Part Seven: Playtime’s Over Already?

I couldn’t believe that this twisted, pitiful creature was somehow another version of myself. He looked so sickly and frail, emaciated almost. Those sunken eyes were glazed over, and yet they weren’t completely empty; in fact, as I looked closer I could see a whole host of emotions swirling around in them, every one of them toxic. He began talking, his voice low, his gaze set upon me and his eyes now filled with only one thing: desperation.

“You think he’s got it bad,” he said, his left eye twitching repeatedly as he motioned towards the decapitated clown, his body still feeling around on the ground and now moving in totally the wrong direction from his irate head. “No, he’s got it easy, got it easy, easy.”

It seemed as though the inpatient, as I had now named him, had a verbal tic as well as a facial one.

“He’s having fun, he likes it, or at least, he tells himself he likes it, yes, lies, lies, lies to himself, and he believes it too, maybe not always, maybe not deep down, maybe not when the makeup is off, in the darkness of the dressing room, in the despair, despair, but he believes it enough to live, live, live with it. But not me, no no no, not me. They say I’m the crazy one but I’m the only sane one here, because I… see… reality.”

I wasn’t sure what was more disturbing; the sight of this ghastly spectre of my former self, or the fact that what it was saying was actually starting to make sense.

“No one likes being laughed at, no no no, but at least when you’re being laughed at they see you. They can see you, can see you, see you… see? You’re in the spotlight. You might not like what it shows, but it’s shining, shining, shining bright. What can be worse than that, you may ask, than being laughed at? Well, what if no one even saw you at all? What if you were invisible? What if you poured out your heart and your soul, and got back… nothing? Nothing. Nothing. What then, what then? What do you do? What do you do? What do you do? A laugh is something, it’s not a nice thing, but it’s not a nothing either, not a nothing nothing nothing like me. I wrote, and wrote, and wrote some more, but no one came.”

“No one?” I asked. “Surely someone came?”

“Oh yes, someone, some… one… or two… maybe three, for me… there were views but no comments, no likes. Well, a comment here, a like there. But I wrote and wrote and wrote, and nothing happened. Not really. A tiny something, but next to nothing, and over time it was as good as nothing, and as good as nothing, is not good, no good. I posted a dozen times, a dozen more, I reached fifty, then a hundred, then a hundred more, then a hundred more, and still so few views, the comments less and less, the likes were no more, a distant beautiful memory of underwhelming mediocrity, how I longed, longed, longed for that time to return, when I would just get even one like, one comment. But I just kept writing. If you write it they will read, I told myself, over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over…”

Had he finally snapped completely?

“… and over and over and over again, again, again, again, again, again. A thousand posts. Can you imagine? One thousand. And still nothing. Why didn’t I stop? Why couldn’t I see the truth? I’m no writer. No one cares. I don’t have the talent. I don’t have the ideas. I don’t have what it takes, instead it just took, took, took until there was nothing left inside me but the despair, the loathing, the hideous truth of my utter inadequacy. And that’s when I took all the pills, and that’s when they came and took me away. And now I’m here, gone from telling tales to being one, the cautionary tale, and my being is telling it better than I ever could with my words. Perhaps in my failure I am my greatest success after all.”

I was repulsed by this creature, this Smeagol, eaten away by the One Blog that it had held onto for far too long. But this was pure fiction, no one could end up in a state like this from having a failed blog – could they? No, of course not, this was far too extreme to be in any way based in reality – right? There aren’t any failed artists in the asylums, are there? I mean, sure, the occasional missing ear and bout of depression is par for the course, but this… this was insane, in every possible sense of the word.

Having become momentarily lost in my thoughts I refocused on the inpatient to find that he was now lost in his, sniggering to himself about some twisted inside joke, trapped inside his broken mind. And that was when I heard yet another voice in the distance.

“… you tell that prick that if he doesn’t get it done in the next hour, he and his whole fucking team are gone, and they’ll never work in this industry again. You got that? And the same goes double for you, I’ve got my next PA lined up and ready to replace you with the snap of my fingers. Are we clear?”

I stared around to locate the source of the voice and saw an exceptionally well groomed man in an extremely expensive suit striding purposefully towards me. He was yet another version of me, but somehow better looking. Was it the golden tan? The immaculate hairstyle? The way he carried himself? Was he actually taller than me? Lifts in his shoes, maybe?

“Alright I’m here,” he snapped as he approached me, “and time is a premium, I don’t have all day, so let’s get this done and done fast. I’m supposed to be out on the yacht today, surrounded by beautiful, tanned, oiled-up bodies, and they get paid whether I’m there or not. But instead, I’m in this… this…” he glanced around at his surroundings “… this fucking circus. An actual literal circus. What the fuck is this?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” I replied with a shrug.

This slick version of me eyed with with obvious disgust. “God, are you me somehow? Wow, you look awful. Jesus, look at your teeth, they’re so fucked. What, you couldn’t get them straightened out and whitened? And look at this podge.” He poked at my belly and I smacked his hand away indignantly. “Isn’t there even one strongman around here who could lend you a couple of fucking dumbbells? You really are mediocrity personified aren’t you? My God, how could I ever have come from you?”

“You’ve got this the wrong way round,” I said. “I’m the only real me, you’re just some fictional version.”

“I’m the fictional one?” He laughed right in face. “Hah! I don’t think so. I could never be that mediocre, not even before I became a world-famous writer.”

“You’re world famous?” I asked.

“Two million followers and counting,” he bragged, an arrogant smirk spreading across his tanned face. His teeth really did look amazing, to be fair. Straight, smooth, dazzling. “Ten novels sold, movie and TV franchises, my own self-improvement channel, countless fans hanging on my every word. Is that famous enough for you? I’m set for life, pal, more money than I even know what to do with. But what I did with it today was to hire a bunch of beautiful people less than half my age to have an orgy with on one of my yachts, and instead I’m stuck here with you, the basket case over there, this asshole and that fucking clown.”

“How did you do it?” I asked. “How did you get so good at writing?”

He stared at me incredulously. “I don’t write, you fucking dipshit, I gave that up a long time ago. You know why? Because I suck at it, and I always will. I market. That’s what I do. I created a brand and I’ve got a whole team of writers who do all the creative shit for me. They write, I sell.”

“Sell out, more like,” I said. “What’s the point of being a world-famous writer if you’re not actually writing anything?”

“Hello,” he said, knocking on my head like it was a front door. “Are you in there, McFly? Did you not hear the part about the yacht orgy?”

This time I whacked his hand away, the anger rising inside me. I was about to let loose on what I was quickly realising to be the biggest asshole of all four of these freaks when I heard Lady Gaga’s Money Honey begin to play. Without a word, the man in the suit held up a finger right in front of my face as a warning to be silent as he pulled a gold-plated, diamond-studded Galaxy Note 20 from his inside jacket pocket and answered it.

“Yes?” he snapped. “What? … What do you mean they’re not going to get it up to 50,000 likes? … What the fuck do they think I’m paying them for? … I don’t give a fuck if the server’s up, down, left, right, on fire, out the window, through the floor… don’t give me fucking excuses, give me results! Get me those likes by 6 p.m. today or I’ll have the whole team fired and financially ruined by 6 p.m. tomorrow. And you can be damn sure no downed server’s going to stop me following through on my promises. Are we clear?” He hung up the phone and looked at me with something between a sneer and a grin on his face. “Now that’s how you get results.”

“You’re paying for likes?” I asked in astonishment.

“Of course,” he snorted. “How else are you going to get real people to like your shit? You don’t have to post anything good, you just have to get enough likes for people to believe that it must be good, or it wouldn’t have all those likes, so then they like it too because they’re a bunch of mindless morons. I told you this already, it’s just selling. It’s all an illusion. There’s nothing real. No new ideas. No talent. Just selling. And I’m fucking great at it. And that’s why I should be out on that yacht right now getting spit roasted. I earned it. You understand? Is the lesson over? Have you got it yet, McFly? Can I stop wasting my time with you weirdoes and losers and get back to my fucking amazing life?”

I’d honestly thought it couldn’t get any worse. Each time I’d thought that. And each time I’d been wrong. The referee was so awful, but then that clown was disturbing on a whole new level. And the inpatient, my God, what a wreck he was. But somehow this super rich, entitled uber-asshole, this sanctimonious, narcissistic stuffed suit who was utterly devoid of conscience, morality, empathy, love… he was the worst of them all. Could it be that the worst possible version of myself was the one who actually makes it as a writer? Well, he hadn’t made it as a writer, had he? He’d just faked it and kept on faking it even after he made it.

My deliberations were interrupted as the clown, who had unfortunately finally managed to find and reattach his head, approached us. The inpatient, who had been pacing nearby and muttering to himself, seemed to snap back to reality and was now pattering over to see what was going on as well.

The guy in the suit, who I was now mentally referring to as the executive, was the first to speak. “Keep that clown away from me, and that psycho in the straitjacket.”

“Ooooh,” said the clown feigning hurt feelings, “now is that any way to treat your counterpart?”

“There is no way on God’s Earth or any other planet that you’re any kind of counterpart of mine,” snarled the executive, very quickly becoming angry.

“What’s going on, on, on?” asked the inpatient. He looked at the executive, the referee, and the clown in turn. “Have we met before? You all look kind of familiar, familial, family.”

The referee raised his yellow card and blew his whistle. “There’s no chance I’m in any way related to any of you, I’m just here to help this well-intentioned sap here realise that he needs to give up his blog before he turns into this guy or this guy.” He pointed to the clown and the inpatient in succession.

The inpatient lurched forward, shoving his face right up to the referee’s and taking a long deep sniff. The referee shuddered and shoved the inpatient back. “Get the fuck away from me, you freak!”

“You smell like family,” said the inpatient.

“Hooo hoooo hooooo, we’re the same you and I,” said the clown, pointing to the executive.

“You listen to me, clown,” said the executive, his voice low with seething rage, “there is nothing – and when I say nothing I mean nothing – that we have in common. Now take it back before I make you swallow that stupid fucking bow tie and use your fake nose as a suppository.”

“Hey pal, no violence on the pitch,” said the referee loudly. “Any more threats and I’ll show you the red card, sunshine.”

“I’m not your pal,” snarled the executive, “and as for your card, you show it to me and I’ll take it and shove it where the sun don’t shine, you hear me?”

The clown began cackling and the inpatient was becoming more and more agitated as the referee and the executive continued to argue. I took a few steps back, retreating from the chaos and commotion. That was when I noticed a ghostly figure, in the distance, a translucent apparition, like a projection in the air, mouthing the same words over and over. I instantly recognised the frail-looking, bearded man dressed in brown and white robes: it was Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi from the original Star Wars trilogy, repeating that most famous line like he was on a loop:

“Use the force, Luke.”

What the hell did that mean? I was no Jedi, and certainly not a Skywalker. He kept on repeating it though.

“Use the force, Luke. Use the force, Luke.”

I began to walk towards him, to see if I could get something more useful out of him, and as I got nearer I realised that I had just been seeing what I’d expected him to be saying, when in actuality he was saying something else. As the increasingly heated argument faded behind me and I came within earshot of him, I could hear the words he was really speaking.

“View the source, look. View the source, look.”

View the source? What was he trying to tell me? The source of what? It was at that exact moment that my eyes widened with realisation and a chill flashed down my spine. Turning to look back towards the freakish foursome, I squinted and focused on their feet. Now outside of the spotlight my eyes were gradually adjusting to the gloom, and I began to perceive the narrowest wisps of dark smoke snaking away from where they were standing. The wisps became clearer in the spotlight, and I realised that these people weren’t really alternative versions of me at all! They were the same shadowy, malevolent force that I had seen upon first entering the arena, taking on identities drawn straight from the darkest recesses of my own psyche. The shadows had never receded – they had taken form, and now they were trying to take hold of me!

In that moment of revelation, all four of my counterparts instantly stopped arguing and snapped their heads around to stare at me. They started marching towards me, slowly distorting with each step they took, holding onto their identities but twisting into warped parodies of their former selves, which in turn had been parodies of me. The clown’s costume darkened and his makeup took on a far more sinister appearance as his grin grew impossibly wide to reveal two rows of razor-sharp teeth. The executive began to bulge and grow, his muscles blowing up to bodybuilder proportions and his suit growing with them rather than being shredded by the transformation, his shoulders becoming almost as wide as his body was long, his chest and arms inflating as his legs thickened so greatly that he could no longer walk without his massive thighs rubbing together. The inpatient hunched over and devolved into a twitching, slavering creature that was far more Gollum than Smeagol. And the referee grew taller and taller, shadows passing over his face in an impossible way, his body warping like a hall of mirrors refection as he towered above the rest, his whistle now the size of my head and steadily growing.

I recoiled and started to back away, my gaze transfixed as the true horror of these forms began to manifest – but they were gaining on me and I felt as though I was wading through treacle. I glanced down at my feet and the ground looked as solid as ever, yet now I was in a nightmare, barely able to move as my tormentors approached with gleeful menace.

I was about to raise my hands and close my eyes to brace for oblivion when jets of white, stringy material blasted past my face, and suddenly the four fiends were brought to a halt. Spider-Man swung overhead from a strand of web that stretched up into the darkness and presumably was anchored to the roof of the tent, and he carried on shooting webbing at the creatures until they were almost entirely encased. They howled and snarled with rage until Spider-Man quickly shot four blobs at their mouths. Their cries now muffled and barely audible, he swung back around and planted himself right next to me, landing with his classic gymnast pose.

“Looks like I got here just in time,” he said. I could tell from the voice and the costume that this was Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man, one of my favourite iterations. The contours of his lithe muscles were accentuated and streamlined by his tight-fitting red and blue bodysuit, the crisscrossed pattern of webbing and the blankness of the white eyes on his mouthless mask far more mesmerising in person.

“But… how?” I exclaimed. “How can you be here?”

“The Flash sent me. He thought you might need a bit more assistance, and as usual it looks like he was right.”

“But The Flash is…” I stuttered, “… and you’re… I mean… you can’t both be in the same universe!”

“Says who?” he asked. “Come on, we all know it’s what every comic book geek secretly wants, even though most of them’ll never admit it. Think how amazing that would be – the ultimate crossover, DC and Marvel collide! I mean, it’d be even more amazing than… well, me!”

I laughed. “Okay, so they’re trapped. What now?”

“I honestly have no idea, but my webbing isn’t going to hold them forever and I’m running low, I’ve barely got enough to swing out of here. The Flash stopped time for you and he sent me in to buy you a little extra, so whatever you’re going to do with it, now’s the moment to really make it count. Good luck, buddy!”

And with that he had fired another web and launched himself up into the darkness. I turned back to look at the four twisted shadow creatures; they were showing no sign of tiring, and the webbing was beginning to stretch and tear. Whatever I was going to do to stop them, I had to do it fast.