INTERACT » Fan Fiction » Moulin Rouge Stream of Consciousness: Christian’s Journey to the Afterlife - by Caitlyn



They say there’s a bright light at the end of the tunnel when you die. They also say you should stay away from it and try to find your way. back to earth. I thought I saw it.It was coming, slowly but surely. This wonderful new life was coming my way. My hands turned clammy and trembled with tremulous excitement. Every vein in my body was pumping violently with my love for her, for my darling. My heart healed itself through that magical light, and resumed to pumping my beautifully Bohemian ideas through my arteries; hydrating my whole body with ideals of my life just two years ago.

“But you won’t fool the Children of the Revolution, no you won’t fool the Children of the Revolution, no, no…” We won. Spectacular Spectacular had finished, and I held Satine as we chorused on stage; the crescendo starting our new life together. At last I had experienced love, and I would live with the woman I loved for the rest of my life. And then the curtain closed. As if by an unseen force Satine coughed and gasped-and she fell. The curtains opened for the bow and the audience cheered. They thought she was acting, but my Satine was…”Christian, I’m dying.” I held her fragile frame in my shaky arms, that were shaky but not shaky enough to hold the woman who, for the first time, made me feel love ten times any infatuation anyone has ever had. She was dying of consumption, while my feelings for her consumed me whole. “Tell them our story, Christian. Promise me.” Satine’s fragile hand with the last breath of life in it hit the stage floor like ice on a new terra cotta floor…hard. The audience clapped and I realized how sick this world was. They needed to hear our story...

The light was getting closer. Each wave length the small, round bulb gave off hit me and charged me with energy. What I saw, it took irony to the next level. A beautifully gigantic train pulled slowly out of the curvy tunnel, and into the place where a whirlwind of spirits and mortals alike had suddenly spun my way. There were people crying, some laughing, some more who were crying. Then, there was the train. It came with such presence and elegance I was glued to where I was standing; in front of the door and in everyone’s way. I was confused…a train? Should I get on? How will I know? Where will I go? I hoped to God that he would take me in the right direction to Him and Satine…and hoped harder that they were in the same place. Would I be going there too? The train stuttered down the remainder of its path and came to a complete, supernatural halt. From the car I heard a harsh, smug laugh. It was so familiar, yet I didn’t want to associate the voice with the sound. I had hoped I would never see her again…it opened. The metal hinge whistled as the veneered wood opened the first door. A scantly clad, fishnet stocking covered calf made it’s vulgar presence known to this magical place in which I was waiting. When it took greedy hold of the stone paved floor, the rest of the scandalous body appeared. Roxanne…

“Come what may, come what may, I will love you until my dying day!” Again, Satine and I had shown our love for each other right under the duke’s nose. I had written a song into the play that allowed us to sing that we loved each other, and that come what may, we would always be together. So whenever we practiced, wrote and refined Spectacular Spectacular, we could conduct a sort of secret love pact that just grew stronger every day we laid eyes on each other. Roxanne, though, was jealous. Her greedy, lazy persona that had made her a courtesan-a woman who sold herself for a living, caused her to be jealous of all the attention Satine got as the “Sparkling Diamond.” Satine was the most beautiful woman in Paris, so obviously she blew them out of the water at the Moulin Rouge. Roxanne was an ugly, gold-digger woman; unwanted by all but a narcoleptic Argentinian with a handlebar moustache and unclean beard. “I don’t get this ending. Why does the courtesan choose the penniless WRITER? Whoops-I mean SITAR PLAYER!” She had exposed us-she had shown to the clueless duke how the play was but a version onstage of Satine and my relationship. The duke was the evil Maharaja, there to steal the Satine, the courtesan, from the penniless sitar playerwho was I, the penniless writer. She ruined everything.

Roxanne’s glazed eyes met mine. They laughed at me. “Well lover boy, ‘ere to git your precious Satine? Ehehehehhehe!” I snapped, and ran to her-pinned her against the wall of the train. “Don’t you EVER…" “Why does my heart cry? Feelings I can’t fight! You’re free to leave me but just don’t deceive me, and please-believe me when I say I love you!” I didn’t understand it. I said it wouldn’t drive me mad. I promised I wouldn’t be jealous. But Satine had to do something for me, for the sake of all who are involved with the Moulin Rouge. See, the Duke had started to become jealous himself. He wanted Satine to be all his. She was to sleep with him in order to save the Moulin Rouge, to keep us all fed and alive. We waited in the hall for something-none of us knew what. I was thrown out of the hall and receded into my small apartment. A little later, Satine ran into my room, escorted by Chocolat. Tears ran down her pretty face, and she ran into my arms. “I couldn’t! I couldn’t!”

She disappeared. I don’t know where she went. I heard a wail, and she was gone. The mobs around me whispered about what’s not supposed to be whispered about. As sick as it is, the ends of my mouth curled into a devious smile, when I interpreted the hushed words-Roxanne had just gone to Hell. But I did not dwell on it long, for an even beautiful train appeared now. This one was of white birch wood; decorated lavishly with golden flowers. This one was moving more rapidly, and stopped faster than it moved. The doors flew open before anyone could grasp what happened, and the crowds poured out of the door. Tears of everyone’s happiness drowned me dead. They had all been reunited…where was Satine? Oh God where? The train pulled away, and the lights dimmed in the space where I was waiting. The crowds slowly made their way down a flight of steps to horse-drawn carriages-tons of them, all beautiful. The train pulled away. I fell; my face twisting in agony, on my knees to the floor. “WHY?” I cried bitter tears for my darling, my love. My first and only love was…gone?

The train came back. It just…came back. I turned, and there it was…waiting for me with a blank stare. It beckoned me closer, asked for a pat on the head for doing well. I walked, step by step, one in front of the other to the door. As I came to the point where my face was an inch away, they opened, and there I feasted my eyes upon Satine! How can I describe what I felt? I had the happiness of a thousand smiling guardian angels, and Satine. Her blue oceans for eyes looked into mine, and I reached out to touch her face. She shrunk towards my hand, and I embraced her so that she would never leave my arms again. No fairy tale has a perfect happy ending, at least none that I have written. In this fairy tale, the courtesan picks the penniless sitar player.