Part Six: Foul Play, aka Round 1 – Fight!

Another whistle blast pierced the air as the referee rushed angrily towards me, the spotlight continuing to follow him as though guided by an unseen hand, and from his pocket he pulled out a yellow card. He stopped right in front of me, the light now blazing down on us both, holding the card only inches from my face. He blew his whistle so loud and long that it left my ears ringing. I tried in vain to shake the pain out of my head as I observed the man standing before me. Now that we were face to face, I could see that he wasn’t just like me – he was me. A petty, angry, anal version of me. Okay, fine. A pettier, angrier, somehow even more anal version of me. Happy now?

“Who the fuck are you?” I asked, surprised by my own bluntness.

“Who the fuck am I?” he asked, speaking with a distinct regional accent that I strongly dislike. “Who the fuck am I? I think the question we all need to be asking here is who the fuck are you? I mean, seriously. Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“I’m me,” I replied, offering the most provacative non-answer I could think of.

“Yeah, you’re you alright, that’s for sure. Look at you. Strutting around, all full of yourself. Thinking you’re God’s gift because you started your pitiful little blog and said a few things that you reckon show how ‘profound’ and ‘deep’ and ‘worldy-wise’ you are. Eh? But you and me, we know better now, don’t we?”

I remained stoic but on the inside I was reeling from his blows, and as I hesitated for a moment, drawing breath to offer what I knew would be a killer comeback just as soon as I’d thought of it, he continued.

“You know, I was willing to let it go at first – let you carry on thinking you’re all that. I mean, it’s not like anyone was reading this tripe or paying attention to you, right? And then the thing on the raft with the flare gun, I’ll give you credit where credit’s due, because I’m nothing if not a fair arbiter. That was pretty nice. I almost thought you had something there.”

“Thanks?” I more asked than stated. I should not have let my guard down, even slightly.

“But then you hit a creative dead end, and did you find a clever way of circumnavigating it, like washing ashore a desert island or getting taken aboard the cruise ship? No, there was nothing smart like that, was there? Instead, the flare gun blocks out the sun and suddenly you’re at the circus. Completely random, totally unrelated, no way to see it coming. And you knew it was garbage, that’s why it’s so short. You barely wrote a couple of paragraphs before you abandoned that post. I truly thought you were going to abandon it for good. ‘There’s a cliffhanger that never needs to be resolved if ever I saw one’, I thought to myself. But no – you had to keep flogging that horse carcass, didn’t you? And what did you do? Eh? Did you come up with something insightful? Did you come up with something original? You couldn’t have directed the visitors around the fairground while you sorted out the tent? Or improvised a show? No, instead, you rip off someone else’s creation and start talking sci-fi and time travel and comic books and all that juvenile bollocks, with absolutely no warning or context. And for what? So the cheesy, wholesome superhero can tell you you’re a real-life hero for having the ‘courage’ to publish a few poorly conceived posts that barely half a dozen people who know you have read out of pity? Oh yeah, you’re really out there changing the world and no mistake!”

I felt the anger rising inside me. There was no truth to anything this asshole was saying to me – right? – and yet somehow he was really getting to me. How dare he speak to me like this and trash me and my writing in a way that’s completely off the mark and devoid of any actual meaningful criticism? It was just insulting, and totally disconnected from reality. I mean, sure, I’m not saying the story is perfect or anything. And yeah, maybe it is all a bit random, the way it keeps changing. But come on, he really wasn’t being fair at all. Was he?

“I’m showing you the yellow card for your own good,” he continued. “Just give it up now and we can all pretend this never happened. A little failed experiment that everyone has already forgotten ever started. Unless… I mean, you haven’t been inundated with people begging for the next part, have you?”

“Actually, I’ll have you know that ianmcnamara92 posted a comment saying ‘Wow, you know how to end on a cliff hanger making people want more. This is amazing and can’t wait for the next bit.’ So suck it!” Okay, I admit, my insult game needed some work. I hoped he wouldn’t notice, but I knew it was a long shot.

The referee gasped and clutched his chest, putting on a mock thespian accent. “Sir, you have mortally wounded me with your wit and intellect. However shall I recover from or think up a retort worthy of being told to ‘suck it’?” He rolled his eyes at me before continuing in his normal accent. “So your one fan wants more, so what? Has anyone even noticed that it’s been over a week since you last posted? Are they knocking down your door to get the next part?”

“Well as a matter of fact, just the other day Veronica Ortiz said, and I quote, ‘I love the fantasy and that you have to read between the lines to guess what is happening based on the first post. what is going to happen! I must read on!'”

“And yet meanwhile,” the referee replied, “you posted links to Parts Five and Six on Facebook over three days ago, and you’re yet to get a single like.”

“How could you possibly know that?!” I exclaimed. “We’re in Part Six right now!”

“The perils of editing… if you’d had confidence in your writing instead of coming back to try to improve it, I wouldn’t be able to know what happens after you publish it, would I? But you know it’s a pile of shit, and that’s why you keep reading through it. You can pick every last piece of sweetcorn out, but it’ll still be a big, steaming…”

“That’s enough!” I yelled. “I don’t have to stand here and take this from you. I still don’t even know who you are or why you’re here!”

The referee shook his head slowly, his expression one of condescending pity. “I’m your friend. Don’t you see that? I’m trying to help you because you’re out of your depth. You’re in a state of denial. Deluded almost beyond reach. No one cares whether you ever finish this or not. Just pull the plug and let this thing, whatever it is, release its death rattle, and turn your focus to doing something that might actually go somewhere, before you end up a complete laughing stock. I’m saying this for your own good, you know. Trust me, you don’t want to end up like this clown.”

I was about to ask “what clown?” when out of the corner of my eye I realised there was suddenly a second person standing right next to me. I bellowed with shock in a manly fashion – or was it more of a girly scream? Am I becoming an unreliable narrator? – to see a man in a clown outfit standing right next to me. It wasn’t a clown outfit in the classic Stephen King sense, but let’s face it, all clowns are creepy as fuck. I mean, seriously, what is up with that? What twisted psyche created this bizarre tradition of ours? And why do we perpetuate it?

The clown burst out laughing. “Hoh hoh hoooo, that’s right, you don’t want to end up like me!” His movements and hand gestures were exaggerated, and he spoke with a goofy voice that frequently rose and fell in pitch. “I’m the biggest joke in this place,” the clown continued. “I don’t even have to do anything funny, and they still laugh. Watch!”

The clown turned to the empty stands and took a deep mock bow, and raucous laughter echoed all around the arena. He whipped back around to face me again, only to pretend to lose his balance, spinning his arms around faster and faster as he teetered backwards and fell onto his behind to the parping sound of an old bike horn, accompanied by drums and cymbals that had no apparent source. The non-audience roared with laughter again, much louder this time. The clown leapt back onto his feet, and cheers and claps now echoed around the arena, followed by more laughter as the clown fluffed up his wacky green hair and straightened his oversized bow tie – which was both spotted and stripy, of course.

The clown put the back of his hand to his face, and muttered to me out of the side of his mouth: “You know they’re laughing at me, not with me, right?”

Now that he was speaking in a normal tone, and being so close to his face, both his voice and his jawline were horrifyingly familiar. This clown was me too. As he saw the look of recognition pass across my face, his eyes glinted with real malice and his mouth stretched into a huge, sickening smile.

“Ooh hoo hoo, the jig is up! You see me for who I am! The butt of everyone’s jokes! The failed artist who puts on a smile” – he gestured with his hands to emphasise his hideous grin – “because he has to turn his terrible frown” – and now he was pouting with devastatingly sad eyes as he made a crying gesture, fake rubbing his eyes with his fingers – “upside down.” The grin returned as he burst into maniacal laughter, the audience roaring again too.

“And when you clown around too long, it gets even worse, you know. You go from a clown to being…” He bent down to touch his feet and then moved his hands up his legs and body as he stood back up, his clown costume becoming that of a court jester, complete with bells dangling from the twisted prongs of his hood. “… a total fool!”

“Dance for the king!” he proclaimed, as he began to prance ridiculously around the arena, accompanied by more bellows of laughter.

“Perform for the king!” he cried, suddenly pulling flaming torches out of nowhere and juggling them with surprising proficiency until one flew too high and came down behind him, setting his backside on fire. He ran around shrieking to roars of laughter before planting his flaming behind into a big wooden bucket of water that I swear had not been there a moment ago.

“Die for the king!” he suddenly yelled, and within one blink of my eyes he was locked into a guillotine, and the blade came down, chopping his head clean off. Blood sprayed out of his neck stump as his head rolled right over to me, his eyes staring up lifelessly. I was stunned for a moment, until his face burst into life again and he began guffawing awfully, and the audience clapped and cheered and cackled as his body, still spraying blood from its stump, took a bow, and then bent down and began feeling around for its missing head.

“I’m over here!” yelled the clown, feigning anger. “This way, you moron, this way! I know you don’t have ears, but try to listen anyway!”

The roaring of the audience was at a crescendo, and as I thought it might overwhelm me completely, I felt a rushing sensation in my ears and it began to fade away, as though it had become muffled, as I felt an even more unsettling presence nearby. I turned and saw, to my horror, another version of myself, this one gaunt and pale, his head shaved, his eyes sunken with huge black circles under them, his upper body secured tightly in a straitjacket.

“You really should give it up you know,” he whispered, looking around furtively. “There are worse fates than playing the fool.”