Chapter 4 - Celebrity on Fire…
“I swear to the foul Maker none of you sons-a-bitches are going to copy a single cell of me!”
The customer lines that had all day snaked through the Company Store’s lobby towards the register counters exploded into consumer shrapnel as people attempted to flee from the mad Mr. Moon, who stood, stinking terribly, in the center of the Company Store’s lobby with sunlight reflecting off his silver hair. Overhead, tall and looming photographs of Gus clones - posed in an array of athletic stances - smiled upon the mayhem.
“You bastards tried to get more than just a piece of me three weeks ago, but I promise that’s all any of you are going to get! I’m going to be burn bright! And there’s not going to be anything left to pick from my ashes!”
Mr. Moon was unhinged. How could the world’s leading stunt artist turn so mad? How could such a creative man so unravel as to douse himself in gasoline and hold a lighter over his head? Mr. Moon’s memory of a poor clone streaking afire across the divide had made the stunt-artist a fortune beyond most citizens’ imaginations. Mr. Moon built mansion castles across the globe. He dived into crystal pools. There was no appetite Mr. Moon could not afford to feed. Who didn’t love Mr. Moon, the man who brought that memory of divine, white light to the masses?
A Company Store employee, dressed in the same black slacks and blue shirt as all of his fellow employees, shouted at Mr. Moon from behind the distant safety of a register counter.
“Please put the lighter down, Mr. Moon. That’s all you need to do. Just put the lighter down so we can talk about it.”
Mr. Moon growled. “Talking time’s over, boy! To Hell with the Company and its clones.”
Mr. Moon waved the yet unlit lighter around him, and those who had not found the shelter of a register counter trembled against the glass walls of the Company Store’s lobby. Mr. Moon hated all of them. He hated how their fat faces never ceased staring at him whenever he dared leave the confines of his mansion walls. He hated all of them for the way they almost folded their hands into prayer whenever Mr. Moon showed the public his face. He had never wished to be anyone’s prophet. He had never lived to be a disciple. The only thing he had ever truly wanted was wealth.
“All of you smell it, don’t you?” A manic spark glimmered in Mr. Moon’s eye. “I got myself doused real good in the old-fashioned petro. I can see your noses curl from the stench of it. I’m going to warn you all to stand plenty far away from me, because I’m going to go up in one hell of a flame!”
Mr. Moon loathed them for their weakness. He hated their stammering questions they all begged him to answer. Was that Gus clone’s death vision real? Did the Maker visit Mr. Moon’s dreams? Had Mr. Moon also peered across the divide, and had he too seen the other side? Could Mr. Moon communicate with the dead? Would the family parrot ascend into Heaven, or flutter down into Hell?
So Mr. Moon retreated into isolation. He staffed each of his mansion castles only with clones. Only those whose right eye bore the Company brand ever joined Mr. Moon in Poker. Only clone chefs ever prepared Mr. Moon’s meals. Only the female clones bred purely for pleasure shared in Mr. Moon’s bed.
The world turned upside down upon Mr. Moon, who discovered he loved the Company’s clones far more than he had ever loved fellow man.
“You all aren’t going to get another piece of me,” Mr. Moon stretched his lighter towards one of the Company’s security cameras whirling in a corner. “You failed to get enough at the awards ceremony, and I promise you won’t get any more!”
Of course, there had been no question to as whom was going to win the coveted best-memory production award at that year’s annual Mnemosyne Awards. Mr. Moon won that trophy the moment the first consumer swooned in the death vision of that Gus who, perched upon a black motorcycle, had failed to leap across the divide. Mr. Moon’s phobias had not yet replaced his vanity, and so Mr. Moon walked beyond his mansion walls to stride down the Mnemosyne red carpet, a speech prepared in his tuxedo pocket. He grinned while the cameras flashed in his eyes. He waved at the throngs of adoring fans.
But then, someone darted out from the crowd, and before the paparazzi could think to take a picture, that someone drew scissors and snipped a curl of Mr. Moon’s silver hair before disappearing back into the crowds and vanishing like a phantom.
Mr. Moon shrieked. His security team of Gus clones blanketed him. They fled back into his dark limousine. His Gus driver roared away while the paparazzi clung to the windshield. Mr. Moon’s pale face filled the next morning’s tabloids, and rumors rose concerning the motive that required a lock of the stunt-artist’s silver hair.
Mr. Moon one week later published a full page editorial claiming an agent of the Company had attacked his silver hair upon the Mnemosyne red carpet. Mr. Moon claimed the Company needed his cells so they might create an entire product line of new Mr. Moons, to be purchased with simple click upon the Company’s online catalog. He claimed the Company wanted to provide the market with duplicate Mr. Moons, so that families might sit such a clone next to the home fireplace and ask it all the questions that pressed upon their lives. Which horse would win the derby crown? Was that indigestion last night simply caused by too much dinner, or could it be a sign of a festering, gastronomical cancer? Would the lovely brunette who owned the local beauty salon return my affection if I boldly strode into who workplace and announced my desire? Mr. Moon claimed the Company gathered that lock of his silver hair to step closer to cloning none other than himself in order to create the ultimate crystal ball. Mr. Moon claimed the Company could not ignore the demand, nor could they deny such possibilities for profit.
“You’re all cowards!” Mr. Moon hissed. “You all want to ask Gus what’s on the other side? Then you all just climb onto a motorcycle and make that flaming jump yourselves! I’m not going to listen to one more person beg me to answer another question!”
Mr. Moon dragged his thumb across his lighter’s flint. The summoned orange flame danced, a small genie in the wind, for a brief moment in that foyer, surrounded by quivering faces and the banners of the advertised models of Gus. In a flash, that flame jumped upon Mr. Moon. The fire exploded and expanded, feeding upon the gasoline, feeding upon the flesh. In a breath, that small flame transformed Mr. Moon into a wavering torch, which did a mocking, macabre two-step of a dance before collapsing into a bonfire upon the Company Store’s lobby.
The crowd screamed for a few minutes before one of the Company Store’s Gus clones walked out of a service closet and calmly extinguished Mr. Moon’s corpse with fire-retardant foam. Mr. Moon’s body smoldered as the consumers soon reformed into their lines so that they might soon reach the register counters and purchase their own Company clones. An employee in black slacks and a blue shirt kindly sprayed perfume in the lobby to mask the stench of Mr. Moon’s body.
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