The Great Pretender

The Great Pretender

Standing back from the entrance, the faceless man nodded once. "Looks clear," he stated without the slightest hint of irony. I considered this for a moment before shrugging and taking his word for it.

"All right," I was pretty much already committed to this course of action, and saw no point in hesitating any further. I checked the side of the gun. The tiny, glowing green numbers verified the ammo count still read fifteen. This was probably the hundredth time I’d checked since picking the heavy, black thing up. "Guess I'll go ahead, then."

"Please," the faceless man bowed and, with an extravagant gesture, and the flutter of his heavy, velvet cape waved me past him and across the threshold. "Do not let me keep you. I can go no further." Rising from his flourish, he turned and started back the way we’d come – his footfalls light on the soft, loamy ground beneath our feet.

I glanced over my shoulder at the faceless man as I made to cross the threshold and enter the darkened corridor before me. “Who are you?”

“You ask this now?” he stopped mid-stride, but did not look back. “After all that we have seen?”

“Yeah,” I shrugged again as I turned my back fully on the void. I repeatedly turned my head back and forth, looking from the expanse of regal purple which made up the man’s velvet cape, to the gaping, unknown darkness beyond the arched doorway. “Pretty dumb, right?”

“Oh,” I listened for any change in his beautifully cadenced voice, yet none came. “I cannot say for sure about that. You were in a stressful situation when we met. Certain things went forgotten or unsaid. It is… forgivable.”

“What’s inside?” I waved the barrel of the heavy pistol vaguely towards the entry to the unknown and it was the faceless man’s turn to shrug and say nothing. I watched his back in silence for a few more seconds: “You don’t know, do you?”

“Can you be certain?” he asked, answering my question with one of his own. “What does it matter if I know or do not? I am not in a position to tell you. Does my knowledge, or lack of knowledge, truly impact your decision?” He glanced back over his shoulder and I saw the first simple makings of structure where previously there had been only a blank canvas of flesh.

“I guess not,” another shrug from me as I lowered the gun to my side. The thing was getting heavier and I was reconsidering whatever instinct had made me pick it up earlier. I hated the fucking thing. Hated what it represented, what I knew it could do. Most of all, I hated the fact that I knew I would need it. And probably sooner rather than later. “Can we ever be truly certain of anything?”

“Existential now, are we?” I heard the smile in his smooth tones as he responded without a hint of consideration to his words. It was like he knew what I was going to say in advance of my own knowledge, and had his response prepared.

“I don’t know about all that,” I replied after some consideration. “Existentialism… nihilism… capitalism… I was never good in school. High concepts were way over my head. Give me something simple, something concrete, and I could rock it. Deep thinking was never for me anyway,” I held up the gun and gave him another of my regularly scheduled shrugs. “Sadly, this is more my speed. Simple. Serves only a single purpose. Nothing more than the sum of its parts.”

“’The sum of its parts’,” he parroted back to me in a near perfect impression of my own voice, even as my words still echoed in my ears. “Hardly low-concept, would you not agree?”

“Maybe,” yet again, I could only shrug yet again as I considered what the faceless man was saying. “I’m still not sure.”

“But there’s more than that, I expect,” he turned back to face me fully, the heavy, velvet cape flaring out as he spun in place, so full of gentle grace that I could barely follow the movement.

“Wha…?” I sucked in a breath, harsh and cold, through my teeth. No longer was he “the faceless man”. Sharp eyes pierced mine as he held my gaze with his own. A tall, aquiline nose hovered above a thick, dark mustache, itself over a pair of full, soft looking lips. “How…?”

“Is this my true appearance?” he passed a hand over his new face, as if feeling it for the first time. I was reminded of the post – regeneration scenes in Doctor Who when the new actor invariably pokes and prods at himself and questions his new appearance. “Or, have I merely selected it from a library of knowledge plucked from your head? Some countenance you are comfortable with in order to make this conversation easier; more palatable.”

The gun in my hand rose of its own accord, pointing at the man now standing before me. “You’re in my mind?”

“Aren’t we all, Darling?” he tilted his head from side to side; studying me just as I was watching him.

“I’m afraid,” I admitted, my voice a low whisper – barely audible even to my own ears. With a quick glance over my shoulder, I again affirmed that the mysterious entrance remained where it had been. “I don’t know what to do…” I let gravity take over and my arm dropped, the pistol still held in my grip now useless at my side.

“And that,” the previously faceless man said, a smile twitching the tips of the mustache above his lips, “is the truth of life, is it not?”

“Now who’s being existential?” I murmured.

“I am not here to make the choice for you,” he continued, my pathetic attempt at sarcasm having no impact on him whatsoever. “I am also not where you need to go. We all, each and every one of us, must face our future alone; must decide who we are, who we want to be. No one can make that choice for you, my dearest one,” he came forward, returning to my side, and the entry way only recently inspected.

I felt the tears burning behind my eyes before I could even form words.

“It’s okay to be scared,” he soothed, his silver tongue making the words even more of a comfort than they would have been if spoken by my own mother. “There is no shame in it.” His arms rose from his sides, open to catch me as I fell into his chest, the tears breaking free of the wall built by my will, and the lifelong belief that a man should never cry. A belief that my father had… instilled?... in me, often at the end of a belt or with the impact of a calloused fist.

“I can’t…” I sniffed, sucking snot and tears back up into my nose even as they dripped and ran down the previously faceless man’s pristine tuxedo.

Had he been wearing this the entire time? I could not recall, though it made no difference either way.

“You can,” he replied simply, his hands on my shoulders moved me gently away from his chest and the wet smear I had left on his white shirt. “It’s what makes you a man. What makes you human,” he smiled, then leaned in and placed a gentle kiss on each of my cheeks, his mustache tickling my skin with each soft contact, before releasing my shoulders and taking my face in those same soft, strong hands. “There is nothing you cannot do, Dearest One. All you need do is try,” he came in again, his lips on mine for the merest of moments. There was nothing sexual in it, nothing more than a simple gesture of love and support, and it bolstered me.

“But,” the doubt still nibbled at the back of my brain. “What if I fail? What if I make the wrong choice?” His eyes grew hard as he stared into my own, but only for a second. Less than a second. Less time that it took my heart to beat only a half beat.

“Then,” he began as if it were the simplest fact in the world, “you try again. Try something else,” his lips on my forehead. My arms came up, around his back, and I pulled myself to him.

“I don’t want you to go,” I whispered. “I can’t do this alone.”

“I will always be with you, Darling,” he kissed my forehead once more before extricating himself from my arms and stepping back. “In here,” he touched the side of my head, “here,” his hand moved down and pressed to my heart, “and all around you. I belong to the world you inhabit, Dearest, there when you need me. Forever.”

Before I had a chance to respond to this revelation, to say anything, do anything, he turned with a flair and flutter of the heavy, purple cape and vanished before I could blink, his final word “forever” echoing in my ears, filling the air around me, making me feel safe.

I turned from the spot upon which he had been standing, the formerly faceless man who may or may not have ever, actually been there, and once again faced the entrance and the dark mysteries which lay beyond.

I preparation, I raised my hand to check the gun once again, and found it was no longer in my grip.

Panic.

I dropped to my knees, pawing at the soft ground, a blind man groping for… anything… but it was gone.

“Was it ever truly there?” the world asked me in the faceless man’s voice. “Or was it a construct of your own insecurities? Created to provide you some sense of safety in your own universe?”

I sat back on the ground, the wet grass soaking the seat of my pants, and looked around at the world, taking it all in for the first time. The beauty; the wonder; the magic of it all, and I realized he was right. I wouldn’t need the gun. I wouldn’t need anything more than I had with me.

And he was always there when I needed him. The faceless man. The voice in the ether.

The Great Pretender.

END

Cover Image by Charlie Cody

Note:

This story originally appeared in the anthology The Show Must Go On (now out of print) which is a collection of short fiction and poetry inspired by the music and legacy of Freddie Mercury.