«Yes,» I answered categorically.

«Maybe, think once more? Just kidding… almost. We have friends, they come to our department and sell magic water, supposedly it lets people get rid of all sorts of Wozzles and Wizzles. So people buy it, drink it, and… half of them recover. Do you think the water is magical? The most common, drinking one, just in bottles with a magical inscription. Do you want me to sell it to you too?»

«No, thanks,» I said, nodding sadly.

«Leila,» the Doctor smiled, «relax and live your life as long as nothing hurts! Believe me, no one knows anything about Wozzles and Wizzles. It’s just a game, you see.»

Almost since childhood, I was advised to remove a small mole on my small back, but somehow I had no time for that. And then, as luck would have it, free time suddenly appeared, in an unmeasured amount, and someone told me about a wonderful commercial clinic where supposedly no one had any problems.

I arrived, obediently paid for everything that could be pulled by the ears for the upcoming procedure, and entered the Surgeon’s office. He turned out to be a strong old man of the old school. I was asked to undress, go into the operating room and lie on my stomach. The nurse rattled their instruments. At that fateful moment, I uttered one of my signature phrases,

«Not Novocain.»

The nurse smiled enigmatically and called out to the Surgeon, who was still in the office, and not in the operating room,

«Have you heard it, Ivan Ivanovich? The girl is intolerant to Novocaine!»

«Yes, I have!» the Surgeon said joyfully.

They silently bent over my back, rubbed it with something, and… I screamed in terrible pain, feeling them cutting me alive with a scalpel. The scalpel froze.

«Without anesthesia?» I was in shock.

«Well, you can’t stand Novocain, and we don’t have anything else!» the Surgeon commented and made another incision.

I screamed again. The scalpel froze.

«Well, the last time now,» the Surgeon sang as calmly as if nothing had happened.

My third cry made a doctor with very huge eyes materialize in the operating room from the next office.

«What are you doing here? Even my patient has already escaped!»

«We’ve already done it,» the nurse answered, smiling.

Leaving, I silently but meaningfully looked at the Surgeon, and he replied me just as meaningfully,

«And during the war?»

I realized him playing war.

However, I was lucky to know other doctors whom I respected. They fist listen carefully, then think and tell you what they have come up with, voicing the pros and cons, and if you agree…

That evening I went to visit a very smart and cheerful woman, a guru in her field, who, having read my spells six months before, said that I was practicing real Word Magic, and she was sorry to be too old to experience similar emotions.

That time I couldn’t believe my eyes – the doctor looked at least ten years younger!

«Hello, Spell-caster!» she exclaimed joyfully. «You won’t believe it! I met Him! Twenty years later! Imagine, all these years I knew nothing about Him! It turns out that He lives over the Ocean. He came here to give a lecture, slipped, fell, woke up in a cast, ended up at my friend in the hospital, and I stopped by her because of some nonsense! Now I write your spells to Him in text messages. Haven’t you met your Prince yet?»

«Maybe I have, but… He doesn’t think so,» I sighed.

«It seems to me, just don’t be offended, there is no person to understand and contain you inside. Our men today are quite dead, weak, lazy. They’ll burst from you! They feel that you are stronger and a head taller, and bypass you a mile away.»