by Nathan Allen
“Good evening Father,” Nicola said following the beep. “This is Nicola Jeffries from the Westwood Center Pharmacy. I’m afraid there’s been a slight mix-up with your recent prescription, where we believe we may have given you the wrong medication by mistake. Please call us back as soon as you get this message, or come in and see us and we can have this issue resolved right away. Thank you.”
Nicola was struck by a slight feeling of irritation once the call had ended. Even though she knew Fr. Gerdtz was in his seventies, it was still unusual for a customer to have only a landline phone. She found it hard to believe in this day and age there were still people who couldn’t be reached at any time of the day or night. Even her grandparents had cell phones.
Of more pressing concern was her slightly unprofessional slip-up – she had mixed up his arthritis pills with medication used to treat insomnia – but she didn’t think it would cause too many problems. At least, she hoped not. She assumed Fr. Gerdtz would have figured out by now the pills he had been given were not his usual ones. Even if he had taken them by mistake, the consequences would not be especially dire. He may experience some unpleasant side-effects such as headaches, nausea and dizziness. At worst, a bad reaction could result in Fr. Gerdtz becoming delusional; he may hear strange voices or experience unusual, vivid dreams and bizarre hallucinations. But thankfully he was not at risk of long-term damage, and any side-effects would cease as soon as he stopped taking the medication. It was an embarrassing mistake, but nothing that couldn’t be undone.
A few minutes after making the call, Nicola finished her shift and called her boyfriend to come pick her up.
Twenty-three minutes later, William Shatner was gunned down while filming an advertisement for frozen pizza.
The Staples Center was teeming with fans this Saturday night in the week leading up to Christmas. It was an audience that traversed many key demographics including giddy fanboys, urban youths, trend-chasing hipsters, career women, and more screaming teenage girls than a Glasgow maternity ward. Over twenty thousand viewed the performance, the majority through the four and a half inch LCD screens of their smartphones.
A single spotlight focused on the beloved pop star as she stood center stage, tearing through a maudlin ballad about holding on to hope in the midst of seemingly insurmountable pain and suffering. Outfit by Marc Jacobs. Shoes by Giuseppe Zanotti. Cost: more than what an average fan earned in one year. Total number of times the pop star will wear said outfit: one.
A touching montage paying tribute to all the stars who had tragically passed in recent weeks played on the massive screens behind her. The audience saw the smiling faces of the dearly departed Krystal Blayze, James Franco, Seth Rogen, Bella Thorne, Courtney Cox, Billy Bob Thornton, Sonny “Skrillex” Moore, Cara Delevingne, Ansel Elgort, David Lee Roth, William Shatner, Kelly Osbourne, Marvin “Meat Loaf” Aday, Tobey Maguire, Mark Harmon, Alice Eve and Larry the Cable Guy.
The music ended, the pop star stretching the final note out a further forty-five lung-busting seconds. The crowd rose as one to applaud this spine-tingling, emotionally uplifting performance. She paused respectfully to give the moment the appropriate levity.
The final image faded to black and was replaced by a single line of text. The screens now displayed eighteen giant characters that said more than complete sentences or well thought out debate ever could: “#FamousLivesMatter”.
“That was my new song,” the pop star announced. “It’s called ‘Crying Wit’ Open Eyez’, and I dedicate it to everyone we have lost these past few weeks. It will be available exclusively on Tidal from tomorrow.”
Further manic cheering from the crowd.
“And now, I would like to invite some of my dearest friends onto the stage tonight for a very important message.”
Out came the cavalcade of megastars, one by one. Leading the way was her husband, a successful rapper famous for his intricate and inventive lyrics that alternated between gritty street vignettes and shameless product placement for his multiple corporate masters. Next came the frontman for a multiplatinum middle-of-the-road British rock group, popular with both the very young and the very old. Several famous actors, all of whom were eager to push their social causes if they happened to coincide with their film promotion duties. Another well-known female pop star, successful but not so famous that she threatened to steal the limelight from the one true star of the show. And a fashion designer, allowed to tag along tonight as a reward for all the free clothes he had gifted the pop star over the years.
There were seventeen celebrities in total. They joined hands and stood side-by-side to form one united front.
“Celebrities, all of us in the public eye, we perform an important service to the world,” the pop star said. “We deliver hope to those who have none. We give you something to aspire towards when you have lost your way. We brighten your day, and we rescue you from a mundane existence. We selflessly let you into our lives, and we ask for nothing in return.”
The crowd lost their collective minds at this historic moment. With so many luminaries in the one place at the one time, there was the very real prospect of a riot breaking out at any moment.
“It has never been easy to do what we do,” she continued. “I know that may be difficult for ordinary folk like you to understand. But believe me, being famous just keeps getting harder and harder. The shocking deaths of so many of our fellow stars has affected us greatly. Famous lives matter. But we are strong. We are survivors. Together we stand as one to fight this evil. We will not give in to any violence or intimid–”
Her stirring speech was cut short when the designer’s chest exploded. His body was thrown forward, and he was dead before his head hit the stage.
A quarter-second of stunned silence passed before the place erupted into pandemonium.
The celebrities all made a desperate dash for safety, but they had a whore’s chance in heaven of escaping the unremitting gunfire. The British rock singer caught a bullet to the stomach. He fell to the floor, bleeding out in front of thousands of terrified fans. One of the actors dived into the crowd and attempted to use several audience members as human shields. The shot somehow sailed past the innocent bystanders and grazed the actor’s throat. A jet of blood spurted out from the ruptured artery.
The pop star ran as fast as it was possible to move in a glittery pair of six-inch heels. A blast rang out seconds before she was about to reach a point of safety behind a large speaker, and her kneecap was obliterated. She collapsed in agony.
Fr. Gerdtz emerged from the darkness. In his hands was his newest toy – a Remington M870 pump action shotgun. It had appeared on his doorstep several days earlier, and in the time since he had done little else but search for an opportunity to put it to use.
He stepped around the bodies sprawled out across the stage, finishing off the remaining few displaying any signs of life, and made his way over to the injured diva.
When Fr. Gerdtz first became aware of this much-adored pop star, the biggest name in popular music this century, he hoped he had finally discovered a celebrity deserving of such unadulterated fawning. For someone to be so universally respected and admired by everyone from housewives to presidents, she must have surely achieved some extraordinary feats. But the further he looked, the more despondent he became. This woman was far from a hero. She had not been forced to overcome any great hardship in her life to get to where she was now. She had been raised in a comfortable upper-middle class environment. She had been part of the entertainment industry since her teens, which meant she never suffered the gross indignity of having to work a real job. She liked to portray herself as an icon of female empowerment, but was in actuality a self-absorbed puppet who relied on dozens of men to do everything for her, from writing, producing and performing her music to managing her business interests. She loudly and proudly supported progressive causes such as civil rights and gender equality, but only after making absolutely certain it wouldn’t harm her record sales. The last thing s
he wanted was to offend the wrong people. She waited for braver, less-famous artists to test the waters first, then ran it by her management and focus groups before finally jumping on the bandwagon. She appeared far more interested in expanding her empire and raking in dollars than helping out anyone less fortunate than herself.
As far as Fr. Gerdtz could tell, her only contribution to the world was a string of mildly inoffensive pop songs containing the kind of vaguely inspirational or motivational messages one might find inside a greeting card. She was a triumph of PR over talent, a product as soulless as the cans of Pepsi she spruiked.
In summation, she was no different from every other pampered starlet with a runaway ego and deluded sense of self-worth. A perfect symbol for a shallow and materialistic generation who idolized her for the money she made and the magazine covers she adorned.
The pop star tried crawling to safety, but could only make it a few feet before the excruciating pain prevented her from going any further.
Fr. Gerdtz stood over her body, lying prone on the stage. He rested the barrel of the shotgun against her throat.
“Wait ...” she wheezed. “Don’t you know who I–”
He pulled the trigger. A two foot wide crater was carved into the stage, and the pop star’s head became liberated from her body.
An apocalyptic howl tore through the stadium. It was the cry of thousands of disciples witnessing the demise of their messiah.
Fr. Gerdtz looked out into the crowd. He took a moment to drink in all the chaos he had created. A large proportion of the audience had bolted for the exits as soon as the shooting commenced, but many remained in their seats. Whether this was due to being paralyzed by fear, or whether they were simply unable to look away, he wasn’t sure. But he saw that he now commanded the biggest audience of his life. The eyes of the world were upon him, and he had to make the most of this opportunity.
He reached down to collect the wireless microphone lying beside the pop star’s headless body. He cleared his throat in preparation for his most important sermon to date.
“You all believed this woman was a living goddess,” he began. “You believed she was something extraordinary. Something beyond a mere mortal.”
He clasped a handful of bloodied hair extensions and lifted the pop star’s disembodied head into the air. Screams of terror rippled around the auditorium as her lifeless eyes opened up and stared back into the crowd.
“She appears quite mortal to me. She is very human. Nothing but the manufactured byproduct of songwriters, stylists, choreographers and stage parents. A mega-millionaire who used poverty and violent imagery as stage props and set dressing, then retreated to the safety of her limousines, bodyguards and fortress-like mansions. And you dare worship her as an icon? This woman has performed no miracles. No halo rest atop this head.”
The words flew from his mouth with a righteous fury.
“Salvation may be too late for her,” he continued, tossing the head aside. “But it’s not too late for all of you. You need to open your eyes and recognize the virus of celebrity for what it is – a tool of the devil, used to manipulate those with weak wills and indolent minds. Reject these false icons. Give your life to the one true God.”
He held the microphone out at arm’s length and released it from his grasp, a move he had seen others employ to convey a sense of faux-rebellion. It hit the stage with a jarring clunk and a squawk of feedback.
He took a step back and disappeared into the shadows. By the time security rushed in with their weapons drawn, he was gone.
Twenty-four hours later, “Crying Wit’ Open Eyez” was the world’s most downloaded and streamed song. Subscriptions for the struggling music streaming service Tidal had increased a further three million.
Chapter 6
The pop star’s shocking and very public demise marked an apparent turning point in how society viewed the nature of celebrity. People saw they could no longer tolerate being nothing more than fawning drones to the stars, and they had to face up to their own complicity in this terrible state of affairs. This could not go on.
Numerous public figures including George Takai, Tom Waits, Amy Adams, Rod Stewart, Art Garfunkel, Rachel McAdams, Paul Giamatti, Rupert Grint, Jamie Lee Curtis, Vincent D’Onofrio, James Van Der Beek and Björk renounced their celebrity status and retreated from the limelight, never to be seen or heard from again. Taylor Swift, a popular singer who often invited arbitrary celebrities onto stage for no reason other than to allow her fans to scream at them, ceased performing altogether. She also disbanded her Sycophant Squad of celebrity buddies.
Irish singer Enya quit music to focus on her environmentalism and her efforts to save endangered whales. Legendary Queen frontman Adam Lambert retired from showbiz and now volunteers in an orphanage for Syrian refugees. Rapper Azealia Banks dropped her “crazy bitch” act and accepted a job as a loans officer at a local financial institution.
However, many stars resisted calls to tone down their spotlight-hogging lifestyles, stubbornly declaring that to do so would mean “the terrorists had won”. Seminal punk rock group 5 Seconds of Summer carried on performing, but were later forced to abandon a planned world tour due to an unforeseen drummer beheading. Twilight star Taylor Lautner was found bludgeoned to death in his hotel room, hours before he was due to accept a lifetime achievement award at the MTV Movie Awards. Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine was discovered backstage at the same event, lying face-down in a pool of blood with a knife protruding from his back. Non-famous band members Jesse Carmichael, Mickey Madden, James Valentine, PJ Morton and Matt Flynn all escaped unharmed.
Months went by, and the killings continued unabated. The wave of carnage was as relentless as it was indiscriminate. No apparent distinction was made between “good” celebrities and “bad” celebrities. If they were famous, they were in the crosshairs.
Actors Vince Vaughan, Gary Sinese, Ben Affleck, Bruce Willis, Sean Penn, Jeremy Renner and Kevin Sorbo were all shot and killed, as were musicians Ice T, Ted Nugent, Miranda Lambert and Kid Rock. Nugent was gunned down wearing an NRA-approved t-shirt bearing the slogan “Guns Don’t Kill People, Crazy Priests Kill People”.
A number of suspects were currently being held by police following the murders of Ryan Reynolds, Dana Carvey, Max Landis, Adele, Jessica Simpson and Seth MacFarlane. These were believed to be copycats inspired by the mysterious priest, who at present remained at large.
Despite multiple eyewitnesses to his many crimes, little was known about the man responsible beyond the fact that he was “white”, “old” and “foreign”. Much of the cell phone footage obtained from the concert was too shaky or out of focus to be of any use to investigators. The police and Catholic Church both stated that it was unlikely the suspect was an actual priest, and that his attire was either a gimmick or meant to be interpreted as some sort of metaphor.
Celebrity president Donald Trump implored the public to not be afraid in the face of these attacks. He declared the best response was for people to carry on living their lives as normal. He made this statement shortly after increasing the annual Homeland Security budget by $10 billion and tripling the number of secret service agents assigned to protect him.
Instagram went into liquidation once the rich and famous deactivated their accounts and deserted the app en masse. Of those who remained, the majority took to posting landscapes and inspirational quotes rather than mirror selfies and red carpet glamours shots. Snapchat filed for bankruptcy, while Twitter was now predominantly used as an emergency broadcast system.
Sales of balaclavas, burqas and niqabs rose as celebrities sought to conceal their identity and protect themselves from prying eyes. They discovered that your anonymity was a lot like your virginity – once it was lost, there was nothing you could do to get it back.
One by one, reality television programs disappeared from the air. The once fame-hungry subjects were now less enthusiastic about exposing every aspect of their lives to millions of strangers, while soaring insur
ance premiums made their production increasingly unviable. Entertainment-based TV shows and celebrity-centered magazines were next on the chopping block. Their content ran dry when fewer and fewer stars were willing to give up their time to speak with them.
Book burnings were organized by concerned citizens groups, worried about the insidiousness of celebrity culture slowly creeping into society. Copies of Kim Kardashian’s Selfish, Paris Hilton’s Confessions Of An Heiress and Krystal Blayze’s #YOLO, Bitch! were all incinerated.
With shrinking demand for their services, members of the paparazzi sold their cameras and commenced new careers as telemarketers, parking attendants and debt collectors, attaining levels of self-worth and self-respect they never believed possible.
Over time, the lives of the regular non-famous population were also affected, but in substantially different ways. They left their homes more, and began interacting with their neighbors and their community. They accepted the fact that they would never become famous, and they were perfectly fine with that. They realized it was more important to be a kind and decent person, and they didn’t need the approval of millions of strangers to feel good about themselves. They reverted to using real language when conversing with one another, forming complete sentences without having to quote popular television shows or internet-spawned buzzwords and infantile catchphrases. Parents paid more attention to their own children and less to Angelina Jolie’s and Jennifer Garner’s offspring. Academic performance improved across the world now that trivial matters no longer occupied students’ minds.
Worldwide church attendances steadily increased to levels not seen since the end of the Second World War, reversing a seventy-year downward trend that commenced with the advent of television. Charity work and volunteerism rose, while atheism sunk to an all-time low.
