Moulin Rouge, A Spashley Story
Chapter 1 :
The greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love, and be loved in return.
The Moulin Rouge. A night club, a dance hall, and a bordello. Ruled over by Harold Zidler. A kingdom of night time pleasures, where the rich and powerful came to play with the young and beautiful creatures of the underworld. The most beautiful of all these was the woman I loved. Spencer. A courtesan, she sold her love to men. They called her the 'Sparkling Diamond', and she was the star of the Moulin Rouge.
The woman I loved is…dead.
I first came to Paris one year ago, the summer of love. I knew nothing of the Moulin Rouge, Harold Ziddler, or Spencer. The world had been swept up in the Bohemian revolution and I had traveled to London to be a part of it. Up on the hill was the village, Montmartre, a village of sin as my mother would say, but it was the center of the Bohemian world. Painters, writers, all known as the children of the revolution.
I had to come to live a penniless existence. I had come to write about truth, beauty, freedom, and above all things I believed in: love. My mother would constantly remind me of my "ridiculous obsession with love", but she knew she'd never stop me. Love was the one thing I knew every one person should not have to live without.
There was only one problem, I had never been in love.
And as I was sitting in front of my just-out-of-the-box typewriter, trying to think of a way to explain something that I had in fact never felt before in my life, an unconscious Argentinean suddenly fell through my ceiling. I didn't have time to register what was happening when a tiny man with a strange French accent entered my room without warning, "How do you do? My name is Henri Marie Raymond Toulouse-Lautrec Monfa." he explained that they were actually just rehearsing for a musical titled "Spectacular, Spectacular." Apparently the man who fell through the ceiling suffered from a disease called narcolepsy. Just then an angry voice form the whole in the ceiling made itself known.
"Oh! Wonderful! Now who will play the role of the young, sensitive Swiss poet!?" As I looked up I was met with what I thought to be a man adorning a wig and an unexceptional amount of make-up and a bald skinny fellow wearing a top hat and glasses. I felt like I had entered a different universe within minutes of me being here. And after a moment of pondering, all of they're eyes seemed to end up on me.
Somehow I had agreed to fill in the role for the time being and got myself tied into to this horrible atrocity they were calling a musical. The music was all over the place, the lines were jumbled, the story had no meaning, I knew something had to change quick. So as the three conscious men I had just met, bickered over what line to put where, it hit me like nothing ever had before, and I couldn't hold back.
"The hills are alive, with the sound of music!"
They stopped at once at my singing words, and the bald man claims that it fits perfectly with the chosen music piece, so I chose to continue.
"With songs they have sung for a thousand years!"
My smooth voice had apparently put them all into a daze as they stood wide-eyed, mouths hung open.
Toulouse approaches me with a shocked expression and asks, "Ashley, have you ever written a musical before?"
I think for a moment and realize I've never atually tried writing a musical before, which is odd seeing as how i've written everything else.
"Um, no, never a musical. Many stories but, no musicals."
"Well you should write ours!" exclaims Toulouse, and at that moment the Narcoleptic Argentinean sprang to life and agreed enthusiastically with Toulouse's suggestion.
"Well fine! I can see my work is no longer needed here!" the man with the make-up and the wig states and marches out with an angry step.
I began to panic, I had no idea where they had gotten the idea that I would even be nearly qualified to write a musical, of all things!
"Wait! I can't write a musical, I mean I haven't even begun to write my own story, let alone someone else's!" I began to quickly ascend the ladder we had previously placed in the relatively new whole in the ceiling.
"Ashley! Just answer me this!" I paused looking at Toulouse, waiting for him to continue.
"Do you believe in truth?"
I nodded in response.
"Beauty?"
"Yes."
"Freedom?"
"Yes, of course."
By this time they were all crowded around me and the ladder I resided on when Toulouse asked me one final question.
"And what about love Ashley, do you believe in love?"
At this I knew that I had been hooked. My heart grew and my mind began to swim with thoughts of love.
"Yes! Above all things I believe in love. Love is like oxygen, love is a many splendored thing, love lifts us up where we belong! All you need is love!"
The three mens faces grew with smiles as I finished my last sentenced knowing I would not, and could not, turn the offer down.
And it was settled. We were to visit the Moulin Rouge that night and pitch our idea to the most beautiful, Spencer Carlin, a woman I had never before heard of, who happened to be the very woman that would soon change my life forever.