2024 Christmas Story: Gift Of The Magi

Let’s say you never intended to use Magi. Let’s say you know about all the scandals: the accusations of stolen data, the EU lawsuits, the CEO’s abhorrent behaviour. Let’s say you don’t even believe the outlandish social media claims that the app is magical, like actual magic. You know it’s not possible it reads your mind, plumbs your soul, knows your heart’s desires. You’re not so gullible.

But picture this: It’s late November and the shopping is growing desperate. You have no idea what to get your wife, Susan; you avoid going home to face her with her nose buried in her K-drama rewatches, so you dawdle in the second-hand bookstore after work, pawing through a handsome volume about trench warfare in World War I: hardbound, glossy-paged, gold stamped on leather covers. A price tag that cannot justify purchase. So, you read it in the store one chapter at a time, avoiding the eye of the proprietor.