The voice of God thundered, “Welcome back to the 54th Primetime Emmy Awards! Once again, here’s your host, Conan O’Brien!”
He was awake. He thought he had died, but he was awake. After several infant-like steps to the left he realized, rather embarrassingly, that what he had mistaken for God’s eternal glory was actually just a great orb of light. He rattled his knuckles against its casing and the metal gonged back at him. It was a light the kind of which he did not know. There was no flame anywhere inside and no wax dripped around its base. It was as if the light just was. He supposed it could have been a god, but certainly not the God.
Just then his stomach decided to catch up to him in the year two thousand and two. It vaulted against the inside of his ribcage. He dashed towards a rack of clothes and, after parting the hanging garments, threw up in the shadows behind it. He wiped the vomit that had splashed back onto his face on the sleeve of his simple purple robe.
A sound like thunder erupted around him and there was a flash of commotion from between red drapes suspended from the ceiling across the room. He stepped in stockinged feet across the darkened space and gripped the velvet fabric in his trembling hands and peered into the opening.
There was a crowd of thousands watching the stage he was peeking out on. The men all wore the same black coat and white tunic and their hair glistened as much as their teeth. The women who accompanied them were equally shiny and wore beautiful gowns of many different colours. He keyed in on one particular blonde in the front row. Her lips gleamed red and her bosom, barely contained, heaved under a tight, silvery-scaled dress.
A courtesan for every man? Perhaps this is heaven after all.
“Who the fuck are you supposed to be?” a shrill voice blurted from behind him.
He decided there was no use in being clever now that he had been found. He turned to face the voice. It was a small woman with a large plume of red hair that shook when she spoke. “Good day, miss. I am a chandler from–”
“You’re one of the Chandlers?” she interrupted. “Why haven’t you fucking been to costume yet? Your group is about to go on! Go go go!” she screamed as she pushed him further backstage with the tip of a small square mechanism that cast a blue glow onto her face. The future was so full of light.
He stumbled into an area where dozens of people were engrossed in all manner of arcane tasks.
“Phil! I found one of your Chandlers snoopin’ around the fucking curtain, Phil! Get a handle on your fucking Chandlers, Phil. Fuck you, Phil. Don’t roll your fucking eyes at me! You’re a piece of shit, Phil. A real piece of shit. Ah, fuck you.”
The red haired woman screamed profanity with an ease that startled him. “Miss, there’s no need–” he started.
“What the fuck are you still talking to me for? Move, Chandler.”
A man with a bald head and tight fitting black tunic, presumably named Phil, grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him towards a group of men all wearing the same dark pants, crisp white tunic with a sleeveless vest adorned with a pattern that made him dizzy. Their hair was all similarly swooped mockingly to the side.
“What are you wearing?” Phil barked at him.
“As I tried to explain, I am a chandler from–”
“No, you’re not a Chandler. You see these men?” Phil motioned to the group of mirror images. “These are Chandlers. In costume and ready to go on stage to perform their skit in 90 seconds.”
Phil’s words stung and reignited the wound that had sent him here in the first place.
* * *
“The future has no need for you.”
The chandler’s eyes flickered open and the long, white beard of the castle’s art instructor and part-time mystic tickled his ear with every word whispered into it.
“Mystic Mike? What are you doing in my bedchamber?” he asked, pulling his wolf skin blankets up to his chin.
“I had a vision,” the ancient sage paused to lick his lips, “of a bleak future in which chandlers and their revered expertise in candle making would no longer be needed. Mankind will enslave light and summon it whenever they desire as gods!”
The art instructor and part-time mystic was prone to dramatism, but the words haunted him for three days before he had asked the lunatic for help. “Wizard, tell me–”
“I am not a wizard. I am an art instructor and a mystic and a grief counselor.”
“Grief counselor? When did this happen?”
“Forthwith.”
“Forthwith?”
“The King has decreed that I will forthwith be the castle’s grief counselor. He hath said it, let it be so.”
The chandler breathed in deeply. “Art instructor, part-time mystic, and grief counselor, tell me, is my life’s work a waste? Are your words true?”
“Of course. Acrylics and prediction are my specialties. Do not take me for a conjurer of cheap tricks! If you need a potion to make your tomato plant bloom, see Merle.”
“Can I see the future as you do?” the chandler asked.
The art instructor, part-time mystic, and newly appointed part-time grief counselor scrunched his mouth to the side and thought for a moment, “I have a portrait to paint tomorrow afternoon…”
“Whose portrait?”
“The Prince.”
“The King has no heir.”
“He is in utero at present, but you didn’t hear it from Mystic Mike.”
“I wish I hadn’t. Can you help me in the morning?”
“I suppose I could brew you a…”
“Potion?”
“Elixir! I could brew you an elixir to transport you to the moment your kind will fall.”
The chandler thought about this. “If what you say is true–”
“It is.”
“...and there is no way to stop these events, do not show me the moment my dedication to this craft will feel the most futile and wasteful. Search the phantasms that wander your touched mind for a time in which my kind is most popular. Show me a day in which all the world knows our name and the light of candles brings a smile to the lips of adult and babe alike. If I cannot find some hope for my vocation at that moment, then I will at least take solace in being surrounded by my brethren during our peak.”
“Sure.”
* * *
“I need your help, Susan!”
“Phil, you piece of shit. I am trying to find club soda, Phil! Ray fucking Romano spilled marinara sauce on his shirt and he’s on stage in 45 seconds. Where the fuck do you get marinara sauce at the Prime fucking Time Emmy Awards, Phil. You tell me that and I’ll not only dress your fucking Chandler, I’ll throw in a blowie!”
“They’re serving mozza sticks with marin–”
“Fuck you, Phil!”
The red-haired lady, Susan, was undressing him when his mind snapped back into the year two thousand and two. Had he regained his wits in time, modesty would have dictated he protest.
In less than twenty seconds he found himself dressed exactly like the other men huddled together before him. They all stared back, mouths agape.
“Fuck me, you look just like him,” Susan gasped.
“Like who?”
“Oh, fuck you. Where do you find these fucks, Phil?”
Phil shrugged. “Okay everyone, we’re on right after commercial. Link arms now. Lead Chandler,” Phil pointed at the chandler closest to the curtain, “Wait for your cue. It should come in 10...9...8...”
This is it. The art teacher, part-time mystic, and grief counselor did his job well.
He was arm-in-arm with a dozen other chandlers.
Is this the last of my kind? A final celebration of our craft before mankind ascends to the realm of gods?
“7...6...5…”
“Matthew, what are you doing back here? I thought you were just going to the washroom,” a soft, feminine voice cooed.
He looked to his right, and the sensation of camaraderie was suddenly replaced with one of awe. The woman who stood next to him, her delicate tanned hand resting on his arm like a flower rests its petal on a dew drop, shone like the sun. Her black dress was modest, but clung to her body like liquid. Her sun-kissed shoulders were bared and their caramel colour matched her hair. She smiled at him, bright and white. He melted like wax under her heat.
“Matthew! I won!” she screamed and shoved a golden figure into his face. A winged woman stripped of clothing, supported a glowing ball of gold.
Was this it? Was this the device that had captured the light and ruined his kind?
“What are you doing here? Come on, we have to get back to our seats. They’re doing Comedy Series next and I have a good feeling this year.”
“It’s been eight years, Jen. I think if we were going to win we would have by now.”
Jen slapped the man who had just approached across his arm. “Oh, stop it, David. We’ll get it this time. Let’s get back to our seats.”
He pulled on his arm and he unlinked from his fellow chandlers, drawn to the scent of lavender that wafted from Jen’s hair. Jen. Jen. Even her name was exotic to him.
Then she let go of his arm and was wafted away by a sea of flashing light.
“Buddy, are you doing a skit tonight? Why are you dressed like Chandler?” David laughed. “Where’s your tux?”
“I, I don’t know, David. They took my clothes,” he replied.
“Okay, look, I don’t know if this is something your agent told you to do or what, but if we win you’re going to thank me for this.”
David pulled him back into the darkened area he had woken up in and began sorting through the clothes the chandler had thrown up behind.
“Smells like vomit over here.”
“Yes...and that is still a disgusting thing, right?” the chandler asked.
“Uh, yeah, Matthew. It is still a disgusting thing. What is up with you? Here, this should fit.”
He took the clothes from David and changed into them. Now he and David matched.
“All right. Better. Let’s get back to our seats. Good vibes, buddy. Good vibes.”
He followed David back to his seat. He was amongst the shiny hair and teeth now. Bosoms rose and fell all around him and he was overwhelmed with the light they seemed to hold within them.
“No, you’re over there,” David said, pointing to a vacant spot a few seats over.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Jay Leno,” the voice of God said.
A distinguished, grey-haired man walked across the stage and began to speak. The chandler tried to pay attention to his words but he couldn’t focus; his mind was swimming. He had seen too much and he could feel himself on the verge of tears. The future was too bright for his eyes and knowing that not a single ray of the warmth covering this crowd came from a candle was too much for him to bear.
I must steal the device and bring it back to Mystic Mike. He will know how to stop this future.
He spied another lovely young beauty on the edge of the stage holding the device that Jen had held in her hands earlier. Living pictures on the stage depicted the golden idol as if it was to be worshipped. It must be the key to the reason the remaining chandlers had all been assembled in the back.
I will run to the stage and snatch the trinket from that beautiful courtesan’s hands and hide until the time elixir wears off.
He was sweating through the fine clothes he wore.
I can do this.
He gripped the arms of his chair. His fingers sunk into the soft material.
“Hey, you can see through these envelopes,” the man on stage mused.
The audience laughed.
They will not be laughing for long.
“The winner is, Friends.”
He jumped from his seat and, to his surprise, so did everyone around him. The crowd roared to life all at once.
Can they read my thoughts?
He was pushed into a group of white teeth and shiny hair and beautiful, coloured gowns and he floated along with them down the aisle to the stage and up the stairs and onto the shiny floor and the heaving bosom passed the device to another gentleman a mere arm’s length from him.
This was the moment.
I have nothing to fear now.
He would lunge for the device and run backstage where he would find a shadow to crawl into.
On the count of three. 1...2...
The group began to move again. A tall, red-haired man walked out in front of them and waved to the audience as the chandler found himself being escorted backstage.
Even better. I will make my move where no one will witness it.
He shuffled his way closer to the man who clutched golden doom in his hands.
“Matthew! Hold this for me, will you?”
Their hubris has blinded them. In his excitement, the fool is freely handing the key to the one person present who would steal it from him.
The chandler reached out for the statue but the man moved past him to someone else. He turned and saw the intended target. It was...him. The one called Matthew. He was the spitting image of himself.
Matthew noticed the chandler staring at him. “Whoa, these seat fillers are getting scary good. Could this guy be any more my twin?” he asked.
The group did a double-take, burst into a fit of laughter, then, too, joined the sea of flashing light that had consumed Jen earlier.
The chandler was alone now. Failure closed in around him like a thick sheet. He mouthed his thoughts in whispers only he could hear, “Why did I focus solely on candle making? Why didn’t I become a triple threat like Mystic Mike? I have been shortsighted. There is no hope for my kind. The future has no need of me.”
Then he was back in the castle. The effects of the elixir had finally worn off. The last of his bedside candles flickered against the suffocating darkness. He leaned over and blew it out.
Executive Producers
Kevin S. Bright
Marta Kauffman
David Crane