arcan-o-lore

[arcan-o-lore]

Uberwizard, episode 1.

It had been a fun night but I was tired and glad to be on my way home. I said a cursory "hello" to the Uber driver and then immediately sunk into the back seat and pulled out my phone. No sooner had I loaded up messenger than a curtain of downy fluff covered the upper half of my screen. I look up, following the trail of the pillowy mass with my eyes. It loops back behind my seat and through the boot, then trails along the bottom of my footwell, over the back of the passenger seat and across the front of the car until it reaches the drivers face. A silver set of eyes meet mine as he glances over his shoulder.

"I'm doing Movember," he says.

"Wow," I reply. An awkward silence ensues. I go to tell him my address, but he's already busy typing it into his phone. He notices me looking.

"It was already in the tomes," he says.

"You mean, like, books or..?" I reply, thinking I'd misheard him. I glance back down at the beard, puzzled, and then look back up at him. He chortles proudly.

"Every craft has its handbook," he declares.

"Right... No, I get that. I'm in software engineering, so it's mostly just Google I need. I guess it would be different with your... craft? What is your craft? Uh, Ubering?"

"Aye, laddie. That's my day job. My real passion is reserved for the rest of the time."

"Ah, a hobbyist. You certainly seem like a dedicated individual, judging from your Movember progress."

"Oh, this beard isn't just for Movember, laddie. It's a way of life, a requisite of the job."

"Ubering?"

"No, laddie. I'm a wizard."

I'd certainly had some interesting Uber drivers in my time. There was the Lady Gaga enthusiast who offered me homebaked biscuits, the elderly man who broke the speed limit and had me fearing for my life, and that one time I could swear they had some sort of animal in their sleeve--but this? This was taking the cake. All sorts of thoughts swirled through my mind. I wanted to ask so many questions. What was it like? Was it a night job? Did it pull on Tinder?

Ultimately I just stammered out "Oh, cool, so how did you get into that?"

"I wanted to meet someone, and witches love a bush."

I laughed uncomfortably. "No," I insisted, "really, though..."

"Well, the year was... hmph, we don't need to get into years, it all gets a bit hazy," he waves his hand in the air dismissively, "I was a young lad and had just finished my teacher training in Glasgow when I found a leaflet in the back of a library book and, well, it all started from there. I wouldn't want to bore you."

"Tell me about it..."

End episode 1.