“Is he with us?”
A finger lifts my eyelid, “Oh, yes. He’s back with us now.”
A masked face looms into my field of vision, “Welcome back. You’ve had a rather longer intermission than some of our other inpatients. We weren’t quite prepared for the sorry state of your insides.”
“If I’d known,” I say croakily, “I’d have gone for a colonic.”
The masked face steps back, “Let’s get him upright.”
My bed is flipped vertically and three women in masks stand before me. The one in charge removes her mask and examines my body, which I have just realised is completely exposed.
“Well team,” she says, crossing her arms, “have we got our work cut out with this one?”
The one to her right steps forward and prods my waist, “I used to like playing with plasticine when I was little.”
“Take him down and put him in the suit.”
“Do you think he’s ready for the suit, Dr Kaspara?” asked the one to her left.
“There will be only one way to find out,” said Dr Kaspara.
Thirty minutes later I’m tied to a chair having a hell of a lot of make-up applied to my face. Dr Kaspara is sitting in a chair next to me, flicking through a magazine.
“Are you all perverts?” I ask.
Dr Kaspara closes her magazine and turns to face me, “Why do you ask that question?”
“Because if you are,” I say, “I just want you to know that I’m up for absolutely anything.”
“Really.”
“No power tools though. Almost came a cropper with a cropper once.”
“There is nothing of that nature going on,” says Dr Kaspara. “You’re being licked into shape, that’s all.”
“But what for? I’m in pretty good nick.”
“No, you’re not.” Dr Kaspara stands up and heads to the door. “But we all have a place in life. You’ll see.”
I’m left alone with my painters and I decide to close my eyes and relax.
Two hours later I’m sat down in front of a mirror that only reflects my head and I have trouble recognising myself. My hair is darker and plastered down with a severe partin. My complexion is walnut and my teeth are platinum. I even have a Robert Goulet moustache with matching eyebrows. My sideburns have also been reduced an inch a-piece.
“I want my sideburns back,” I say, my mouth temporarily blinding me.
They stand me up and start to dress me in a gold and silver tartan-pattern three piece suit. It seems to be tailored perfectly, right down to the gold cuban heels. Dr Kaspara comes back into the room. Now she is wearing a very elegant purple evening dress. She walks right up to me and hands me a gold bowtie.
“You can put this on yourself,” she says.
I do as she says and then I’m led out behind her down a long corridor. There is something rhythmically soothing in the sound of my cuban heels tapping the floor. At the end of the corridor is a doorway leading to a hall of mirrors. I am positioned on a small, circular two foot high podium and they disappear from the room and leave me surrounded by myself. As we all stare at eachother, I see myself fully for the first time, and I have trouble believing that it’s really me.
The silence is broken suddenly by the echoes of Dr Kaspara’s voice from hidden speakers all around me.
“This is where your new life begins…Your name now and forever more will be Merlin Vaughan, an all-round entertainer with the power to hold television and studio audiences in the palm of your hand. When you talk, people will listen. Whatever you do or say, wherever you go, whoever you lay, it will all be seen as worthy of the public record…Take a look at your image, Merlin. For this is the image that will keep you on every screen and every coffee table in every corner of civilization. You stand on the cusp of a new dawn in which mankind will finally break free of it’s feeling of duty and morality…Your light will show the only true light to the end of this uncertain path…Your true light, Merlin, will show us the way.”
I’m plunged into darkness and silence. I stand there, shivering slightly, my breathing breaking like thunderbolts on a mountain-top. A low humming sound begins and it slowly rises in volume. I think I can hear the murmuring of voices, subdued at first but gathering in volume and number. Somewhere beyond the darkness something is happening. As the ambience grows louder and louder, a vertical shaft of blinding light splits the blackness and I squint. It gets wider until the light surrounds me and I’m met with a deafening roar of cheers and applause. My eyes widen and there I am, alone and on stage before camera crews and an audience of at least a thousand people. Every pair of eyes fixed expectantly on me.
Dr Kaspara appears to my left, behind Camera Three. She crosses her arms and gives me a benign smile.
I face the audience and take a deep breath.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I’m Merlin Vaughan and welcome to the greatest show on Earth…!”
