Working Nine To Five by Art Vanderlay

During a dinner gathering, a guest asks to witness your magical skills. You retrieve a deck of cards and hand it to them for shuffling.

After they shuffle, the deck is divided into four smaller piles, which are then distributed to four other guests for additional shuffling. These piles are placed on the table. While you look away, your initial guest chooses any pile and discards the others. They then examine their selected cards and attempt to transmit their thoughts to you telepathically. Remarkably, you can identify each card in their hand, with only a few minor errors. This is a demonstration of genuine mind reading!

1st edition 2015, 13 pages. Word count: 2125, equivalent to 8 standard pages of text.