Disclaimer: I do not own Moulin Rouge! or any of the characters.
Author's Note: I have changed one little detail here. I have the Moulin Rouge still open, even though this takes place after the movie. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!
The end.
It is done, finished. Somehow I feel as though telling the story has done me better than any drinking spree has ever done. Remembering, oddly enough, has given me more relief than trying to forget. Perhaps it's because I could never forget no matter how hard I tried.
Perhaps it is because she didn't want me to forget.
It's been awhile. I don't know how long. The story is done. Now where to go from here? I could try to get another job as a playwright. I haven't written things like that in a long time. I wonder what would come out if I did. Something miserable. Something without a happy ending. I live in a world where there are no happy endings.
The story is done. The sun shines through my window, illuminating the room. I stand up. Paris looks oddly beautiful today. It is cold outside.
For the first time in…months…I feel the urge to go for a walk.
I go through motions that seem long forgotten. Wash my face, shave—how long has it been since I've done that? Put on clean clothes, make myself generally presentable. I'm not looking for work, not today. Can't run before you walk, you know. Just going out to explore.
You know, I've been in Paris for awhile and I never truly got to see the city. I never took a walk for the sake of taking a walk.
I only really went between my garret and the Moulin Rouge, and to me that was what Paris was. Even the train station by which I arrived seems like another world altogether now.
The sun hits my face as soon as I go outside. It really is cold.
And then my eyes adjust and there it is, the Moulin Rouge, its red windmill turning. It stands out on the street, staring blatantly at me, and I have to stop and take a deep breath, which comes out in a cough. I don't look away.
The Moulin Rouge is not closed, but I know it has lost its spirit. Everyone here has either left or become somewhat depressed after Satine's death. That golden age of bohemian art is over, replaced by something more real. And reality is a tragedy, here.
This was a bad idea.
I should have known that I couldn't handle it. I should have stayed where I belong, inside, but I've been in there too long and besides, our story is in there too and I feel that it would be a little crowded. I need room to breathe, to think. I need to find out where to go from here.
I avert my gaze and slowly, carefully, make my way down the street.
Montmartre lies on a hill, and I find myself going not up, but down, towards the Seine. It is the river that runs through Paris, and I have never seen it up close before. I would have liked, if we had been given the time, to have taken a walk with Satine along the river's edge. I have heard that it is beautiful. The sort of thing that can inspire a poet such as myself.
At first I can only think of the Moulin Rouge. What shall become of her? And then I'm in unfamiliar territory and everything else distracts me—the buildings, the people, and then, the river. It is beautiful, and I take a walk alongside it. It is cold. The water flows sluggishly, I walk slowly, and I wonder what it would be like to just jump in and let the current take me where it will.
It is not a suicidal thought. I have no ideas, nowhere to go, and surely wherever the river could take me would be better than anything I could come up with.
The river could take me away from here.
I've come to realise that love can destroy everything. Love makes everything seem perfect, when you're in love, when it's all going well. Nothing can be wrong with the world until it all starts to go awry, and then everything is. And when love dies, well, the world dies.
There is nothing wrong with Paris. Paris is a beautiful city and I should be happy to be living here. But my love in Paris went wrong, and it killed the city for me. It would seem irrational for anyone who has never had that sort of thing happen to them. There are few people who can understand. There are few people who would want to understand, if they knew what it was really like.
The Seine is beautiful and Paris is beautiful and I can even admit that Montmartre and the Moulin Rouge, in their own way, are beautiful. But I can't enjoy any of it. There are too many memories here.