Here’s an essay for my upcoming occult book “Wizardnuts…

The Glamourbomb Girl.

I was sitting outside the coffeeshop one night by myself.  I had been entertaining the vain hope that some wonderfully interesting Someone would arrive, but alas, as usual…
I was bored, so I decided to make a nifty little glamourbomb to leave there.
Glamourbomb? The concept is simple- an unexpected statement or image that you charge up like a spell so as to impart your message to whoever finds the thing.  It’s the willful empowerment that gives it the extra oomph.  The door is opened by the curiosity of the thing, it’s unexpected or insightful nature slipping past the target’s usual filters, and the charged aspect drives the thought deep into their psyche like a nailgun, so it sticks with them.
That’s the concept anyway.
I had written up a scroll on heavy brown paper that said:
Magick Is Real
with a bunch of nifty occult symbols, including the Ellis sigil.
Live your Dreamings…  It said at the bottom.
I discovered to my dismay that I didn’t have any string to tie it with.
I was going to bind a large crystal I had in my pocket to it as well, because it’s sparkly, artsy, and the ubiquitous AA battery of the occult world and would serve to turn the thing from a simple scrap of paper into a real Thing.
The planter box next to where I was sitting was sown with coarse, tough, decorative grass, so I plucked three strands and started braiding them together into a long cord, the loose ends clamped in my teeth, when the three girls showed up.
They were junior-high-ish, I suppose.  One of their parents had dropped them off, and they came flouncing by talking about some boy or another they thought they might call.  They noticed me there on my brick wall perch, and the Brave one,
the Loud one,
the Flounciest one,
beamed and waved and said “Hello!”, more for the benefit of her companions to show how brave she was, to be flirty with some cute-ish, obviously older guy rather than any impetus of being friendly.
I thanked my lucky stars I wasn’t in junior-high anymore as they went inside, and I returned to my braiding.
It was a bit tricky, as I was having to roll each strand ropelike, and hold them apart without breaking it, not get confused which strand went where,  And hold the whole mess in my teeth.   That’s when the girls came back out.  
I suppose I was the most interesting thing going on just then.
The Brave one walked up to me, told me her name, and asked me what I was doing.  I guess I found her bravado offputting, or maybe I don’t like being used by someone to show off to their little friends.  She wasn’t being rude or anything- but it was clear that I was merely a bit of set dressing in her scene.
I am not someone to be encountered lightly.
Especially when I’m Wizarding.
So I told her.
“Magick.” I said, around the grass clenched in my teeth.  I began to explain what a glamourbomb was, but she wasn’t listening a bit.
“What’s this?” she said over me, snatching up the scroll and unrolling it.
She looked down at it.
Boom.
I Felt this thing go off, saw it drive deep into her mind, and she kind of jumped, rocking back on her heels with the force of it.
I just kept up my explanation.  
She rolled the scroll back up, and set it down gently beside me.
Her friends asked me a few questions, which I answered, but the Brave girl, the Brazen Flouncy Loud girl, had gone Quiet.
She turned without a word and walked out into the parking lot, not stopping when her friends called after her.
She stood in the halo of a streetlight staring up into the sky.
Her two friends were discussing her odd behavior when, I think, everything I’d been saying for the last few minutes clicked in their brains.  They favored me with uncomfortable looks, before excusing themselves and went to sit down on a bench a ways down the sidewalk.
I finished the braid, bound the scroll, tied on the crystal and wrote ‘Open Me’ on it, and breathed magick upon it.  
I’d had enough for one evening.
As I gathered my stuff and started to go, that girl, now quiet and subdued, caught my eye as she stood beside her friends.  Her gaze was serious, a little frightened, a little sad.
She gave me a small smile and a tiny wave.
I nodded at her gravely, shot her a wink and a grin full of mischief, and went on my merry way.