Tales of the Parodyverse

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Dancer (via Visionary)
Sat Aug 28, 2004 at 12:01:16 am EDT
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The Show
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Big warning: Okay, this isn’t in my usual style, and it’s very depressing and very personal, and some of it is more about me than my character. I almost didn’t do it but then I remembered that art doesn’t accept excuses. You can’t reserve any part of you, not the hurts or the shames or the truths and still give a proper performance. You have to give it all or it doesn’t count. It’s true of dancing, where I had that drilled into me, and I’m sure its true of writing. So here’s a story that no sensible person would want to tell or admit to. And I’m not saying it’s good art. I’m just saying its honest art. It’s my performance, and I offer it with love to my friends who have helped me in my hour.


This story happens just after Dancer’s debut in HH’s Untold Tales of the Lair Legion (well almost): Dancing in the Dark, or Good Things Come in Little Boxes, Bad Things Drive Up in Removal Vans and before any of the other Dancer stories.


The quoted lyrics are from Queen’s “The Show Must Go On.” If you want the soundtrack to this story, click here.





The Show



Empty spaces - what are we living for

Abandoned places - I guess we know the score

On and on, does anybody know what we are looking for...

Another hero, another mindless crime

Behind the curtain, in the pantomime

Hold the line, does anybody want to take it anymore

The show must go on

The show must go on, yeah

Inside my heart is breaking

My make-up may be flaking

But my smile still stays on



Dancer huddled on the floor behind the counter of the Bean and Donut Coffee Bar and pointed the stake knife to her throat and tried to find the courage to push it in.

She was still crying, but the big gulping sobs had passed, leaving a quieter, more personal weeping that made her face blotchy and mingled the tears with the snot from her nose. She didn’t care.

She hardly even noticed the shop door opening. She thought she’d dropped the latch when she came in. She was too intent on her own little world of misery to think straight anyway.

“Hello?” a voice called. “Anyone here?”

Dancer didn’t want to reply. She didn’t want anyone to see her. Ever again.

The customer came up to the counter and peered over. “Hey, are you okay?”

Dancer glanced up. An earnest, plain face with widow’s peak hairline and an arched eyebrow peered back at her. She went back to clutching her knees in her arms and shook her head.

“What’s wrong?” the visitor asked in concerned, nervous tones. He fumbled with the drop-down counter hatch then gave up and ducked under it to join her. “Who are you? Where’s Sarah?”

“Sarah?” Dancer gulped. She was Sarah, the waitress who should be pouring this guy a coffee, making with the chatty banter. “Sarah’s… not here.”

He was a regular, she realised. Yellow-coat-guy. Always wore it, over a green polo-neck with a yellow diamond on it. Came in most Tuesdays and Thursdays, sometimes with a pretty blonde that was most likely his wife.

But he didn’t recognise his waitress. Improbably.

“Are you hurt?” Visionary asked, as he knelt down beside her and stretched out a cautious hand to brush her loose black hair from her face.

“Just leave me,” Dancer told him. “The shop’s closed tonight.”

Visionary sat back with a baffled look. “I don’t think I can,” he said. “Just go, I mean. Because of, you know, you being all upset and stuff. And… well, the knife at your throat?”

Dancer realised she was still clutching the steak knife, pressing it so the first drop of blood was trickling from her punctured flesh.

“Could you put it down?” Vizh asked earnestly. “Just on the floor. Whatever it is that’s wrong, hurting yourself isn’t the answer.”

“Really?” Dancer’s anger flared up and she looked over at the intruder wrathfully. “You’re so sure are you?”

“Pretty much. Honestly.”

“So it’s better to hurt other people, you think?”

Visionary realised he was squatted on the floor with a knife-wielding distressed maniac. “It’s really better not to hurt anyone,” he said quickly.

Dancer saw the look of fear on his face and hurled the knife away from them. It skittered over the floor and clanged against the base of the freezer. “I don’t need that to kill myself anyway,” she threatened.

“Um…” Visionary wanted to tell her that suicide was never the answer, but he didn’t know how to say it in a way that didn’t have the wrong effect.

Dancer glared at him challengingly. “So, you. If you had to choose between killing somebody else and killing yourself, which would you do?”

Vizh looked about him worriedly, as if fearing this wasn’t a hypothetical question. “Me? Well, it would kind of depend on who the other person was, and if they were trying to hurt me.”

“What if it was somebody who’d already hurt you? Somebody you wanted to kill. Somebody you could just… crush, destroy, horribly and slowly. Somebody you wanted to die so badly you could taste it, taste their blood in your mouth?”

Visionary frowned. “Somebody did hurt you, then?”

Dancer let out something between a snort and a sob. Visionary hastily passed her a clean napkin for her to wipe her face.

“I was hurt,” Dancer admitted. “I deserved it, of course, by being a stupid little lovesick fool, a naïve pathetic bimbo as usual.”

“Er, I don’t think…”

“You don’t know!” the angry brunette told him. “You don’t know what I’m like. Every time - every time - I tell myself that this is going to be different. This relationship’s going to work. This guy won’t be shallow and horrible and mean and spiteful, won’t take and take without ever giving, won’t take what he wants then go off somewhere better. Every single time. I never learn.”

“You’ve broken up with your boyfriend?” Vizh tried to understand. “Is that it?” He didn’t know who this distraught young woman was, or why she was on the kitchen floor at his coffee shop, or why she was dressed in a stained dancer’s leotard and leggings, but he knew she was in desperate trouble.

“No,” sniffed Dancer. “That’s what always happens. After a while you get used to that. After a while you get to knowing it’s never going to be Mr Right.” She looked up and pointed to the sink. “That pile of cutlery to wash. Grab a handful.”

Visionary was puzzled, but he stood up and obeyed.

“Three tea-spoons, two desert-spoons, two cake knives and a fork,” Dancer told him, without looking. “Drop them and do it again.” She guessed right in blind tests five times in a row.

“That’s a… a good trick,” Vizh admitted.

“It’s not a trick. It’s a super-power,” Dancer told him. “I have a super-power.”

“To see cutlery at a distance?”

“To bend probabilities. I can do more than spoons if I’m moving about.” The tear-stained young woman looked up. “I can change worlds if I want to,” she warned.

“That’s a good super-power,” Visionary agreed. “Better than cutlery.”

“Right. I can make good things happen. I can make bad things happen. I could kill myself. I could kill him.”

“Him? Ex-boyfriend him?”

“Ex-boyfriend him,” Dancer agreed. “Just like that. Freak car accident. Electrical hazard. Sudden heart attack. Pure coincidence. Or I could just make his whole life go wrong. Everything. One long, shitty day for the rest of his life, for fifty years, nothing but bad bad things. I could do it.”

Visionary carefully laid the cutlery back in the rack. “But you don’t want to do that?” he checked.

Again that flare of anger. “Of course I want to!” Dancer hissed. “I want to… to… I want him to die in the most horrible way any human being has ever died, slowly and painfully as he begs for mercy and blubbers like a baby! That’s what I want!”

“Well,” Visionary swallowed hard, “that’s… probably not a good idea.”

“Really? So you know what he did to me, do you?”

“No. I just know it’s never a good idea to murder…”

“I really loved him, you know. At least I thought I did. I really wanted this one to work. I gave up everything to come with him to Parodiopolis, you know. I could have had a career, been a famous dancer, but I wanted to be with him instead.”

Visionary knelt down to try and peer under the veil of black hair again.

“Even when things got crappy, when he kept going off with other women, I took him back. I wanted it to work, you see? I did everything he wanted – even the stuff I didn’t like. I…” Dancer looked up. “I kept on trying. I forgave him when he stole from me, when he hit me.”

“He hit you,” scowled Visionary darkly.

“It doesn’t matter. Those kind of bruises fade. The other kind, the kind you give yourself by doing cheap, dirty stuff, the little compromises that kill you slice by slice inside, they’re much worse.”

“So he wasn’t Prince Charming,” Vizh admitted. “And he sounds like he needs a good stomping. But still…”

“When I got these powers, just a few days ago,” Dancer said, “for a moment I thought I could make a difference. Help people. I thought I could be someone different, someone not so pathetic. I threw Frank out. He so deserved it. And when he tried to hurt me, I… I fought back.”

“You didn’t kill him?” Vizh checked.

“No,” shuddered Dancer. “But I should have.”

Visionary leaned back so he was sitting side by side against the counter with Dancer. “Why?”

“Oh, because Frank doesn’t take people saying no to him that well. So he waited till I was out, then came in and got my stuff.”

“Your stuff?”

“Not the things he could sell. He’d already taken that. Just the little things. Photos from when I was small. My dancing certificates. Old reviews. Letters from my gran. Just souvenirs. Things I kept. Things I loved. Things that tear up and burn easily.”

Vizh felt his stomach knot. “Oh.”

“Also, Frank had some photos of me, photos he took. Naked photos, you know. Frank liked taking porn pictures.” Dancer shuddered again. “Well now everyone can enjoy them on the internet, right? Me, me and Frank, me and Frank’s friend that would somehow save our relationship if I did it with him. Enjoy.”

“He sounds like a world class asshole,” Visionary declared.

“Yep,” agreed Dancer. “So he deserves to die, right?”

Vizh found himself teetering on the ethical abyss. “Er…”

“If you had the power to do anything, to do anything to him you wanted, and you were me… If you could kill him just by spinning round in a pirouette…”

“I’d be tempted,” Visionary admitted. “Really tempted. But I’d know it was wrong.”

“If you went to face him, and he laughed at you in front of all his friends, and called you foul names, and boasted to his buddies about what he’d done to you, and said you might have all kinds of powers but you didn’t have the guts to use them against him, and you just stood there while he and his friends all drank their beer and shouted for you to take your clothes off and dance for them, what would you do then?”

“I don’t know,” Vizh admitted. “Look, it’s all pretty horrible. But that’s them, not you.”

“I am what they said,” Dancer trembled. “Useless and weak and slutty and stupid. So I came back here, and I knew I couldn’t… just couldn’t go on any more.” She looked about her but couldn’t see any other way out. “There is no other way!” she cried out.

Visionary desperately wished for back up. He needed Cheryl to say the right things, or Yo to bring her special brand of loving comfort, or Lisa to do something smart and decisive, or even Donar to get angry and smite all the people who really needed it. And none of them were here.

“It’s not okay,” he admitted, awkwardly folding his arms round Dancer, “but it can be. Really. It can be.”

Dancer tried to shy away. “Nobody is kind,” she told him. “Nobody.”

“Sure they are,” Vizh promised her. “There’s good people all over. Some extraordinary, some ordinary, but all of them just doing their best. You know there are good people really. You know it in your heart. You’re always looking for them.”

“Where are they?” Dancer wept. “Where are the good people?”

Visionary stroked her hair. “Right here,” he told her, “You’re right here.”

He held her for a while as she cried on his shoulder.

“You think not killing them makes you weak?” Vizh asked her. “Killing’s easy. Granting mercy – that’s hard. Using massive powers responsibly, that’s hard. Not stupid, or useless. And I don’t think you’re slutty, either. I know slutty and you’re not it.”

“I can’t make it,” Dancer confessed. “I want to hurt Frank so badly. I can’t stop myself forever.”

“I think you can,” Visionary told her. “You’re stronger than you think. Besides, think of Sarah.”

Dancer looked up as he used her real name. Had he recognised her at last. “Sarah?”

“The waitress here,” Vizh explained. “Think of the mess she’d have to clear up for poor Mr Paradapoplis if you cut your throat on her kitchen floor. And… and think of… of all the people you’d be letting down.”

“What people?” Dancer asked. “I don’t know anybody. I’m new in Parodiopolis.”

“All the people you’re going to help. All the people who are going to need saving by, by a Probability Dancer. We need all the heroes we can get in this town, you know?”

“I know. I’ve seen the heroes we’ve got.”

“Hey, was that a little joke? Did you actually manage to crack a funny despite all this doom-n-gloom horror stuff?” Visionary cocked his head on one side. “Is there still a little bit left of the girl that tells herself this time is going to be different?”

Sarah wiped her face again with the abused napkin. “Maybe,” she admitted.

“Can that Dancer come out and play then?” Vizh asked. He reached up and poured Dancer a cup of strong black coffee from the jug.

“Thanks,” she said, accepting the cup. “You know, no-one ever pours me coffee.”

“So will you be okay?”

Dancer jumped to her feet with a dexterity that made Visionary envious. “I’m going to try,” she promised him. “I’m going to start by heading upstairs and taking a shower, cleaning myself off. I’ve got… my friend Sarah is staying in the flat above the shop now. She… she split with her boyfriend recently as well.”

“I hope she took it better.”

“Oh,” shrugged Dancer, “I’m the dramatic one. But it wouldn’t hurt to tip her a little extra for a while.”

“I’ll remember. You’re sure you’ll be okay?”

Dancer nodded and wound her hair back from her blotchy face. “Us super-heroes, we all have to have personal tragedies and stuff in our backgrounds to make us more interesting,” she said, with an effort of smile. “Um… I think I should say thank you.”

“It’s okay. Don’t mention it. I promise I won’t.”

Dancer padded over and kissed Visionary on the cheek. “Can you drop the latch on the way out?”

“Sure,” he promised and watched until the young woman had vanished up the back stairs.

He dropped the cost of the coffee in the till and added the price of a phone call. Then he dialled a number and waited for a reply.

“Hey,” he said. “It’s Visionary. Listen Akiko, you know I owe you a favour? Well now I’m going to owe you two, right? See there’s these guys and I want them out of Parodiopolis. Forever. I want it made really, really clear to them that they’re out of Parodiopolis forever, okay? Really, totally, painfully clear. Starting with a sleaze that goes by the name of Frank…”



Whatever happens, I'll leave it all to chance

Another heartache, another failed romance

On and on, does anybody know what we are living for ?

I guess I'm learning

I must be warmer now

I'll soon be turning

Round the corner now

Outside the dawn is breaking

But inside in the dark I'm aching to be free

The show must go on

The show must go on, yeah yeah

Ooh, inside my heart is breaking

My make-up may be flaking

But my smile still stays on



My soul is painted like the wings of butterflies

Fairytales of yesterday will grow but never die

I can fly - my friends

The show must go on

The show must go on

I'll face it with a grin

I'm never giving in

On - with the show



Ooh, I'll top the bill, I'll overkill

I have to find the will to carry on

On with the show

On with the show

The show - the show must go on



________



This story is dedicated to Adam who made me tell it and to Ian who really did make the call.




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