Harry Houdini announced his greatest feat of all: to escape the box of flesh.
He manacled his hands in latticed strands of laurel in the failing light of phantom stars.
The women draped him in velvet, black as onyx, their minds impervious to the tender violence of devotion. The men could only watch the mad magician-king; they were muted, war-wounded, and trapped in mortal strongboxes of their own design.
Only the children could hear Harry as he roared above the horns and strings, alone upon a stage of bone, beckoning for the final curtain to slant down, his greatest feat complete.
I think this is not fiction. I have read about this feat many years ago.