“We'll meet again!”
Those words ended nine years of hard work. Nine years of a continuous project that had rarely ceased for an extended period of time. Nine years seemed like such a long time to the host, and it still did even now. But it did not feel like it had been nine years since it started, probably because since then things had become repetitive, with everything merging and melding into one continuous, simple timeline.
But that timeline had reached its end now, with the finale. The final joke, the final goodbyes, the final cheers, the final walk off stage, and the final congratulations for things going as planned. Despite having experienced it for all that time, he still savored it all as much as he could. And even as the writers and crew and other members of the show’s team went home, he had to have the honor of locking up for the last time.
To Stephen Colbert tonight felt akin to crossing the finish line of a marathon; a glorious one, at that. Of course, being as incredible as that race was, it was sad to see it all come to an end, but not in a disappointing way. His own television show, The Colbert Report, had expanded its reach and influence to areas and heights that no one predicted. No, this was a satisfying sadness; it was unfortunate that it had to end, as things inevitably do, but he had countless memories and experiences that the Report gave him over those years that made everything worthwhile. Those had been going through his head all day, and as he stroll, taking a final private tour of the building, and pausing to relax in a mostly empty break room, he felt content and grateful to have those.
“Well, I did it,” he summarized simply, talking to himself.
“You mean we did it,” a voice in his head reminded him, rather bluntly. “Or better yet, you mean I did it. I was the one that made everything about the show as good as it was.”
Colbert smirked as his character tried vainly to gain more credit. That character, which went by the same name as his own, was actually the opposite of who he truly was. The character that played as the show’s host was ignorant, narcissistic, and many times just outright stupid; all of which were played to the extreme. Some of the things said were borderline; had serious newscaster said what was reported on the Report, they would be fired. Some might even deserve an arrest, if he had not obviously been joking.
But for all those faults, the character was never considered a total loser; he had wit, charm, and charisma; he always had a hypnotic way of putting things. And, despite every position and suggestion taken by the moronic host being ridiculous or radical, there were always elements of truth sprinkled in; little points of common sense stuck in here and there for watchers to ponder over.Coupled with the turbulent events that made up the modern news media, people ate it up. So, perhaps the character was right in that, but it was still just Colbert, the real Colbert, acting it all out each time.
“Yeah, sure,” he replied to the voice.
“Sure? Get off your high horse and open your eyes to reality!” the character replied. “By which I mean use a better word. Something like… obvious, clearly, cribbing! I… actually don’t know what that last one means. But hey, it sounds fancy; that’s enough for most people!”
Though thinking of what the character of Stephen Colbert would say to things was nothing new, what happened just then was odd; it was less of the real Stephen thinking what the character would say, and more of the character actually talking back to him.
“Well, not everyone,” Colbert countered.
“Everyone that matters; by which I mean everyone who listens to what I’ve got to say,” the voice replied. “They give power to me by spreading it around for me. You just gotta convince people you know what you’re talking about and then they’ll spread what you say to others, get it? Go ask Jim Baker, it worked for him; hell he got an amusement park out of it!"
“That doesn’t make what you’re saying any more true!”
“Repeat a lie enough and it becomes truth,” the voice said in a snarky tone. “I came up with that idea, you know. I remember Vladimir Lenin tried to steal it from me, but it never really caught on over there; we all know angry Russian sounds like a drunk Frenchman tumbling down a hill.”
Now Colbert took to simply ignoring the voice, which was becoming increasingly annoying; unfortunately, it did not work.
“Oh, it’s ok, you don’t have to say anything,” the voice said in a tone of faux care. “I realize it must be shocking knowing you’ve lived off someone else’s work.”
He continued to ignore the character, and tried to shoo off any other thoughts involving it. It felt as though he did not have control over these thoughts and voices, which spoke as they pleased. It was worrying, something like this had not happened to him before. He always had control, but this was moving into the realm of Schizophrenia.
“Nah, it’s probably nothing,” he assured himself, somewhat contradicting said claim by talking to himself.
“Oh, nothing!? Me? The one that gave you everything? I’m nothing?” the voice asked in an offended tone. “And I suppose Garfunkel was nothing to Simon, too. Is that it? And now you're thinking of just dropping me, after all this!?”
There was a dull pain in his head that popped up when the voice spoke up, like the most minor headache. But it began to grow stronger as the voice went on, and in no time the hurt became splitting. He removed his glasses and held his hand against his forehead, wincing for a few seconds from the pain before it receded.
“Well, if it’s truly nothing, then you should be able prove it,” the character claimed. “See that television over there? Why don’t you, uh… go flip it on?”
Colbert put his glasses back on and scanned around the room, soon spotting the small TV that sat on a desk; one of the few things remaining in the vacated office.
“Turn… it on?” he repeated in a confused voice. “How is that going to prove anything?”
“That you still have control over yourself; unless, of course, you don’t, and you’re actually just a madman.”
“What? No, that’s… this is just dumb. Turning on a TV won’t do anything.”
“If turning it on won’t do anything then go do it! You’re not going to lose anything,” the voice argued. “Come on; go! Unless you’re just… scared!”
“No, I’m not scared of an irritating voice or pressing a button,” Colbert continued arguing, further worsening the situation.
“What’s the matter, McFly? Chicken?”
Colbert took a long, flowing breath, relaxing his muscles, and trying hard to clear his head. All thoughts had to be blocked, though the harder he tried not to think, the more he actually thought. It was annoying, but rather than become angry, he tried to relax more, and they started to fade.
With his mind becoming lucid, he turned to relaxing and thinking more logical thoughts. This may have been the first time such a voice had actively annoyed him, but the odds were that it was not anything too major. There was no need to prove anything. All he had to do was go home, eat a good meal, and catch a hard night’s sleep; everything would be fine after that.
“That’s all I have to do, I just need to walk out and go home,” he told himself, now entering a reasonable state of mind. “I’ll get some sleep, and tomorrow everything will be back to normal-”
“Bwak, bwak, bwak!” the voice screeched, abruptly returning to his head in full force and immediately angering him again.
Colbert grunted angrily before looking over at the television set.
“Fine!” he relented. “I’ll turn it on, just to prove I have control over this. Then I’ll go straight home!”
Even as he proclaimed this, he found himself shying away from the act. Regardless, he forced himself forward, step by step, until he traveled the short distance from the middle of the room to the television, which felt like a trek, but was no more than four agonizingly slow steps. And even when he reached the small desk that held it, he disliked the idea of moving actually carrying out the action.
Still, Colbert forced himself past the part of his head that told him to just stop, to prove something to the other side that was mocking him. Slowly, he motioned his hand up to the black box, ran a finger along bottom frame until he found the correct buttoned with the word ‘POWER’ labeled underneath, and pressed it in. A second later, the tube came on with a whine sound, with only the scratchy and glitch view of static on the screen. Tense moments passed, and nothing out of the ordinary occurred.
“There,” he said, taking a deep breath and feeling relieved. “Nothing to worry about; just the stress-”
There was a shock of what felt like electricity that shot into the finger pressing the button, which flew up his arm and into the rest of his body before his brain could realize it was there. Like being hit with a taser, he lost control of his muscles for a moment, and collapsed to the floor with a yelp. The pain vanished, but the numbness persisted, and he quickly began to lose consciousness; his eyes shut, and the senseless state took over.
Apparently, no matter how deep the sleep was, it did not help Colbert any in its knock-out form; at least this kind did not. Consciousness returned at a snail’s pace, coming first back to him in the form of a feeling in his head, and it felt God-awful. It felt like a super-hangover on steroids, and he made a quick thought of how whatever drink caused that should be illegal.
He could feel his face grimacing, but still had trouble opening his eyes; or moving any other part of his body. The worst part was his head; it felt partially empty, as if someone had yanked out part of his brain. The remaining part was rife with pain in continuous hammer blows.
His hearing returned, and was quickly met by a voice. It took a minute to register in his crippled mind, but he could tell that it was female, and that it seemed to be talking about him. The more curious part was the kind of wording being used.
“What kind of creature is this?” it asked in a low voice. “It is even alive?”
He could feel the muscles in his face moving, shifting into grimaces of pain on reaction. He attempted to move the rest of his body, but everything from the neck down was not responding. Compensating, he made a concentrated effort to open his eyes, trying to move his lids up slowly.
Fluttering a bit, they finally opened enough to give him a good view of a ray of sunshine, which was about as helpful as shining a flashlight directly at his face. The brightness stung a bit, and his eyes quickly shut again, attempting to adapt to the light, before opening cautiously again. It was still mostly a pure brightness, but it was not nearly as intense.
Things began to settle into a blur, a colorful blur. Not much could be made out other than blobs of green and brown, with two big chunks of purple and black ahead of him. He instinctively attempted to move his arm up to rub them, but they still refused to cooperate, and he had to wait and watch as things sorted themselves out. And, in no time, the image painted ahead shocked him.
He saw he was in a park, with lush green grass and trees sprouting up randomly here and there; it felt like he was propped up against one. His immediate attention was attracted to the large purple object, which seemed to be standing on four legs. And, as things cleared and he examined it closer, it appeared to be what looked like a horse with purple fur, and what looked like a horn on its head; if mythology taught anyone anything, that would make it a unicorn. But what stunned him was what it was looking at; he noticed its attention was not directed at him, but elsewhere, and he looked over to the large, dark object. It seemed unbelievable at best.
It was him, or at least another person that looked exactly like him. It had the dark suit, slick black hair, glasses; a fully-fledged Stephen Colbert. The only physical difference he could make out was the tie; his was blue, while this copy-cat’s was bright red. The second Colbert did not seem to have whatever ailed the original, standing up straight and fully, brushing off his suit of non-existent grime, and observing his surroundings with a satisfied look. Colbert was not sure of what to say, if he could say anything to begin with, and all thought halted as the imposter shot him a cheeky grin.
“Haha, it worked!” the duplicate said triumphantly. “Of course, I did plan it; so I knew it would work anyways.”
It sounded just like him, too; in fact, it sounded like something the show’s character would say. But what did he mean when he said ‘it worked’? Colbert tried to form some kind of response, but was unable to find the words, or even speak; the clone just chuckled at him before continuing.
“Yes, I know; I’m stunning aren’t I? Of course it the first body I’ve had all to myself, but I didn’t have any doubt,” he said confidently. “Careful though, staring at me for too long can make you blind; the heat fries your eyes.”
“First body… to himself?” Colbert pondered. “This… this can’t be… me? Can it?”
“What are you?” the female voice called again.
Colbert was not sure where it was coming from; maybe there was a lady out of his line of site.
“Me? Oh, just a pioneer of justice,” the clone replied, beginning another long rant. “Conquistador of equality, a crusader of conscious, a-”
“Sorry, I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” the girl’s voice interrupted.
The second Stephen halted his droning, and shot a wry smile in the direction of the horse.
“You’ll see soon enough; before too long you’ll be hearing all about me,” he said with a sinister look. “Well, I’d love to stay and chat with you and myself, but I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
“Work?”
“Yep! There’s a whole new world out here, without a clue of what it means to be free, to have rights, to go be the best around and know it!” he proclaimed, waving his arm out across the horizon. “So I’ll show them what some American ingenuity and a little elbow grease can do!”
With that, the doppelganger turned and jogged off at a steady pace, oblivious to the cries of the lady to halt. The original Colbert was barely able to keep awake, much less give chase to his counterpart. All he could do is watch as the figure faded, and the purple horse turned its attention back towards him.
“Oh, you’re awake!” it said, surprised. “Are you going to be ok? What was with that… um… I’m sorry, but what are you? You look to be the same species as the other one.”
As if being dumped into an unknown place and having a clone of him run off to do God-knows-what, the colorful unicorn in front of him was talking, and asking about what species he was. That was the last strike. His mind started to overload trying to comprehend what was going on, and it was becoming too much to handle, getting worse as the horse continued.
“Was that one a twin of yours? I’ve never seen anything quite like- I’m sorry... again, I think I’m getting ahead of myself,” she paused, with a slight blush of embarrassment. “I... tend to get a little over-excited when I see something new. Let's try and start fresh; my name is Twilight Sparkle. I live in this town, and I'm the personal student of Princess Celelstia!"
Colbert was not sure what had happened, but whatever it was, it was having some terrible side effects. He could not keep up with all the new information being thrown at him, not just with some kind of replicate, but with this. How could this unicorn exist, and how could it talk? What was this town, and who was this Princess she was talking about. He could not understand, or even process, and of it. Even as this unicorn, Twilight, continued to go on explaining herself, he lost attention, and his eyes closed shut again.
"And I'm the holder of one of the Elements-are you ok?" she said, realizing the visitor was not paying attention, and seemed to be falling asleep. "We should take care of you first, shouldn't we? Can you move, or… talk for that matter?”
Colbert remained silent, and his consciousness began to slip away again.
“H-hey! What’s wrong!?”
Despite the Twilight's plea to stay awake, Colbert once again began to fall. His eyes shut, his mind faded, and he became unresponsive. The unicorn, fearing the worst, desperately tried nudging and shaking him lightly to try and keep him awake; but, it only succeeded in knocking his slouched body onto the grass. Colbert lay in the grass and sunlight, in a mysterious land with an intelligent myth looking over him, unable to ponder his fate and what the future held for him.
