The Mountain

I found this story in one of my notebooks.

Once upon a time there was a mountain. On the mountain there was a house. A hermit's house. And the hermit lived there for a long time. Even though he was old, he enjoyed the pleasures of life. He drank wine. He baked cakes. He did play-by-mail chess.

The old man didn't have a telephone or any modern conveniences. But he didn't need them, because he knew a dark secret. He was a wizard. Not just a magician like Barack Obama, but an actual sorcerer, in total mastery of the magicks of space and time.

He used the magick to make something into nothing. Nothing into something. And sometimes, he would create phantasmal hands to masturbate himself.