ARTURO WAS A performer who in his ‘younger’ years found some modest celebrity and assumed that was all there was to the game. There was a time when his name on the sign meant that tickets would be sold out, and that he would be eating lobster that night, drinking fine wines, and charming any pretty lady who would give him the time of day to speak. That was then. Now Arturo scraped by on his modest—at best—ticket sales and burned through all the profits and savings he had accrued during his golden years. The money, or lack of money, didn’t bother him so much. He had already got by so many years without having a dollar to his name. There was another thing that kept him going, and that was the adoration of the crowd. He had to perform for his survival, but his survival was far from guaranteed in this day and age. The times had changed, and after a certain point the changes would be too much for him to keep up with.
What is it that he did? What was his performance all about?
Arturo would perform various magic tricks on stage, and he would do so while telling jokes and reciting lines of poetry, or famous lines from famous novels—whatever he felt the performance called for, really. There were card tricks, bursts of flame from his sleeve, and even live doves being released from his hat. At one performance he had replaced the doves with bats, just to keep things lively, and the crowd—which at this point loved and was obsessed with Arturo—was thrown into a panic. ‘Oh, come on!’ he complained in his dressing room, as his manager told him that he could not use bats again. ‘What’s the big difference between a bat and a dove?’ But the manager did not see things Arturo’s way; he only said that Arturo could not use bats again, because people—apparently—did not like bats. Arturo let out a big sigh. ‘Alright,’ he said, ‘no more bats…’ and, sure enough, on the next performance, perhaps with many returning audience members who remembered the bats, he used ravens instead, and the result was much the same. In the dressing room, after the show, his manager told him he could no longer use ravens. ‘Oh, come on!’ Arturo complained. ‘What’s the big difference between a dove and a raven?’ His manager told him that it did not matter. Ravens were closer to bats than they were to doves. This was at a time when Arturo could get away with such things.
These days Arturo might be ruined if he pulled that trick with bats or ravens. He might not even have enough people in the audience to constitute a panic. His jokes fell flat—the once roaring laughter was now replaced with mere chuckles at best—and the weighty gasps and awe that once filled the room were replaced with dumb silences and meagre curiosity.
Arturo had fallen from grace, and it was the fault of the rest of the world. If people loved his show back then, then they would surely love it now. That’s why he didn’t try out any new tricks. He just went through the same old ones, the same old jokes and same old schtick, and then he called it a night. What worked once would work again. People will come back around, he thought. But they never did, not now, and again, it was the fault of the world and not Arturo’s… He would look at what everyone was up to nowadays—be it in the realm of magic, performance, or simply how people spent their time—and he would call them all dummies, and gripe about their choices of entertainment. Ask anyone nowadays who Arturo was and you might hear that he was once a great performer, but he grew stale, or you might simply get a vacant stare in response.‘Who’s that?’ they might ask. The world had changed. People and times were in flux, and Arturo was fixed.
The thing that had set Arturo apart was not easy to explain in simple terms. The audience might grow bored with the explanation, or not ‘get it,’ or demand proof that could never be satisfactorily given. Arturo used real magic for his act, but the problem with ‘real magic’ was that while being performed on stage it was indiscernible from the usual sleight of hand and stage trickery audiences had grown accustomed to. Arturo’s doves and bats and ravens all came from the same place: they had been conjured from thin air, rather than having been hidden out of view. One might ask how he managed to pull them out of that bucket, or hat, and the simplest explanation would be that he simply ‘could,’ but that would not be good enough. That explanation would be as obtuse as the tricks were themselves, the sleights of hand and trickery. Good magic is indistinguishable from sufficiently advanced technology, after all, and the technologies of today were unheard of fifteen or twenty years ago. Tomorrow will look like a cave painting five years from now. That thought terrified Arturo, but he could never tell anyone why. He knew his time was running out, his use in society was drying up, and no matter how much he thought of and pined for the ‘old days,’ he knew that the status would never return to such a quo.
Arturo had been ‘younger’ when he began his circuit as a magician and performer, but by that point he was already what you might call old as dirt. He had thrived back in his heyday, and he didn’t even have to stoop to the level of performing tricks on a stage to feed off the adoration of the people who beheld him. He did not play any magic tricks on the crowds back then, instead he would perform what they called ‘miracles.’ Many people even bowed to worship him. Arturo was, without exaggeration, a god.
Sacrifices had been offered to Arturo, and no matter how many times he told his subjects not to bother with spilling blood or burning flesh in his name, they kept at it in this time. That level of dedication put him over the moon, though, so he didn’t press the issue any further than letting them know it was not necessary. Some people even offered to sacrifice their own children to him, an idea that Arturo took particular issue with. These children could grow up to be people who also worshipped Arturo, but their parents wanted to put a premature end to that development. He still fed off the adoration and fear that perpetuated the heinous crime, but he made it very clear early on that he wanted nothing to do with human sacrifices.
You see, Arturo did not require bread or meat or vegetable or water or wine or milk in order to sustain himself. He liked to indulge himself, but that was not a requirement for his wellbeing. Arturo drew his power and life from the belief of the crowd, from their worship, their fear and love and awe. That was all he needed to get by. And that was why it was an especially sore point when he considered his current state.
What had happened? That was anyone’s guess. Perhaps Arturo had simply grown lazy. After a certain point, he had made himself known less and less. This worked for a while, the people had continued to praise him, pray to him, and even bring offerings to him. He noticed after some time, though, that things had started to slip. He would make appearances, just to reinvigorate them and their faith in him, but over the years he felt that he was slipping out of consciousness. It all came to a head when he showed himself in the modern era and was ridiculed for his godly displays. He was thought to be some sort of trickster and was in turn laughed at when he made himself out to be anything more than that. Arturo didn’t like this, but there was no way around it. He changed his tact and found that playing the part of this trickster still garnered him some fulfilment.
This was fine at the time. This was fine for years and years. One day, though, he noticed that things had begun to slip again. People would not worship magicians or stage performers the same way they had once worshipped gods. He became nothing more than a mere entertainer. Arturo upped the ante, and that worked for a while—the absurdity of some of his tricks, the finesse, the lack of explanation, all helped to propel him above the rest of the crowd and closer to his former godhood. Still, this was a band aid on a gaping wound, a relative proximity to that prime of his.
Arturo soon found himself with a fading name. The tickets did not sell half as well as they used to. He hardly felt anything at all after his shows. His powers diminished, though he was still capable of amazing feats, but he had no idea how to put himself back on top—where he was sure he belonged.
Younger and younger people had little or no idea who Arturo was, and he trembled at the thought. To be forgotten was to die. He thought about this fact every night as he stared into the mirror with a glass of whiskey in his hand. He looked very much the same physically, but Arturo could see the difference. He could see and feel his degradation. The thought of stooping even lower, down to the level of performing at small parties for children and drunks, made him sweat and tremble, but he feared that was what he would be reduced to in not all that long.
Arturo had gone without fear and love for a very long time. Even awe had slipped through the cracks, leaving him with some small thing called wonder to drink at on occasion. This was no way for a god to live.
‘We might as well cancel tomorrow night’s show,’ said Ruby, Arturo’s current manager. ‘If we push the next few shows into one night, it would make a lot more sense.’
‘No,’ Arturo shook his head. ‘Let’s just keep it as it is.’
When the tickets sold out quickly, Arturo could feel each transaction, each decision. He could taste the anticipation, and anticipation had turned out to be a glorious thing. Recently, though, he couldn’t tell when people bought tickets, he was more of a curiosity than anything. People gave him good reviews, when they were asked about a show they attended and bothered to respond, but no one really seemed to care whether he existed or not. The times had a changed, and that was an idea that Arturo had no idea how to come to terms with.
‘You sure about that?’ Ruby asked. ‘You’re talking about doing more work for the same amount of money.’
‘Yeah,’ Arturo said. ‘Keep it that way.’
Having a night or two off sounded good, but Arturo didn’t feel he could swing it. The paltry amount of wonder, maybe even some faint praise, he could glean from any given night was all that kept him going. Maybe the payoff of doing one bigger show might be worth it, but he was so starved at this point that he didn’t want to risk going a single night without recognition if he could help it. He poured a glass of whiskey and sat down in his dirty recliner.
‘Ruby?’
‘Yeah?’
‘What do we do when the well runs dry?’
Ruby scratched her head. She was never sure what to say to Arturo when he became contemplative.
‘I’ll get another job,’ she said. ‘You, on the other hand?’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know what to tell you.’
Arturo nodded his head slowly. He understood her position. He knew that Ruby would be fine regardless—she had a lot of marketable skills and sometimes Arturo even wondered why she bothered with him anymore. She’s just here to see the show to its end, he thought. She wants to see the collapse, the curtain drop…
‘I’ve got an idea,’ Arturo said after some time. ‘I can’t say much about it right now, but I’ll have an announcement to make at one of the next shows.’
‘Oh, really?’
Arturo gave a thin bitter smile.
‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘consider this your two weeks’ notice.’
‘You’re firing me?’ Ruby laughed.
‘No, it’s nothing like that. I just wanted to say thank you, and to give you time to look for something else.’
‘Well, thanks…’
Ruby shrugged again and said goodnight. She’d be off to somewhere else before long, and Arturo felt good about telling her in advance. He had been working on his best trick to date, one that would surely shock and awe everyone in attendance. Still, the reaction did not matter; Arturo simply wanted to do one great thing, the way he used to. May the earth tremble at his power, or throw up in disgust. He had to give up his job, though—it had become too much for him to bear. He would figure something out, he had done that many times before. More importantly, he would go out with a bang.
Arturo thought about the idea of becoming some birthday sideshow, of dressing up as a clown and doing petty magic for some child just now turning seven years old. He shivered. The day to day hustle gave him goosebumps. He would give his audience front row seats to his perfect retirement into his new life.
And there would be a new life. There must be.
Arturo took the stage and told a few jokes. Some of the audience chuckled, but no one laughed. He then pulled a bouquet out of his pocket and handed them to a man in the front row. Some eyebrows raised at this because the bouquet was clearly too large to have been concealed in his clothing, but these people had seen magic tricks before. They knew there were explanations for things like this. Arturo sighed and then, with a flick of his wrist, set his hand on fire. There was a gasp of surprise, but still, once the fire had been extinguished, the audience was sure that it was nothing more than a trick. Arturo then picked someone out of
the crowd at random, a man in a suit, and when he came up on the stage Arturo had him pick a card. The man picked the Four of Clubs. Arturo had him show the audience his card and then had him place it in his pocket. Arturo shuffled the deck as he asked the audience how they thought he would come up with the right card. There was no answer.
The man in the suit watched Arturo’s hands and fingers as they worked the cards, shuffling them in a way that was hard to follow. He was smiling, having a good old time up on the stage being a part of the show.
But it would only turn out to be another trick. There was always an explanation.
Arturo finished shuffling the deck and spread out his arms. ‘Now let’s see,’ he addressed the audience, ‘is this your card?’ He flipped the top card off the deck and handed it to the man in the suit.
The man in the suit went pale because against all odds and reason, the card that he was handed from the top of the deck of typical playing cards was actually his own business card. He recognised the font, the colour of the ink, the design of it... and of course he recognised his own name, address, phone number, and email address having been printed on the thing.
‘How the—’ he started to say, but he could not force the rest of the words out of himself. He had never met Arturo before—he had only decided to come to the show because his date had been interested in seeing a magic show. He had not even heard of Arturo before. There was no way that Arturo could have known he would be at the show on that night, and to top it all off he had not even brought any business cards along to be pickpocketed, let alone one that he had scribbled his personal phone number onto for the pretty blonde he had met at a bar one night. He looked into Arturo’s eyes.
There was a bit of awe in that, on top of the wonder.
‘Well?’ Arturo asked. ‘Tell the audience. Is this your card?’
The man in the suit did not wish to tell the audience, though. He had been a very rational man—not one to take magical thinking too seriously—but now, having seen what he could only describe as very real magic, he could not formulate a thought other than to scream, throw his card to the ground, and rush out of the building in a sweat.
‘Well then,’ Arturo laughed as he turned back to the audience. ‘I guess he didn’t like the trick.’
There was some nervous laughter at this, some shifting in seats, but most of the audience just looked on at Arturo and wondered what the point of that contrivance was. The man had been planted, surely. Arturo felt good, though, having had a little bit of fear. It would be enough to get him through the night, and may the next day, too. He then pulled a large snake out of a small hat and sawed an assistant in half. They bowed. Toward the end of the show Arturo was locked into a coffin only to appear on the other side of the room, by the door, much to the surprise of the nearest seated person.
‘Well then,’ Arturo clapped his hands, ‘if you liked tonight’s show then I highly recommend you come by tomorrow night, and the night after…’
He walked down the aisle, back to the stage.
‘I have some amazing things for you to behold, and trust me when I say that you will not want to miss any of it!’
What were these amazing things? Arturo would perform his greatest trick ever, one that would surely leave any audience completely dumbfounded. It would be a perfect night, he made sure to tell them all. They’d surely seen nothing like it, and they would never see anything like it again. It’s a one and done kind of show, he told them, that last show.
‘You will not want to miss it!’
Arturo saw that the next night’s audience was larger than he had anticipated. It was still nothing like it had been back in the day, but he had clearly got people talking about the night before—enough to drum up more ticket sales than he or Ruby had thought they would get.
‘Welcome!’ he told the crowd. ‘Who would like to see some real magic?’
The audience applauded, though they did not erupt with the stuff. Arturo chuckled at this.
Arturo brought his assistant out onto the stage, and she climbed into the box she usually climbed into before being sawed in half. This time, however, Arturo sawed off her screaming head in front of the crowd. Everyone seemed disturbed—some shaken to their cores—but at the end of the trick the assistant’s head was put back in its place on the neck and she seemed to be completely fine. She took a bow and rushed off the stage, rubbing her neck the entire time.
Arturo then locked himself in his coffin, only to blow the lid off the thing and climb out. This was a startling way of pulling off the trick and no one felt that it was particularly magical. That is, until Arturo also appeared across the room, by the door, much to the surprise of the nearest seated person.
Arturo then split a rabbit in half and stuffed it into a hat. The thing shot out of the hat a moment later, making the entire audience nearly jump out of their seats. He assured them all that the rabbit was fine. He then set himself on fire and began to dance, and he felt the audience’s wonder, which had already shifted into confusion, was now only terror.
‘If you liked tonight’s show,’ he told the audience at the end, ‘then I highly recommend you come by tomorrow night. You will not want to miss any of it!’
‘Getting a little gruesome, aren’t we?’ Ruby asked Arturo back in his room. She wondered what his game was, but understood that it was above her paygrade. She had been made aware of the finitude of her employment after all.
‘Trust me,’ Arturo said, ‘the greatest trick is yet to come.’
‘You think anybody’s going to come back after tonight?’
‘Yes, I do. People appreciate the gruesome. Hell, to them it’s all still a trick.’
‘I guess we’ll see about that,’ Ruby sighed.
‘Just trust me,’ Arturo poured his glass of whiskey. ‘I’m as sure about this as I was about the bats and ravens—only I got talked out of that. This will be a real night to remember. I promise.’
Ruby wasn’t sure what to make of what Arturo told her, but then again she had already got the green light from him to start searching for another job. More people showed up than they had anticipated, so maybe the next night would be the same. That was all the same to her—more asses in the seats meant more money in her pocket. A final pay cheque was still a pay cheque, after all.
The next night came and Arturo sat on a stool on the stage. He sat quietly as the audience came in and took their seats. There were even more people than before, though he was still a long shot away from selling out tickets the way he used to. Tonight would be different though, and then it would be too late. This would be his retirement party, and when they all flocked back to see him the night after, or the night after that, he would simply be gone. They would have no recourse but to miss him. It would be his turn to laugh at their expense, or to simply ignore them the way he had been ignored for so long. This would be his greatest trick.
‘Welcome,’ he said to the audience as the last of them were seated. ‘I’m sure you all came here expecting a truly spectacular show, and I promise not to disappoint…’
Everyone was seated, and all eyes were on Arturo; everyone expected him to start pulling animals out of places, or to saw his assistant into pieces, but none of that happened. He simply looked at the audience and smiled.
‘I’ve never actually performed this particular trick,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll be able to pull it off on the first try, though. Don’t you worry.’
Arturo then pulled out his small hat that usually housed a variety of animals. He tossed it into the crowd and, as the person who caught it and looked inside found, it turned out to be empty. ‘You see, my action takes place in the sixteenth century,’ Arturo said, ‘and back then—by the way, you must have learned this in school—back then it was customary in poetic works to bring higher powers down to earth. I don’t need to mention Dante.’ Arturo then threw his deck of cards out, the cards went everywhere, and those who managed to catch them out of the air, or picked them up off the floor, waited for him to ask what their card was, or something like that. He never mentioned the cards, though. He was done with the cards.
Arturo stood up and removed his shoes, and his socks, and started taking off his pants as well.
‘And so the Mother of God, shocked and weeping, falls before the throne of God and asks pardon for everyone in hell, everyone she has seen there, without distinction.’
Arturo began to stretch and then cracked his neck. ‘It must have been so,’ he said, ‘let me tell you.’ He removed his shirt and stood in his underwear for a moment before sitting back down.
He then situated himself on his stool and took a breath:
‘Now then,’ Arturo said, ‘let’s get down to business. I’m now going to make myself completely disappear!’
Arturo then plunged his fingers into his mouth and bit down. He grunted and growled, drool came out his mouth along with blood and whatever other liquids fingers contain. He fought to keep his eyes open, they stung with tears but he didn’t want to close them—he wanted to see as many faces as he could for the duration of his greatest trick. It took some doing, but he managed to bite through his fingers and wrench them off, he then chewed at them and choked them down until they were gone. His body was hot with pain and every part of him was clenched. Next was the rest of his hand, which he bit and ripped at, splashing his juices all over the stage. The eyes out in the audience went wide. Gagging sounds could be heard from the seats. Some people puked, and when someone made a break for the door, they found that the exit had been locked. There was no escape.
Arturo continued to growl and whine as he bit into and chewed himself. He continued to eat and eat, his extremities giving way to his teeth. He was pink and covered in sweat now, as well as red with blood, but he still shovelled himself down. His hand was gone, and then his wrist. He pulled his foot up to his mouth and began the same process there, and then the other foot. He chewed and ripped at each leg, shaking now, convulsing, as he slowly and painfully disappeared into himself.
‘Jesus Christ!’ someone cried out.
‘Stop! Stop! Stop!’
The audience was truly terrified—in a way that Arturo had not been familiar with—and this is what gave him the juice to keep going.
Arturo had no legs, no hand, and then his partially eaten arm was gone up to the elbow, and then it was completely gone. He bent down to gnaw at what he could reach, and when he couldn’t reach anything that way he just pulled at his bloody body with his remaining hand and jammed whatever came loose into his mouth. Arturo was going, going, gone.
This was his greatest trick.
More puking was heard from the audience. They all retched. The air was filled with wails. People clawed at the door as they tried to get out, but no one could get out. There was no escape. Some people in the crowd tried to shield their faces in their hands, but the images they had already seen were all they could picture. Again, there was no escape. The moment had already become eternal for them.
Arturo continued on, getting at every piece he could. He began to think that he should have started with his feet instead of one of his hands, but it was too late now. He continued on, eating and eating, sweating, convulsing, grunting and growling and gagging. This was the hardest work he had ever put into anything at all. Soon his stomach was gone, so everyone had to wonder—if they could have been bothered to stop and wonder—where his ‘food’ was going. He was then just a head and neck and the shoulder and arm and hand he had been using. Then he was less of a head, because he had started tearing off what he could with his free hand.
And then the hand was gone, and then the arm. Arturo became nothing more than part of a head on a neck.
This led to an incredible contortion no one could think was possible—if the audience could have been bothered to think of anything at all at this point—where he managed to eat his neck as well, so then he was just a head. He then began to pull at what flesh he could with his teeth, sucking and slurping at his cheeks, pulling everything he could into his maw. He went on and on.
It was true: he was just about disappeared.
The cries from the audience had gone hoarse, but they continued. This was all too much, but everything they felt about the spectacle kept Arturo going. This is the closest he had come to his old style worship in a very long time.
And soon it would all be over.
Arturo was just a mouth floating on the stage. There was blood all over everything, but every hunk of meat and fat and whatever else had been consumed by its owner. Arturo was nearly gone. That mouth on the stage began to laugh—it was just a floating, cackling smile—and no one else in the room had the presence of mind to stop and think if it were more or less disturbing than what they had already endured.
The mouth of Arturo continued to laugh for a few moments longer. ‘Is it that only the tens of thousands of the great and strong are dear to you, and the remaining millions, numerous as the sands of the sea, weak but loving you, should serve only as material for the great and the strong?’ asked the mouth of Arturo. ‘...so terrible will it become for them in the end to be free!’ And then the mouth proceeded to begin eating itself. No one had any idea where Arturo was going, and no one cared. Ruby—after hearing stories about the show—was glad that she was not present to behold what had happened. The mouth finished eating itself and then was gone. Arturo was gone. The doors were then unlocked.
But even pouring out of the auditorium the air would be sickening. Even pouring out into the night air would it be sickening. There would be nothing to wash away the tastes or images of this particular night. Arturo might be gone, but he is laughing still. Immortality was born in such a thing as this kind of memory.
And those poor souls who were subjected to this breed of world? Peacefully they will die, peacefully they will expire in your name, and beyond the grave they will find only death.
