The Future Lasts A Long Time, Babycakes

There are these two guys, right, and it's a lock-in at The Well-Travelled Wrist in Hackney; and they're debating the merits of Mariah Carey, in her earlier and later guises. One's a Noo Yawker, with narrow eyes, kind of swarthy; the other is in a long coat, British, urbane. They seem to have known each other for a long time. "You see," says the Brit, "you see, is it ever possible to have liked a Mariah Carey song? Ever? I'm not sure if I ever even fancied her -"

"Pariah Carey," spits his companion.

"They sold her as this, this, you know - sophisticated chanteuse type, but -"

"But," repeating, raising his glass to his lips.

"I'm not sure if I ever."

"You're not sure if you ever go for the sophisticated chanteuse."

"This is exactly what worries me," slumping forward, "I find her attractive now," emphatically, "now that she's gone mad, dumped the slinky dresses, started, you know, showing a skipload more skin -"

"You like the whole, the whole porno-Britney thing."

"Exactly," earnestly, "I fancy her now that she's this, this damaged, vulnerable slut."

The Noo Yawker shrugs. It's not the first time he's heard this malarkey. It's not the first time he's thought about it. When he was crammed inside that block of ice for however long it was, time suspended, measured only by the frozen reefs multiplying in the canals of the ear, the Eustachian tubes, by the nitrogen tundra expanding geometrically between diaphragm and chest cavity, a whole new mathematics - metabolism quelled and static, down to a single heartbeat a day - oh yes, then he thought of Carey's madness. He thought of Carey's madness and his own role in it. He could do anything these days, HA HA HA! New York's other master magician, David Copperfield, he had vanquished in a battle on the moon, lobbing asteroids at each other and jarring the orbits of the planets. Whoever heard of Copperfield these days? He was strictly washed-up, a has-been, dude, the Noo Yawker's own inimitable brand of street magic had opened a vent in the space-time continuum and jettisoned that fucker somewhere in the 9th century BC. "Hoo ha!" exclaimed the Noo Yawker in triumph. His agent suggested maybe he ought to stop saying "Hoo ha." The Noo Yawker turned on him, "You want to spend eternity in a block of ice, mo-fo? In the 9th century, also?" His agent was confused, "Well, which one, eternity or the 9th century? Make up your mind, here." The Noo Yawker done turned his punk ass inside out, made body-wide wallpaper of his intestines. Kids gathered on the street put their hand to their heads, "Dude, that shit is fucked-up! Whooaaa! You're fuckin with my head, dude!" He told them to watch their fuckin language, that kind of "hipster argot" would have to be edited out of his next TV special of street magic. Two weeks later he took out Gandalf, in aerial combat above the city - a piece of piss. "I have defeated the Lord of the Ringpiece," he crowed, unnecessarily.

Blaine next thought about the madness of Carey while he was on top of a hundred-foot pole, buffeted in the crosswinds. Occasionally he regretted his part in it, but he'd been well-paid and it had amused him no end. The hideous HP Lovecraft visions he called up would have driven anyone nuts, except maybe HP Lovecraft. He ducked a passing helicopter. Someone was leaning out of it, unzipping his pants - the helicopter buzzed by again, and he was appalled to observe the bastard, yes, taking his nob in his hand, shouting, "Hey! HEY! Blaine! Make THIS disappear!" and then pissing, pissing right onto him as the 'copter made another pass - GODDAMN IT -Blaine shook his hands, dabbed gingerly at his head, soaked, struggling to maintain his balance. He stank. Oh boy, I am so cross now, he thought. He snapped his fingers and the helicopter turned into a submarine, plummeting. There were official questions about that when Blaine climbed down: "Davy, we don't want to ask these questions," said the Mayor, "The city loves ya, Davy - you don't mind me calling you Davy, do ya, Davy?"

<*dv_0*> "Yes, I fuckin' do," said Blaine, through grit teeth.

Ignoring him, lighting a cigar, "Like I say, you're Noo Yawk's official street magician. We love ya, Davy. Cuz Davy, you're the best, as Carly Simon put it."

"That's 'Baby, you're the best'," hissed Blaine, getting angry.

"What, you're name's 'Baby'? I don't understand," said the mayor, bemused. "OK, Baby Blaine - you're the best - you don't mind me calling you Baby, do you - on a first name basis, as it were -"

"I think I'm going to kill you," growled Blaine.

He'd put Carey into rehab around the time she wanted to "Go sexy", as the record company put it. "There's no Go Sexy clause in her contract," they explained. "We can't be having this. We could lose millions. It's a whole different fan base."

"Interesting," mused Blaine. "And yet it worked for Christina - she set out to transform herself from purveyor of innocuous Cuban-tinged pop into this, well, this enormous slapper."

"It won't work for Carey," said the record company. "Between ourselves, she's just too much of a cunt." He tormented her with horrors, with the knowledge of humanity's insignificance, the scale of time and the cosmos, the terrors of Yog-Sothoth and Nyarlathotep, and Great Cthulhu rising from the waves: total bughouse, straight into rehab.

Back in the pub, in Hackney: "So it was all you're doing," mouths Derren Brown, the Brit, Blaine's UK counterpart. He is appalled, "It's inhuman, evil, monstrous -"

"Settle down," says Blaine, vaguely disgusted by Brown's display of sentiment. "After all, you like her like this."

Brown nods, "It's all good." He's been working late, a tough day filming his new series, "Mind Rape." In this tortuous, schadenfreude-driven reality show, members of the public mysteriously lose control over their basic motor functions, usually their bowels. Lawsuits are already pending, and it hasn't even been screened yet. It's the last chance saloon for Brown, Channel 4 had already threatened not to renew his contract after the ill-advised "Psychic Rohypnol."

Blaine had fled here from Noo Yawk. Word on the street was that Gandalf had survived the hit. Blaine, powers depleted by the number he'd done on Carey, wasn't up to facing the sorcerer again so soon.

The door flies off its hinges. Gandalf stands there, enraged, his face a livid coastline. "Blaine!" he yells. "You couldn't hide from me in the Shire, in Minas Tirith, in Mordor - did you really think I would not find you in fucking HACKNEY?" Blaine cowers behind the table. "It wasn't me! The order came from high up, man, it was the U.S. Guv - it's Cheney, man, he's got a hard-on for you, man - or, uh, he would have, if not for that pace-maker - he can't get wood, man -" Blaine starts crying. Gandalf atomises the table with a lightning bolt.

Blaine is sweating snooker balls - literally. An unfortunate side effect of being a magician. He cries whole strings of coloured handkerchiefs, gives himself electric shocks while he wrings his hands. "Help me out, man!" he gurgles at Brown. "Use your Jedi mind trick, or whatever the fuck -"

Brown nods. "Cheney said 'unsound methods, terminate with extreme prejudice'," he intones to Gandalf, squinting. "You know how it goes -"

"Stay out of it, cunt!" snaps Gandalf.

"Oh," says Brown.

"He ain't lyin'!" weeps Blaine, desperate. "Cheney says you're into, you know, he says you're into the little people, the hobbits, that's no better than kiddie porn -"

"I'm going to kick your fucking arse, you sick piece of shit," says Gandalf.

There was no point sticking around. It was going to get messy. Brown left the pub, stepped into the drizzle outside; pulled up the collar of his coat; lit a cigarette and started walking towards Carey's gaff. 

(The opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the author. They may, however, be those of Derren Brown. You never fucking know, do you? MIIIIIIINNNDD RAAAAAAAPPPE!)

Submitted by Tom Muir

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