Wendy was a witch; not a great witch, or a famous witch. It would have been difficult to be either considering how many witches were named Wendy. They would have needed a system to discern first the good Wendys from the bad Wendys, as well as the mediocre Wendys , which is the group Wendy considered herself to be centred within: neither good nor bad; brilliant nor non-brilliant. She chose not to use words such as stupid or dumb, for no one was really stupid or dumb; everyone had something they could do, if only in a mediocre way, so non-brilliant was the word to use. After all Wendy was a politically correct witch, if nothing else.
It wasn’t easy to be politically correct in these modern times, with gender debates abounding. Do wizards have higher IQs then witches?, had filled most of the special supplement in the latest issue of Spellbound, the industry journal for the magical professional. Recent research had shown that once that might have been true, when witches had been kept barefoot and pregnant next to the cauldron, motherhood and domestic duties keeping them from going about in the world and pursuing academic endeavours or career paths, but now that witches had more choices in life their IQs had not only grown equal to wizards ,but in fact had surpassed them -not that Wendy hadn’t known that all along!
Just one look into any family coven and the multitasking that a witch performed in the course of her daily life showed that witches had to be superior to wizards. A wizard concentrating on a brew could be easily distracted by the sight of a scantily clad fairy in the magic mirror and the whole brew could be spoiled as he added too much of this, not enough of that. No witch would allow such a thing to happen! Great Uncle Gough had totally lost his plot one midsummer night when he was given a crystal ball that showed the entire stable of the next year’s Pinup Witches of the Month in PlayWitch and had not been able to return to his spell work until the year was up.
A rumour had circulated that the crystal ball had in fact been given to him by his wife, Great Aunt Gough, who knew not only how distracted Great Uncle Gough could be by shiny things, balls, but by any female under forty; just to give herself some peace and quiet so she could get on with completing her PhD in witchcraft, and to Wendy this proved beyond doubt that witches were indeed smarted than wizards, for a witch would never allow herself to be distracted by the mere picture of something. A witch was more realistic and concrete in her thinking. She knew how to multitask to perfection.
A witch wouldn’t just settle for looking at something, no, she would summon it up! If those Pinup witches had been wearing a pair of shoes that she liked in a bippity bippity boo, she would wave her magic stick wand, and materialise them; then it would be back to work for that modern witch. She certainly wouldn’t spend an entire year with glazed eyes lusting after something, doing nothing else. Why Great Uncle Gough had needed special meals to be prepared just to be prompted to eat, while Great Aunt Gough ran around accomplishing so much!
In fact, Great Aunt Gough had completed her PhD with honours, stored a whole year’s supply of pickled newt, completely repainted the coven, babysat for her daughter three days a week, took care of her ageing mother who refused to leave her tree house and move into a care facility, and maintained a blog for aspiring witches and wizards, while her husband gazed at that crystal ball of Pinup Witches. Who was the smarter, ay?
Wendy blinked. Who was the smartest?
Great Uncle Gough whose abilities had dimmed in the mists of time, was staring at the pinups, remembering how stunning Great Aunt Gough had been. With the fastest, slickest broom in the neighbourhood, what wild rides they’d had in the forests of the night! It wasn’t pickled newt in those days (it tastes like s..t, but you can live on it), but the best of wild mushrooms, picked by her dainty hand. Oh, the sight of that exquisite turned ankle as she tripped through the meadow – radiant summer light and a smile just for him. That was long before the hooked nose, warts, cracked nails, and now even the mirror, mirror on the wall refuses to show any image at all. Still, an old wizard has his memories……….and a crystal ball to remind him of what was once the vision splendid of witchhood.
Addendum – points in favour of ageing wizards.
1. The reason the old wizard is staring at the crystal ball of pinup witches is that he has lost his glasses. Listen carefully and you will hear him mutter “Which witch is which?”
2. Unlike witches, a wizard would never let a Familiar become more important than his favourite witch. A cat is just a cat, but sadly, in many covens today, it is the Cat Familiar that also gives orders to ageing wizards
3. It is unnecessary to attempt to burn a wizard or see if he will float on water rather than drown to prove his magicality – we wizards walk on water.
Ratty (an ageing wizard that dares cross pens with a master? wordsmith or is that witchsmith?)
Oh superb! “Which witch is which” one of my favourites. Wizards only walk on water because witches make sure there are stepping stones just below the water so he they can maintain the pretence!
Another point in favour of ageing wizards – they know that “Fifty Shades of Grey” is not a story about a witch that used the wrong brand of hair rinse….
Indeed yes – one of the teachers read all three volumes in a week.
The Toowoomba Chronicle wrote a story on how adult toys were walking out the doors of certain shops (direct relationship between town being the buckle of the bible belt and number of adult shops). The Grey Rat lined up at QBD behind an even older couple who were buying all 3 volumes. Clutching his copy of Vol 1., The Rat remarked brightly to the 16 year salesgirl “Grey must be the in-colour” Sickly smile. Imagined conversation between salesgirls at tea break “Imagine all those OLD people tying themselves up in knots over those silly books – EeYeeuw…GROSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We had a regular male customer who bounded through those doors at opening and always went straight to the erotic book section. 8.30am in the morning – now that brought out the EeYeeuws! Yes we did talk about all the customers in the back room!
My purchase was strictly research for my forthcoming paper “Gerontological aspects of the R-rated ‘Mills and Boon’ phenomenon to be published in The Journal of Experimental Applied Prosthetics (ed. Lucrezia de Sade). I would like to thank my research assistants Willi Bender and Tiffany Slipknot for their enthusiastic participation in this study.
Can’t decide which is better – the main story or the comments ! “Which witch is which?” Brilliant !