Dave Winters considered himself a rational man. He recycled when convenient, tipped exactly 18%, and had strong opinions about people who took the elevator to the second floor. He worked in data analytics, lived alone in a reasonably-priced Greenwich Village apartment (inherited from his grandmother, thank you very much), and had never once entertained the notion that magic might be real.

That was about to change, though he’d spend the next several hours trying very hard to prevent it.

It started with a wrong turn down Bleecker Street, which was ridiculous because Dave had walked this route approximately 847 times (he kept spreadsheets). Yet somehow, between La Lanterna di Vittorio and that vintage clothing shop that always smelled like mothballs, he found himself in an alley he’d never seen before.

“Probably just sleep-deprived,” he muttered, checking his watch. “Though that doesn’t explain why my watch is now running counterclockwise. Or why it’s sprouted tiny wings.”

The watch fluttered off his wrist and zipped away down the alley.

“Right,” Dave nodded. “Clearly I’m having a mental breakdown. Probably from all those TPS reports Jerry keeps demanding. I should really update my resume.”

He followed the alley, if only to prove to himself it would end at a perfectly normal brick wall. Instead, it opened into what appeared to be an open-air marketplace that absolutely could not exist in the middle of Greenwich Village. Colorful stalls stretched as far as he could see, which was admittedly not very far given the amount of sparkly smoke in the air.

“Some kind of… immersive theater experience,” Dave decided firmly. “Probably promoting that new fantasy show everyone’s watching. Though the production value is impressive.”

A three-foot-tall man with a red beard down to his knees waddled past, arguing with what appeared to be a floating ball of light.

“You can’t charge me seven golden acorns for drake scales!” the small man bellowed. “I know for a fact you’re getting them wholesale from that hipster dragon in Tribeca!”

The ball of light made an angry tinkling sound.

“Don’t give me that fairy markup nonsense,” the beard-man countered. “I’ve been working this market since before Brooklyn was cool. The first time!”

Dave pulled out his phone to Google “experimental theater Greenwich Village” but found his screen now displayed a moving image of a cat playing a tiny harp. The cat winked at him.

“Excellent special effects,” he mumbled. “Though this seems like an excessive marketing budget.”

He wandered deeper into the market, desperately clinging to his rational explanations even as they grew increasingly strained. The stalls grew more bizarre with each step.

“AUTHENTIC UNICORN HORN SHAVINGS!” proclaimed one sign. “Perfect for tax evasion spells or emergency dental work!”

“Discount Crystal Balls – Slightly Used – Only Minor Prophecy Damage!”

“Pete’s Portable Portals – Why Walk When You Can Wormhole? (No refunds for dimensional displacement or temporal paradoxes)”

A mermaid in a floating tank was operating what appeared to be a sushi restaurant, using her own scales as garnish. “They grow back!” she assured a concerned-looking elf. “Plus, they’re packed with omega-3s!”

“Street fair,” Dave declared weakly. “With… method actors. Very dedicated method actors.”

“Excuse me,” said a gravelly voice by his knee. “You’re standing in my merchandise.”

Dave looked down to find a gnarled goblin glaring up at him. He appeared to be standing in a pile of glowing mushrooms, which were now actively trying to climb his legs.

“Oh, sorry,” Dave stepped carefully out of the fungi. “Those are… very realistic animatronics.”

The goblin’s eyes narrowed. “You’re new here, aren’t you? Let me guess – accidental breach in the glamour barrier?”

“I don’t know what that means, but I’m sure it’s part of the immersive experience that I definitely signed up for at some point and just forgot about,” Dave replied with the desperate confidence of a man whose worldview was actively crumbling.

“Right,” the goblin sighed. “One of those. Look, while you’re working through your cognitive dissonance, want to buy some shimmer-shrooms? They’re great for micro-dosing enlightenment. Two for one special!”

“No thank you,” Dave replied automatically. “I don’t do drugs, even imaginary ones that are clearly just props in this elaborate performance piece.”

He hurried away from the goblin’s stall, only to nearly collide with what appeared to be a sphinx operating a food cart.

“Hot dogs!” the sphinx announced. “Get your hot dogs! Made from genuine classical paradoxes! Also regular hot dogs for the less adventurous! Answer my riddle and get 10% off!”

“I don’t want any existential hot dogs,” Dave muttered. “I just want to find my way back to the real world where things make sense and watches don’t have wings and hot dogs aren’t philosophical conundrums.”

“Oh, you want the exit?” the sphinx raised an eyebrow. “That’ll be one riddle, please. House rules.”

“Fine,” Dave sighed. “Hit me.”

“What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening?”

“Man,” Dave answered immediately. “That’s like, the most famous riddle ever. Now please point me toward reality.”

The sphinx looked offended. “Well excuse me for being traditional! You try coming up with new material when you’ve been in the business for three thousand years! But fine, exit’s that way, past the hippogryph parking lot. Mind the meters – they take both mortal currency and souls.”

Dave speed-walked in the indicated direction, passing what appeared to be a troll running a tech support booth (“HAVE YOU TRIED TURNING IT OFF AND ON AGAIN WITH THE BLOOD OF YOUR ENEMIES?”) and a group of leprechauns operating what looked suspiciously like a cryptocurrency mining operation.

“To the moon!” one of them cackled, waving a shillelagh at a holographic chart.

Finally, Dave spotted what appeared to be a normal-looking door with an “EXIT TO MORTAL REALM” sign. A bored-looking dwarf sat at a desk beside it.

“Passport control,” the dwarf grunted. “Need to see your documentation.”

“I don’t have a magical passport,” Dave replied. “I shouldn’t even be here. This isn’t real. I’m probably in a coma in a hospital somewhere, and this is all some kind of stress-induced hallucination.”

The dwarf looked up from his crossword puzzle. “That’s what they all say. Fine, we’ll do the paperwork for an emergency temporal visa. Just need your signature in triplicate, a drop of blood, and your least favorite memory from middle school.”

“My what?”

“Standard bureaucratic procedure,” the dwarf shrugged. “We’re a black market, not anarchists.”

Twenty minutes and one particularly embarrassing memory of seventh-grade gym class later, Dave stumbled back onto Bleecker Street. Everything looked normal. His watch was back on his wrist, though it now occasionally whispered stock tips. His phone displayed its regular screen, except for the tiny harp-playing cat that appeared whenever he checked his email.

Dave walked straight home, poured himself a large drink, and opened his laptop to update his spreadsheet titled “Perfectly Normal Things That Happened Today.” He stared at the screen for a long moment before creating a new column labeled “Alternative Explanations for Clearly Impossible Events.”

As he typed, he could have sworn he heard distant tinkling laughter from somewhere below Bleecker Street, where a magical black market definitely didn’t exist. Probably.

The next morning, Dave found a business card in his pocket that simply read:

MAGICAL BLACK MARKET NYC “If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere (in this dimension)” Locations in Greenwich Village, Lower East Side, and Williamsburg (of course) No returns without original receipt and at least three witnesses to verify the laws of physics were not permanently broken

He pinned it to his bulletin board, right next to his perfectly normal shopping list that now included “shimmer-shrooms (?)”.

Just in case.

Feature Photo by Josh Hild