortunately all I could find were airy-fairy white-light healer types, when what I really needed was a bad arse witch doctor. After my fifth conversation about getting my aura sealed, I exploded and told the person on the phone as much.

"Well, then" she said, "You need Todd. Watch out though, he's tricky."

Apparently Todd was perpetually between residences and liked to spend a lot of time 'communing' with nature during which, he likes to turn off his mobile. It took a two days of phone tag match to get hold of him. After a bit of bantering over price, he said he'd be round that evening at six.

Ten to ten, Todd cruised in the door, no apologies. He turned out to be about 18, had blond dreads and a skateboard under his arm. He strode 'round my apartment, looking at the books on my shelves, poking at things and shakin' his mojo bag. For some reason he also turned over the cushions on my couch. After a while he started to laugh.

"Dude, you've got a Snzeelbinka." he said sitting down on the couch and rolling a smoke of suspect composition. "You'll have ta shift it yourself, but I'll tell you how, no extra charge"

That being said, he still gouged me.

Apparently Snzeelbinkas are romantically attracted to powerful magicians, particularly to real magick addicts like me. To rid yourself of one, you first have to court it and then have sex with it, after which time, you will be free. The first step is to open the lines of communication. This took a little figuring. I left it a love note, put out a Scrabble board so it could reply and waited. The next morning I found "Hey Sexy" on the triple word score. I kept up the flirting for a coupla days waiting for the next sign, which Todd had said would be a gift. I went for a toilet break during a mammoth DVD bender on the fifth night and came back and found every surface of my lounge room covered in tomatoes. Unconventional, but that was my gift. Next I left it flowers and a note stating that I would like to get to know it better, following Todd's procedure to the letter. A full week past and nothing happen. I thought it was repulsed by me. Being rejected by a non-corporeal being was a new low even for me.

Then on the night of the full moon, I awoke to find something standing at the end of the bed. I turned on my bedside lamp. What I saw made me stifle a scream. Imagine the ugliest bearded transvestite you've ever seen, floating three inches above the floor; a veritable Hell's Angel in hooker's clothing. Worse than that, he was obviously pleased to see me. Now I'm not a homophobe, but I don't swing that way, EVER. I freaked. It came for me, cooing overtures to sex in a hearty baritone and attempted to climb into bed with me. I crawled out the other side and made for the kitchen. The Snzeelbinka followed hot on my heels. Obviously confused by my sudden lack of interest, its attempts at pitching woo became more frantic. It started to disrobe in the lounge. I desperately searched the cupboards for sea salt, trying not to watch what was happening. As the Snzeelbinka continued its horrifying strip tease, I poured the salt around me and vigorously banished it. It vanished with a whimper and a puff of pink dust. I was more than a little pissed. I rung Todd's mobile and in not so polite terms, told him what happened and what he could stick where. All he did was laugh at me.

"I never thought you'd be stupid enough to do what I said." he chuckled incredulously. " I thought, you bein' so into the magicks and all, that you woulda immediately realized I was blowin' smoke up your butt and figured it out for yourself. Ya got Thor Darkwood's "Compendium of the Invisible" sitting on your bookshelf. That tells ya what to do. All ya had to do was burn chicken feathers on a Saturday morning. You are so screwed. Now you'll never get rid of it. It's gunna stalk you like that chick from Fatal Attraction!"

Unfortunately, he was right. I'm still blue!

THE END.