Conditional Reality

Peppercorn Flyball was a magician for many years, but eventually his skills deteriorated. People began to guess the card he was holding and figured out where his beautiful assistant was hiding. Soon no one hired Peppercorn to do his act anymore. His fellow magicians arranged for Peppercorn to be retrained, but he didn’t take to the new techniques and tricks that fooled contemporary audiences. He announced his retirement. His beautiful assistant found employment assisting another magician. Peppercorn took a job selling used cars. I’m not trying to trick you, you would say to prospective buyers. I’m not capable of that.