Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters from The Phantom of the Opera. But I sure do like to make fun of them.
Author's Notes: Well, this is a really stupid and totally pointless thing that I decided to do, so don't take it so seriously, okay? This is just a silly, silly supposed-to-be-one-shot. But it isn't. I'm wanting to continue this so leave me what you think. Again, I wrote this mainly because I was bored…so, yeah, enjoy!
The Ghostie in the Theater:
Act One, Scene One
It was a cold day, and Raoul shivered in his wheelchair. Even under his extra-snuggly blankie, he was cold. And he hated cold. He much preferred the summer, when it was warm, and happy, and little children pranced about like antelopes. But in the winter, it was cold and he didn't like it.
Especially since he couldn't move around to get warmer. This was because he was old, decrepit and ugly and, thus was in a wheelchair. Furthermore, he was so old decrepit and ugly that he couldn't move his own wheelchair and had to get someone else to. The only way he could get that to happen was if he started whining in the loud, high-pitch sort of way that little girls do when they've had a piece of candy ruthlessly stolen from them. Then, after the neighbors could bear it no longer and threatened to call the police, his nurse would come along and move him, and he would be happy and would shut up. Until he wanted to be moved again.
And that point of time was right then, as he shivered underneath his extra-snuggly blankie, made by thousands of poor, enslaved, Korean children with no fingers or toes or sense of belonging. Raoul whimpered at the thought. No, not the thought of who made his blanket, but rather the thought that it was about time for him to move.
His whimper turned into a wail, then an ear-splitting shriek, and people passing by on the street hurried along, shielding their children from what could only have been an impending collision from a fighter jet, careening towards earth. But it was only Raoul wailing, so have no fear.
Finally, his nurse came to him and pushed him off the sidewalk, up the ramp and into the building.
"Ow," Raoul said, prying himself off of the building and rubbing his head. "That wasn't very nice."
"Well, yer makin' a bloody awful racket!" said his boisterous Viking nurse from Norway. "So shut the 'ell up before I call the police on yeh!"
Inwardly crying, Raoul got back into his wheelchair, and allowed the Viking nurse to push the wheelchair up the ramp, and not the stairs.
They entered the old opera house and Raoul breathed in air that carried countless memories. Then he choked and snorted because the memories he breathed in were too big to go into his lungs. This earned him a great huge slap on the back by his Viking nurse.
"Don' be croakin' on us jest yet!" she boomed, and everyone in the vicinity took cover, thinking the impending fighter jet had just crashed. "You need ta buy me a birfday present!"
"Oh. That's right," Raoul managed to choke. He resisted the urge to tell her that it was pronounced 'birthday' and not 'birfday'.
"Well. You'd best be thinkin' about it!" the Viking nurse said. "Because I won't allow for this, 'namby-pamby-no'-gettin'-you-a-birfday-present' stuff!"
"Yes, yes," Raoul said, which was what he often said when he didn't have anything important to say (which was most of the time).
"Can I have everyone's attention, please?"
There was a tapping at the front of the room, and Raoul looked up, finally realizing where he was. He was in the old opera house, the one he used to come to regularly (after all, his parents had been the owners of it). It looked as old and decrepit as he did, but not nearly as ugly; it still retained it's good looks, unlike the son of its previous owners. There were about half a dozen people there, looking at the man in the front who was standing behind a podium. In one hand, he held a maestro's tapping stick, and in the other, he was rubbing his very bushy handlebar mustache. The people in the audience stared at him.
"What are you doing?" one of them asked.
"What?" the podium man said (who was an auctioneer, but nobody knew that yet).
"I said, what are you doing?" the man said again. "Why're you tapping that maestro tapping stick against the podium?"
"Because," the podium man said importantly, puffing out his chest until he resembled a very huge robin. "I am an auctioneer."
There were titters of awe in the crowd.
"Titters!" said someone, utterly amazed.
"But titters!" said another, and they both nodded in agreement. "Titters!"
"So?" the man said. "Why do you have a maestro's tapping stick then?"
"Because," the auctioneer said. "It makes me feel special and happy. Now, ladies and gentlemen! Gather 'round! As I said, I am an auctioneer, and I have some lovely things to sell you today! As you can see, I have raided this opera house illegally, and have some lovely artifacts that are really quite useless! But since you are all filthy rich and have no social life at all, I will sell these trinkets to you for a reasonable price!"
The crowd tittered again.
"Titter!" Raoul added helpfully, and the audience nodded encouragingly at him, all the while thinking, "Oh my god, so THAT'S the guy who got mauled by that rabid dog…"
"Anyway!" the auctioneer said, interrupting everyone's tittering. "Just hand over your money, folks, and these useless items are yours!"
"I want a useless item!" Raoul shrieked, and he started to whine. In the great, cavernous hall of the opera house, his whine reverberated around, making everyone duck for cover.
"It's a fighter jet plane! It's going to crash!" shouted somebody.
"An orphanage is being tortured!"
"No it isn't! The Apocalypse is nigh!"
With that, people began to panic, and several leapt out the windows, crashed through the glass, landed on their heads and passed out due to concussion.
When everyone was unconscious from either concussions or from the sheer might of the wailing itself, Raoul tried to move forward towards the pile of useless objects. But alas, it was useless, because the Viking nurse had passed out too. So Raoul had no choice but to fling himself head-first into the pile of useless objects.
"Wow!" Raoul said. "I think I snapped my spine in two. But I have useless objects!"
He picked up a little music box and rubbed it against his face, as he fancied it to be a bar of soap. But when the little monkey figurine on the top went up his nose, he decided it was a lame piece of soap and chucked it aside. The little box flew through the air, colliding with Viking nurse's head. She grunted, and it began to play.
As the tinny sound of an old music box filled the room, Raoul sighed happily and remembered the good old days when things were happy and people randomly burst into song…
Please insert interlude music.
Flashback:
Raoul was young, and pretty, and happy, and as he rode up to the doors of the opera house, he realized for the fifth time that day that he was the best thing since sliced bread. Dismounting from his horse, he stood before the opera house doors.
"Ahaha!" he shouted foppishly. "I am young and pretty and happy! Grovel before my greatness!"
And everyone did, surrounding him in a great sea of supporters and camera-men.
"Yes, yes, I know I'm wonderful," Raoul said, waving his hands in the air. "But please! Tell me again."
"You are so marvelous!" shouted a young woman.
"You are so awesome!" shouted a young man.
"I WANT YOUR BODY!" shrieked an old geezer.
Everyone went silent and looked over at the old man suggestively waving and blowing kisses at Raoul, who puked on his nearest supporter.
"Wow!" the supporter said. "I'm covered in the Great Raoul's puke! Nothing quite as good has ever happened to me!"
Learning that the Great Raoul's puke was up for grabs, all the supporters began to attack the guy covered in puke, trying to get some of their own. As gracefully as the swan that he was (after all, he had taken the lead role as 'Swan #1' in the Ballet of Swan Lake), Raoul stepped on and over his supporters and into the opera house.
It was a magnificent place, bedecked with angels and gold and golden angels. Raoul liked this place, because it reminded him very much of himself; it was gorgeous.
"Wow!" Raoul said. "This place is so pretty! Like me!"
And with that, he made his way into the actual theater.
The people onstage were practicing for their upcoming performance of "Hannibal! The Musical!" Lots of scantily-clad women were leaping about in unison with chains on their wrists, and Raoul found that he liked that. He would have liked it better if there were also scantily-clad men, but the only man there was, was a very fat guy with lots of make-up on, and he wasn't attractive at all. So Raoul, crying inwardly, sat down in a chair and sulked.
"Okay, okay!" the director shouted. "That's enough for today!"
All the actors and actresses cheered and promptly ran offstage to get drunk. All except one actress who ran off the stage instead and fell into the orchestra pit.
"That looks fun!" Raoul said, and he promptly ran down to the orchestra pit and dove in, landing hard on a cello and smooshing the cello player as well.
Landing on a cello, he decided was not very fun, and he decided not to do it anymore. So next time, he aimed for a piano, and the next time a tuba that happened to be lying around. In fact, he loved this game so much, that he was completely unaware of the new managers being introduced and the scandal of the opera ghost coming out, or the departure of the leading diva, Carlotta, or the start of the Gala night. It was only until someone grabbed him by the collar when he was just about to jump a triangle that he stopped.
"Ow!" Raoul said, and he started to cry. "Don't man-handle me like that, you man-whore!"
And then he realized who he had addressed as 'man-whore' and he began to cry even more.
It was the opera house's ballet teacher, Madame Giri, and she was looking stern, which was strange, as she always went around with an incredibly ridiculous smile on her face that made everyone want to attack her.
"What did you call me?" she said dangerously, and Raoul realized how much she looked like his mother.
"Mother!" he cried, and embraced her.
"No, Raoul, I'm not your mother," Madame Giri said. "Now pick up the mess you've made and go sit down."
"Oooh-kaaay," Raoul said, and he dragged himself up to his special box in the opera house. This took awhile, because if you've ever tried to drag yourself, you know it takes a long time to be moved by yourself if you are trying to move yourself as well.
When Raoul made it up to the box, he proceeded to slouch in his chair next to some random old men that he thought smelled like turnips, and snooze through the whole play of "Hannibal! The Musical!". He was only woken up by a particularly loud high note, in the last bit of the play, when everyone is thoroughly glad it's ending. He jumped from the lap of one of the old men (on which he had been sleeping) and shouted, "Bravo!" because it was the only thing that came to mind. Actually, he didn't really know what it meant, because he didn't know any other language but English, in which he was thoroughly trained every day. But it sounded good to say, so he said it.
"Bravo!" Raoul shouted.
"Shut up!" someone shouted back. "We're trying to listen!"
"Sorry!" Raoul called. Then he focused his attentions on the singer onstage who had delivered the ear-splitting note. It was a pretty girl in a very big dress that was white and reminded Raoul of a birthday cake he once had.
"Gee," Raoul said. "I wonder what that dress tastes like."
The old men around him started to chuckle in an 'Ohohohoho' fashion, and Raoul grinned. They must have realized that he was the wittiest thing since sliced bread. Tossing his hair, he left the box, not realizing there was a sizeable hole in the buttocks of his trousers.
The play ended, and during the concession/gala after, Raoul pondered on how he might be able to take a munch out of that pretty birthday cake dress (he was hungry). He decided that he would find the girl it belonged to, dazzle her with his beauty, then while she wasn't paying attention, snatch her dress and eat it. Yes, that sounded like a good plan. But to get her to listen to him, he'd have to get her attention. Somehow, flashing her didn't seem like the good idea that it usually did, so he jumped an old woman in the hallway, beat her up and stole her bouquet of flowers. There. Now he could see the girl.
He didn't bother to knock, and he entered her dressing room, disappointed to see that she was fully-clothed in an eighteen-hundreds nightgown; in other words, a suit of armor. She turned stiffly to look at him.
"Would you mind?" she said. "I'm trying to undress here."
"Oh, go ahead," Raoul said, settling himself comfortably against the wall. "I don't mind. Say, where'd you put that—"
But he didn't get to finish his sentence because a hard brush collided with the side of his face.
"Ow!" he said, and tears welled up in his eyes. "Don't hurt my beautiful face!"
"You disturbingly girly pervert!" the girl shouted, flinging cosmetics at him. "Get out of my room before I sick my Angel on you!"
And Raoul, now scared and hurting, left her room clutching the flowers to his chest. Safe behind the door, Raoul realized who the girl was. That violent girl had to be Christine, an old playmate of his. Nobody could throw cosmetics like she could. Raoul sighed happily. Yes, she had spirit. He decided that he should marry her.
"Hey, Christine!" Raoul called through the door. "It's me, Raoul! I'm filthy rich and going to marry you!"
"Bite me!" Christine shouted back.
"We'll set a date then!" Raoul said, and happily strolled away humming. Picking the prettiest flower from the bunch he had, he stuck it in his hair, and then proceeded to waste away the rest of the evening admiring his reflection in a pane of glass.