The devil used a deceptively low amount of magic to keep me under his thumb. A fake idea of me was firmly rooted in the mind of the public. No matter what I did, people interpreted it as the most groundbreaking work of art yet to come. The amount of effort that went into my marketing, through sheer manpower alone, made it impossible for the audience to understand my dilemma.
They only saw me as a meme. The devil was quite literally manipulating the masses and predicting every move I made, drawing more of a crowd than I ever imagined possible. Half the planet watched my last concert. The devil hadn't spoken to me in months until very recently. He was too busy arranging deals with my image. Apparently, his aim was to unite the middle east in the last performance of my current tour.
I ran out of ideas after the third concert. Two away from the big finale. When I rejected my fame and refused to speak for a month, the public interpreted it as a beautiful rendition of 4′33″. An extended variation of John Cage's masterpiece.
I then tried to hang myself from a balcony. It only made me more famous. The devil already had a squadron of immortal nurses watching me for a while. I learned that many rock stars survived overdoses over the years with the same goal as me. The devil only kept them alive and promoted it as part of their image, torturing them even more until he didn't need them anymore.
The last time I spoke with Lucifer, he wore a confident, yet relaxed, grin while sitting in his office chair. I called him an asshole. He chuckled and said:
"You humans did this to yourselves."
I looked away from him. "That doesn't mean I won't keep trying."
"Go ahead. I'll give you free reign over producing the next concert. Once you realize how hopeless it is, you'll start behaving again." He smiled. "In other words, do your worst."
I stormed off intending to do just that.
Later that night, a raven broke into the window of my hotel bedroom. It carried a parchment sealed with red wax that contained a message for me. A meeting. Someone learned in the ways of the arcane realized my plight and offered vital information to defeat the devil.
Deep into a lonely alley of New York, a buzzing neon light revealed a rusty basement entrance. The sign said 'Psychic' with the 'y' blinking every other second. After I opened the door, a thick cloud of incense poured out of the room. The voice of an elderly woman greeted me behind a curtain of beads. I followed it into a room with a circular table and a crystal ball atop.
The old gypsy lady behind it was accompanied by a balding catholic priest and a muscular man in his thirties. Was this some sort of trick from the devil? The priest looked concerned and the man remained stoic. Only the old gypsy lady seemed welcoming, saying:
"I realize this must be a strange sight for you. For the record, these two men have wanted to kill you for a while now."
I swallowed, glancing at the exit.
"Don't worry. I made it clear to them that would only make things worse. Killing you would turn you into a martyr."
"Right..." I scratched my neck. "Why are you contacting me now? I could've used your help a long time ago."
The old lady waved over her crystal ball, making it glow until it showed my last conversation with Lucifer. "I've been keeping an eye on you for a while. The only reason we can do this is because Lucifer has finally lowered his guard."
"Yes" said the priest. "His pride has convinced him that nothing can stop him."
The muscular man nodded along. "I made sure that no one followed you here. The devil isn't watching for now."
I straightened up my back. I wasn't alone in this. We might have a chance. "What do you propose?"
"Lucifer is weak," said the old gypsy lady, "but he's trying his best not to show it."
The priest cleared his throat, slightly uncomfortable. "With the decline of Christianity, the devil's powers have started to wane. He's barely a shadow of his former self."
"He can't afford to waste the little power he retains" added the muscular man. "If you arrange the worst concert in the history of humanity, he'll be forced to do something that spends his magic." He pulled out a dagger and stabbed the table. "That's where I come in and end him once for all."
I stood frozen for a while before deciding to say:
"I can do it. I literally have no talent at all. I need your help to arrange it, though. We need to organize a festival of people literally no one wants to see perform."
The old gypsy lady cackled. "Of course!" She lit up her crystal ball with a flick of the hand. "Who do you want?"
"Find the location of... Yoko Ono."
It didn't take long to get her on-board. She didn't even ask why we needed her. As soon as I told her she could do anything she wanted, she ordered a dodecaphonic orchestra, hundreds of bagpipes, and a black chalkboard.
Stonehenge was the location of the next concert. A detail that had already been set by Lucifer months prior. If I changed the venue, the thousands that bought tickets would riot across Europe.
Nickleback offered to play for us but I felt like I needed to refuse them. We couldn't afford to make the concert so ironic that people would genuinely enjoy it. Unfortunately, the band insisted so much that, eventually, I allowed them to open the concert with just one song.
The crowd shook the ground with their roaring, only calming down when they realized who was about to play. Nickleback then performed their smash hit 'Hero' with an undeniable passion and fervent energy that hadn't been seen in them for ages. The crowd went mild.
The priest and the old gypsy lady celebrated backstage without me. I was too focused on Lucifer, who watched the concert in the VIP section with smug amusement. His attitude changed when Yoko came out, though. The initial overture from the dodecaphonic orchestra quieted the audience immediately. Lucifer widened his eyes, leaning forward on his chair. People winced every other note. They were punished for following any sort of rhythm or harmony.
The army of bagpipes joined at the worst possible moment. More than half the audience was visibly frustrated. It all led to ten-minute solo where Yoko scratched her nails against the chalkboard, screeching incoherent noises whenever the crowd grew too comfortable.
Her performance ended with an awkward silence. Nobody wanted to be there anymore. Lucifer ran out of the VIP section. He headed backstage, just like we planned. My turn now.
I grabbed a kazoo, came to the stage on a unicycle, and shared the most inane dad jokes I found on the internet, blowing the kazoo for every punchline. I'd never seen so many confused faces before. And then my curse mark glowed.
A pentagram materialized on my forehead, emanating a powerful wave of purple energy that brainwashed the crowd into cheering like zombies. The energy flowed into every camera present, infecting everyone watching all over the world. I snapped out of the trance a few minutes later. Even though the crowd acted like they loved it, they couldn't precisely pinpoint why they liked it so much.
It worked. Lucifer arrived backstage, pale and shaking from how much it exerted him, ready to scream at me before the muscular man ambushed him with a tackle.
They rolled on the ground a few times. The muscular man ended up on top of him, threatening to stab Lucifer with his dagger. The devil kept the knife away from his face as much as he could. It was a centimeter away from his eye before he decided to use his magic.
After setting the muscular man on fire, Lucifer stood up and killed the priest with a telekinetic neck-snap. The gypsy woman ran away. Lucifer killed her with a flick of the wrist. Yoko died next. For some reason, Nickleback was spared.
Lucifer glared at me. "I may be running out of energy, but I have more than enough to crush anything you throw at me."
I was too scared to talk back. The next concert was a month away but I didn't even see the point in resisting now. What could I do?
Submitted December 02, 2019 at 07:10PM by That2009WeirdEmoKid https://ift.tt/2Y5Mpei
No comments:
Post a Comment