An impressionist was doing an impression of an impressionist. He was wearing an impressionist suit and an impressionist mask. The members of the audience he was doing an impression for were wearing impressionist suits and masks too. The difference between the impressionist and the audience was that the impressionist was a real impressionist who had earned a Ph.D. degree in impressionism from an ivy league university whereas the audience consisted of ersatz impressionists who had either purchased or stolen imitation Ph.D. degrees in impressionism from gas stations and convenience stores. Additionally, nobody in the audience was currently engaged in the act of doing an impression, only the impressionist was. On top of this, the impressionist was standing in the middle of a stage and the audience was sitting in row after row of high-backed director’s seats methodically positioned in a vast hardwood moshpit.
Halfway through his impression, an unseen bullhorn discharged a thunderous quack. The impressionist said, “Entr’acte! Is everybody enjoying the show?”
Nobody in the audience responded. A few people, however, did start doing impressions of baboons. One man did an impression of Mr. T playing Clubber Lang in Rocky III.
Electric dread shot up and down the impressionist’s spine. “Stop doing that, you goddamn turds!” he hollered. “You lack the authority to do what I do. You’re making asses out of yourselves. I’m embarrassed! You’re embarrassing me. You’re making me mad, too.”
In response to the impressionist, a young lady in the front row did an impression of an embarrassed impressionist taking a break from doing an impression of an impressionist. She clearly had talent, this lady, despite her phony graduate degree. It made the impressionist madder. “Knock that off!” he exclaimed. She didn’t listen to him, she kept on doing her impression. It wasn’t long before everybody else joined in. All of a sudden the entire audience was doing an impression of an embarrassed impressionist taking a break from doing an impression of an impressionist.
The impressionist stomped his foot on the hardwood stage. “Quit it!” he said.
The audience stomped their feet on the hardwood floor of the moshpit. “Quit it!!!” they said.
He stomped again. “I’m not kidding!”
They stomped again. “I’m not kidding!!!”
And again. “Bastards! Sunzabitches!”
And again. “Bastards!!! Sunzabitches!!!”
Infuriated, the impressionist gesticulated at the audience.
Simulating being infuriated, the audience gesticulated at the impressionist.
He gesticulated back.
They gesticulated back.
And back again. And back again.
And so on. And so on.
Finally the impressionist had had enough. He tore off his impressionist mask and suit and subjected the audience to his bare naked body. He knew the audience couldn’t possibly follow this lead: once an impressionist takes off his disguise, he ceases to be an impressionist, let alone an organism that exists.
“See what you’ve done to me?” said the impressionist who had ceased to be an impressionist and an organism that exists. His spit-shined genitals arrested the gaze of the audience like a gruesome car crash. “I hope you expletive deleteds are proud of yourselves!”
The audience stared at him, dumb and bewildered, like children trying to figure out an impossible mathematical equation. It was as if an invisible hand had reached inside of everybody and yanked their personalities out of them. Even the man who had been impersonating Clubber Lang seemed anesthetized. The once-was impersonator wanted to tell everybody to snap out of it so he could curse and holler at them in greater detail. But before he could a trap door opened up in the stage beneath him.
Sound of a dopplering scream followed by a faraway noise that was a cross between a wet fart and a spine being cracked in half . . .
Silence. The audience blinked.
The trap door burped.
The audience burst into applause. The applause was light-hearted at first, but it grew in intensity. And it lasted for almost a week.
Copyright © 2003 by D. Harlan Wilson