This is a parody. Legally. IE, I am receiving no compensation, no one is going about saying that I wrote Moulin Rouge! (which is a masterwork by itself, long live Baz Luhrman and if you don't love his work you can get the hell out of my office), and I am not going to ever be claiming to have written Moulin Rouge!. This is a work that can't come anywhere near the level of mastery that Moulin Rouge! showed us. As a work of fanfiction based entirely on the story of Moulin Rouge! several lines were entirely lifted from the script. I do not claim them as mine. The only things in here I can claim are descriptions, I'm pretty sure.
Please don't sue me.
Inspired by and dedicated to Isaisanisa.
oOo
Paris, Montmartre, 1901
High above the smoky bustle of an evening in Montmartre, a thin man sat in a small, unkempt room. The apartment showed signs that it had once been well loved, but now the walls were dingy with soot and old stains, the curtains stiff with dirt in the late summer breeze that was barely ghosting through the window. The windows were grimy and stiff, the hinges of the door beginning to rust from lack of oil, and the floorboards were covered in ugly filth.
The man had become gaunt over a year of hard drinking, his eyes tired as he stared listlessly out at the moon. She was fat in the sky, full and round, plumply hanging with her friends, the stars, all shining around her. The newly completed Eiffel Tower was majestic in the distance, tall and proud with its heavy iron legs planted firmly to the ground. Paris was beautiful, but her charm was lost to the man in the corner staring out at her.
He rose slowly, walking to the window. From there he could see the Siene covered in l'beau clair de lune, the beautiful moonlight, and he draped thin hands out of the window. The breeze stirred his hair- once golden and splendid, it had grown limp with his lack of care and lack of food. He ran a hand absently through it, long nails trailing over the scalp. Below, the mixed sounds of the district could be heard, and he scowled at the screams of laughter. They were interspersed with pleas and pain, and the shouted voices from the bar began to grate on him. Pushing away from the window, he was about to go and collapse in bed when he caught sight of the windmill.
Heart constricting, he went to the other window, the one he rarely opened these days, and slowly pushed the shutters back.
There it was.
The slowly rotting windmill creaked slightly as it turned just across the street from his building. He watched it with pained eyes, seeing the shattered bulbs that had once let it light up like Christmas in July. His eyes traced the ruins of the compound, the decaying Elephant, the once magnificent show house. For a moment, he thought he could hear the sounds of people laughing and singing again, and if he closed his eyes he could see it, the dazzling spectacle of light and color that had been the Moulin Rouge. The red lights soared to the air, the brilliant fireworks shot to the sky, the tent upon the elephants back brilliant red and gorgeously lit up in the moonlight. There was the scent of champagne on the air, the laughter and cheers from inside, the music, the can-can…
When his eyes opened again, only the crumbling ruins remained.
He surveyed it with new eyes, and abruptly turned to hunt through the mess of his closet. Slowly, clothing was excavated away to reveal a heavy black box. Dragging it out with shaking hands, he picked it up and set it down on the rickety table, exhaling loudly.
The locks clicked open to reveal a typewriter.
oOo
The Moulin Rouge… It was a night club, a bordello, a dance hall, a land full of all the pleasures of sin. It was ruled by Fergus Crowley, then, late of some indistinguishable part of England and come to France to take over from an old friend. It was a kind of nightly pleasure, where rich men and women came to play with the strange, beautiful creatures of the underworld. Among them was the most beautiful man to ever be seen. It was he who I loved.
His name was Samuel, and he was a courtesan. He sold his love to men and women, and they called him "The Sparkling Diamond". He was the star of the Moulin Rouge.
And this is the story of how he died.