Chapter 32: I thought it was a speed bump. Go tell my insurance company.

In the orchestra pit of the Garnier Opera House, the cellist squeezed his eyes shut in utter despair.

It wasn’t that tonight’s sheet music was especially difficult, but rather, the “violinist” seated beside him.

The man was dressed in a black tuxedo, a monocle perched on his nose, giving off an air of pretentious sophistication.

Yet the expensive violin in his hands was emitting a screech like fingernails scraping down a blackboard.

“Szzz—Laaa—Creeeak—”

The principal conductor’s arm bulged with veins as he waved his baton, wishing he could jam it straight up the man’s nostril.

“Um… sir,” the cellist couldn’t take it anymore and leaned over, lowering his voice.

“We’re supposed to be playing Verdi.”

Cicero paused his bow with practiced elegance, giving an utterly unapologetic smile.

“I’m attempting to use microtones to deconstruct the nihilism inherent in this melody,” he said, utter seriousness disguising complete nonsense.

“Don’t you find that this discordant friction is just as real as our own rotting lives?”

The cellist: “…”

Cicero looked on with satisfaction as the man pulled a face as if he’d swallowed a fly, then set his bow back onto the strings.

“Szzz—Waaa—”

With a flick of Cicero’s wrist, a glissando issued forth that would have Mozart flipping in his grave.

Meanwhile, the heavy stage curtain began to rise.

Tonight was the premiere of “Aida,” also the moment when Manager Leroux wagered his entire fortune.

To be fair, the fat man’s marketing tricks really were something—rumors of ghosts during rehearsals had only attracted even more thrill-seeking Parisians.

All three thousand seats were packed, with even the aisles crowded with penniless students clutching standing tickets.

At center stage, Celestine strutted out in her Egyptian princess gown studded with fake diamonds, proud as a turkey.

Perhaps intoxicated by the thunderous applause, the prima donna was especially high-strung tonight.

“Ah—my wretched—fate—!”

She opened her mouth, her voice so piercingly shrill it seemed intent on stabbing through the heavens.

Just then, Cicero felt the air temperature drop sharply.

Above his head, the giant crystal chandelier—freshly repaired—hung, its long crystal tassels starting to sway and chime softly, “ding-ding,” though there was no wind.

It’s here.

Cicero narrowed his eyes, peering through the blinding spotlights at the pitch-black ceiling above the stage.

There, the main screw holding up the chandelier began to rotate counterclockwise, almost as if possessed. One turn, two turns…

And, waiting in the shadows at stage left, a massive “mechanical swan” stood ready.

“Ignition! Ignition!”

Bastien, like an anxious father outside a delivery room, clutched a lighter, trembling all over with excitement.

“My Muse! Are you ready? This moment will go down in history!”

“Ready, my foot!” Viviane’s voice came muffled from behind the metal, “Why is this periscope crooked?”

“That’s the artist’s perspective!” Bastien ignored her, his hands shaking as he lit four thick fuses.

“Fssshhh—!!!”

Sparks burst out in an instant, four plumes of smoke gushing forth.

“Countdown! Three! Two—”

“Wait! I just want to know, where’s the brake on this thing?” Viviane fumbled around blindly inside.

“Brake?” Bastien was taken aback.

“The current of art needs no brakes! Take off, Destructor One!”

With that, Bastien gave the swan a mighty kick to the backside.

“BOOM—!!!”

A tremendous force slammed Viviane back, and it felt like her very face was about to peel off and fly behind her head.

“I—am—going—to—kill—you—!!!”

…

Celestine was surging toward the cursed high C, chest heaving, hands raised toward the heavens, directly beneath the swaying chandelier.

“Die—my—love—”

“Screeeech!”

The sound of metal grinding.

The giant screw finally turned to the end of its thread and shot out. The huge crystal chandelier, whistling through the air, plummeted toward the enraptured soprano standing below with her eyes closed.

The audience hadn’t realized what was happening, thinking it some special stage effect—some even gasped in awe.

“BOOM!!!”

The two brass gas tanks at the swan’s tail exploded with a deafening roar, shooting out twin plumes of rainbow steam.

The massive recoil ejected Viviane, swan and all.

“WAAAAAA—”

Viviane felt as if she’d been crammed into a cannon.

The ponderous mechanical swan became a furious missile, sending up sparks as it streaked across the floor at eighty kilometers per hour, rocketing straight for center stage.

Celestine was just reaching the high point of her high C, mouth agape like an ‘O’.

A rainbow-hued gust of wind swept toward her.

She opened her eyes—and saw a huge, smoke-belching swan, expanding rapidly in her field of vision.

“What is—”

“BANG!”

A dull thud.

The mechanical swan’s hard wooden chest crashed square into Celestine.

The prima donna didn’t even have time to scream before she was sent flying horizontally for a full ten meters, landing finally atop the timpani drum.

“DOOOONG—”

The drum gave off a resonant, heavy thud—serving as a punctuation mark with the weight of a sledgehammer for her aria.

Half a second after she’d flown out—

“BOOOOM!!!”

The enormous crystal chandelier smashed into the very spot where she’d been standing.

The solid wood stage splintered instantly, countless shards of crystal shot outward like shrapnel, and dust billowed three stories high. Had Celestine still been there, she’d be a mess of pixels by now.

The swan, thanks to excessive inertia, didn’t stop after its collision. It drifted in an arc across the stage, spinning three and a half times, rainbow smoke trailing behind in a perfect spiral, before crashing with a “clang” into the prompt box by the orchestra pit.

“Fsshh…”

A final puff of black smoke curled from the swan’s beak; then it moved no more.

Dizzy and nauseous, Viviane pushed open the hatch and poked her head out of a mound of feathers.

“Ugh… what just clunked in there?” She fought the urge to vomit and shook her head.

The entire opera house fell deathly silent.

Three thousand audience members sat agape, staring at the still-smoking crater onstage, at the limp shape draped over the timpani, and at the swan still leaking gas.

This… was this “Aida”?

Was there a scene like this in the original? Where an Egyptian princess gets knocked out by a swan?

Amid the suffocating awkwardness, suddenly—

“Bravo!!!”

A shrill cheer erupted from the wings.

Bastien charged out, tears of joy streaming down his face as he applauded the battered swan.

“So avant-garde! So stunning!”

He dashed to the front of the stage, shouting to the bewildered crowd:

“This is what we’re expressing! This is deconstructionism at its peak! The swan symbolizes the violence of industrial civilization! It ruthlessly shatters the hypocrisy of classicism!”

The audience looked at each other.

“So… that’s what it means?” a lady inquired uncertainly.

“I suppose… it does make sense?” A gentleman stroked his mustache. “That impact really is on another level from traditional opera.”

“Amazing!” students in the back rows began to cheer.

“Do it again! Crash again!”

Scattered applause grew into a thunderous ovation.

“Incredible! This is the wildest opera I’ve ever seen!”

Inside the swan’s belly, Viviane: “…”

In the orchestra pit, the conductor gripped the broken remains of his baton, petrified. He stared at the mound of crystal debris before him, feeling as if his own career had been smashed to bits as well.

“Wh-what… what is the meaning of this…” He trembled, trying to stand and call a halt.

“Click.”

A crisp cocking sound rang out beside his ear.

The conductor stiffened, slowly turning his head.

The man who’d played the violin like a handsaw had, at some point, opened the cello case beside him and pulled out a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun.

Cicero held the gun one-handed, the dark muzzle casually resting on the music stand—pointed straight at the conductor’s nose.

“Don’t stop.”

A gentle smile rested on Cicero’s face.

“Keep playing. Keep dancing.”

“But… but Madame Celestine…” the conductor pointed to the twitching heap still draped over the timpani.

“She merely made her exit early from this great deconstructionist script,” Cicero said mildly. “Now, change the music.”

“Ch-change to what?”

“Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyries.’”

He tilted the muzzle upward.

“If that’s a battle swan, it needs a fierce soundtrack. Don’t you agree?”

The conductor swallowed, eyeing the gun in Cicero’s hand.

Shakily, he raised the half-broken baton.

“E-everyone… ‘Ride of the Valkyries’… Ready… begin!”

“DUN-DUN-DUN-DUN—DUN-DUN-DUN—”

A rousing, majestic melody thundered out above the ruins.

To this epic score, Viviane struggled out of the swan’s remains.

Her gray maid’s dress had been singed into a rainbow of colors, her face streaked with soot, looking for all the world like a Valkyrie who’d just blown up a bunker.

Somewhere in the shadows, the ghost lurking behind the scenes seemed to have been completely thrown off by this “mudslide combo” that defied all decorum.

After all, not a single “Gothic Horror Aesthetic Guide” had ever taught how to deal with an eighty-kilometer-an-hour, jet-propelled swan.