raising her bound hands high into the air. The spotlight drifts upward toward the proscenium—and slowly, the truck descends from the rafters. First to appear are the whitewall tires, then the running board, then the shining chrome grille. Bright white lights illuminate the gleaming maroon body of the 1947 Chevrolet pickup as it finally touches down on the stage.
The girl—the magician—senses the people in the front row leaning forward in their seats.
It happens fast now: a stagehand helps her into the driver’s seat, closes the door, retreats toward the prop lever. A backbeat kicks in under the bass riff, and the truck jerks into the air, rising slowly on its steel cable. When it reaches the top, the truck swings upstage and settles, rocking gently, suspended over the tank.
The music dropped out, and the sudden silence drew me back into awareness. I’d been distracted, out of my body, elsewhere. But now I was no longer watching the show like the audience, I was performing it.
I sat high above the stage, hands bound tight and gripping the steering wheel of the old truck. All I could hear was the creaking of the cable and the faint hum of the stage monitors. The hum was in my head, too, numb and electric on my scalp. Beneath, my neurons fired off in a spastic frenzy. I felt raw. My eyes stung. My breath was shallow.
The truck gave a sudden lurch, and the audience gasped, but this was part of the show, a device to ratchet up the tension. I put my bound hands out the window to show that I was okay. The spotlight was hot as the August sun on my face. There was a low creak of stressed metal as the truck swayed slightly on its tether. For a moment, there was only quiet and light, and then—
My body jolted upward as if yanked by an invisible hand. The top of my head struck the ceiling of the old Chevy, stars popped in my vision, and then I was driven down into the seat as the chassis struck the surface.
Immediately, water began to gush through the open windows of the truck. It was shockingly cold on my ankles, and for a moment, I was completely entranced by the sensation—icy, slippery, hypnotic. Then, through the Plexiglas, I saw stagehands approaching, padlocks in hand. I watched the massive lid descend from the rafters and settle into place. Click, click, click, click. I was locked in.
The water rose to my knees, and my pulse spiked. I needed to move fast. I turned my wrists inward and began to work my hands out of the zip ties.
Thousands in the auditorium and millions at home watch as the old Chevrolet truck sinks below the surface—with the girl inside it. As she struggles to free herself from her bonds, the water level rises to her chest, then to her shoulders.
I finally slipped my hands free of the zip ties—but it had taken too long, and the water was already up to my chin. I was going to have to hold my breath longer than planned. Fighting off panic, I huffed in half a dozen short gasps of air, saturating my lungs with oxygen. Then, more frightened than I’d ever been in my life, I plunged beneath the surface.
Now the magician is completely submerged. As the seconds pass, her struggle becomes more frantic. She’s thrashing now, desperate. In the front row, a woman screams; this is the same scenario she witnessed on the video only moments ago. But this time, it’s the girl who is drowning.
I twisted and pivoted, but the zip tie around my ankles was cinched too tightly. Fear took hold. I began to thrash and kick, but I couldn’t get free.
That’s when I sensed more than saw the stagehands approaching, waiting for me to signal the abort. Their presence seemed to exorcise my panic. I shook my head vehemently at them—no, don’t pull the levers. Let me finish this.
My chest was growing tight, my head thick. I needed air now. I would have to escape with my feet still bound.
I began to work my way out through the truck’s open window. As I wriggled my torso free of the truck, I kicked out with my legs—but something yanked me back.
I gasped in surprise, sucking in a lungful of water. A cough shook me, and my abdominal muscles convulsed. I pulled again with my caught leg, but it held fast.
The magician has been underwater for a