A Tale of Inevitable Errors

"You're a what?" I asked with my mouth open.

"A wizard." the man replied taking a long drag of his pipe.

"You mean like in Harry Potter?" I asked incredulously.

"Oh no, no, much more real than that." he said smiling.

I was at the local pub for a few beers and some darts with my mates when this guy approached me and started chatting me up over some pints of ale. He was pretty good looking, rugged but not a bum, had that easy going charm you could tell he used to pick up chicks all the time. He must have seen me eyeing up his ring as he brought it up about two drinks in, asking if I liked it. I told him it looked pretty cool, so he asked if I wanted to try it on.

He hovered it over my hand and told me to close my eyes while he whispered something unintelligible. When I opened them again he took out the ring and handed it to me, telling me to try it on for size. It was pretty large, but also extremely light weight, feeling almost like nothing was there at all. The man told me not to be alarmed by what would happen next as he went off to order us another round of drinks. I stared down at my hand at first thinking the ring would transform or something ridiculous like that, but all that happened was that the pub seemed to get louder and louder until suddenly everything went quiet except for one voice screaming out "Ten!" from across the room at the dartboard. He walked back over after sinking another triple 20 and sat down explaining how he used to play professionally before taking a sip from his drink and picking up where we left off.

It turns out his name is Chris and that he was an old college friend who lost touch with until reconnecting via Facebook recently. We had a few more drinks together before winding down the night and heading out into the cold night air to head home together. As we were walking down the street past a dark alleyway Chris told me a quick story about how as a kid during Halloween one of his friends locked him in an abandoned building for an hour before telling him they were leaving without him which scared the hell out of him because he thought they meant it so he ended up breaking out through a boarded-up window he found on accident (he couldn't really remember how) and running home crying like a baby only to find his house empty that night since nobody had even knew he had slipped away earlier in the evening. The look on his face as we were talking about this made me think back to earlier when we were first talking about his ring and wondering if maybe he wasn't just saying all those weird things because of alcohol or just trying to get into my pants or whatever like most guys in this town usually did when they saw me around town alone or out late with my girlfriend at night drinking our sorrows away on occasion.

We talked for hours longer walking back towards my place before ending up there with both of us still wide awake chatting away until we finally decided to call it quits and go home. A few days later after deciding we should meet up again at another bar near my place I was waiting outside when Chris showed up driving a beat-up looking car I didn't recognize that screeched loudly tires screeching along the pavement before parking right in front of where I was standing waiting for him with his door swinging open moments after coming to a stop nearby*. After greeting each other Chris offered for me ride home so I could give him directions better than Google Maps ever could but as soon as we got in and pulled out onto the street from outside my apartment building everything began getting slowy quieter until everything went quiet except for one voice screaming out "Ten!" from across the room at the dartboard inside.*