“I’m half awake and half still at night,

I should laugh but I have a Mickey Mouse smile.”

– Jaromír Nohavica “Mikymauz”

WALT 1

The dressing room was filled with the smell of nail polish, wig glue and alcohol, slightly repressed by the scent of makeup. The soft light of the vanity mirror caught the actor’s wrinkled, powdered face out of twilight.

“Who are you kidding?” Robert — that was the actor’s name — swept the cotton pad across his chin, leaving a streak of lotion and white lint on the skin. His eyes squinted and his upper lip twisted in neither disgust nor grief.

“Joke,” he said, and reluctantly glanced at his unshaven chin and tired eyes. He didn’t look happy, but he didn’t look angry either. “Too bad it’s not funny.”

On the stage that evening, all the tricks he had tried had failed him — gestures, expressions and punch lines — no one had been laughing, no one had been applauding. Not that it had been quiet, oh no. Two ladies in the front row had been chatting away throughout the first act, while a cheeky teenager had been enjoying some chips and a guy next to him had been typing on his phone. After the interval, half of the audience had left, and you could hear snoring from the back.

“A homeless shelter is the place you belong,” Robert said to the mirror. He took out a flask from his jacket pocket and took a sip. Tears glistened in his dull eyes, which he noticed with a tinge of masochistic satisfaction. The last time he had smiled was twenty-three years ago, when he was picking up the award for Best Supporting Actor in a Mini-Series. It had been the pinnacle of his career, and then everything had descended slowly downhill. His “wealth of talent”, which had once been so praised by critics, was gone, but he still had grey tones of melancholy. He just couldn’t use them in today’s farce, and besides, they were transparent to most viewers, who were used to the colourful sitcom chaff. Today he had only convincingly portrayed his fall from grace.

He wouldn’t have to act.

When he heard a knock, he quickly wiped his eyes with his sleeve and tucked the flask into the pocket. He muttered a cautious invitation, and the door swung open.

“Master,” a man called out as he entered the room. He had a puffy face, a high forehead with a receding hairline, and small eyes, but it was the phone in his hand that brought back memories for Robert. This was the guy who had been typing on his cell phone throughout the third act. And now he had the courage to come here with his phone, his baldness and red cheeks and… praise his acting.

His name was Adam Cox. He introduced himself after the welcome shout, which was the beginning of a long, rambling monologue. He said that he had come to see the performance that night, lured by a poster with Robert’s photo. He was surprised to discover that the slogans written on it were not at all exaggerated. “It’s a diamond! Farce of the year! Masterpiece!” he said.

Maybe if he was sober, the actor would have shown more caution and some remnants of healthy self-esteem, but his involuntary reflexes had taken over. Like a young pelican, he tilted his head back, opened his mouth and closed his eyes. After a while, he was unsure whether he was more intoxicated by the whiskey or the compliments. “Masters”, “artists” and “new Marlon Brando” fuddled his brain like strong alcohol. The memory of the hiccup Adam had made during Robert’s performance slowly faded into oblivion…

And yet, something was wrong.

“Sorry, Adam,” Robert interrupted his guest. “But wasn’t the third act a bit boring for you?”

“I’m sorry, master, but I had to quickly check something on the phone.”

“Oh, what was it?”

“I wanted to make sure I could make you an offer, master… an amazing deal. And it turns out that I can.”

Robert sat down more comfortably and crossed his legs.

“I’m all ears,” he said, faking a lack of interest. In fact, he almost sobered up and began to listen intently. The man looked like a salesman, but wasn’t that howagents looked these days? He wouldn’t have known, because for the past twenty years, he’d been organising everything himself, and he’d only seen agents in movies. Culture, decency and good practices had disappeared these days, and he was the last one to cast stones at another loser… But maybe Adam was a winner who just needed help with his outfit.

“It’s a really important role,” said Adam Cox. “No, it’s not just any old episode or cheap farce. And it’s not a movie production either; it’s a live performance.”

“So, is this a theatre production?”

“It’s more like a reality show, really.”

Robert winced.

“Really…” he said, suddenly losing interest. This time, he didn’t have to fake it.

“It’s not trash TV,” Adam Cox reassured Robert, sensing his reservation. He began to speak faster, clearly excited about what he had to say. “Not every man’s docu-soap, oh no. This is the role of the head of an empire. And it’s not an empire of politics or economics, but of an area that really matters — the realm of the spirit. The ruler of this empire conquers and controls minds through stories that are known to people all over the world…”

The agent stood up as he spoke, beaming with pride at his own words.

“He will rise soon to do new things and complete the work that was interrupted.”

The room fell silent. Robert crossed himself and raised his eyebrows questioningly, but Adam Cox shook his head.

“This resurrection will be seen by eight billion people, not just a few,” he said with a warm smile and bowed. “Thank you, master. And after all, you’ll end up in heaven, where there’s no end of love and joy to be found. At least it’s the closest thing to heaven you can buy for a billion dollars in this valley of tears.”

Adam paused and looked at Robert with a cheeky grin. Robert rubbed his chin for a long time.

“And what is the budget for the whole programme?” he asked.

“Over three hundred billion…” Adam paused, looked to the side, and sniffed. Robert quickly put away the flask that was sticking out of his pocket. Adam looked at him with concern, as if he was thinking about it, but finally waved his hand and started typing again on his phone, which he was obviously addicted to.

“… because that’s the net worth of the global network of film studios, TV channels and Internet platforms,” he said, slowly regaining his usual calm. Robert began to make connections in his head, even before Adam showed him the phone display. He’d heard a few comments from people who had taken his photos a month ago, as well as from people who’d seen these photos on the theatre’s website. He’d also heard from a waiter and guests in a certain restaurant, who’d noticed him growing a moustache for his new role. He looked at the black and white photo on the phone, then in the mirror.

“I’m not sure what it’s all about…” he said, looking at his long face with a prominent nose and a slightly recessed chin. “I don’t see any resemblance at all.”

“You look just like Walt Disney!” Adam Cox said, his voice booming like a prophet’s. “And I know how to make money off it.”

After a moment, the last cars’ engines could be heard leaving the parking lot.

“Bil-lions!”

The agent wiped his damp lips, and the actor thought it would be a good idea to listen to the whole story.

A month later, they walked down a shabby corridor into a bright future for both of them. It smelled a bit like urine, grease and rat poison, but that was to be expected. The rollercoaster above them was going at full speed, screeching at the bends and shaking the underground walls. Robert had been sober for a whole month now, and the noise made him shiver even more. He wiped his sweaty forehead and took off his jacket, feeling the cool air on his skin.

“Hot?” Adam asked with a warm smile. “Don’t you worry, it won’t be long now. The cryo-capsule is waiting for you. Is minus three hundred and fifty degrees Fahrenheit enough?”

“Why here?” Robert moaned. His agent had nudged him to speak up. “Why was I kept in the Pirates of the Caribbean basement?” he asked, his voice hoarse with emotion. “Why not in the secret chamber of Sleeping Beauty’s castle? I would have slept right by the side of the most famous sleepy-head in the world. It would make sense…”

“Oh, you know, there’s this urban legend that Walt Disney lies frozen in the basement of Pirates of the Caribbean,” Adam interjected. “Don’t argue with the legend, Legend!”

Meanwhile, the rollercoaster above passed by, and after they unclogged their ears, they could talk normally again.

“I was also thinking about my fee,” Robert said with a smile. “I wonder where you got this billion from?”

“We’re here,” Adam interrupted. He opened the door that said ‘Adam Cox, Junior Development Manager’ and turned on the light. The actor, taken aback, looked into the broom closet that passed as Adam’s office.

“This is your office?” he asked. Without a word, Adam walked over to the dusty espresso machine, next to which stood one clean and one cobwebbed cup.

“Coffee?”

“No,” Robert yelled out loud as another rollercoaster whizzed by above. Wobbling, he made his way over to a chair, stumbling over boxes, buckets and piles of paper along the way. In the fluorescent light, the chair looked like a hologram. He carefully nudged it with his foot before sitting down with a sigh. It was only then that he realised that Adam, sitting on the other side of the desk, was watching him closely.

“Have you been drinking?”

Robert took a deep breath, bent down, and blew with dignity. Adam sniffed and smiled.

“Well done, you’re a real hero.”

“I’m sick.”

“Very well,” Adam said, creaking his chair with his weight. “After hibernation, you should be indisposed, so you don’t have to pretend. The less you have to act, the better for us.”

The actor, who was accustomed to being addressed as ‘master’ or ‘artist’ until recently, straightened up as if he’d been touched in a tender spot.

“I have the utmost respect for your talent,” said Adam, his voice quickening. “I believe in you, and I know you can do it. That’s why I chose you.”

“Not because I’m Disney’s Double?”

“Well, I chose you for two reasons.”

“Let’s talk about my opening statement,” suggested Robert, who, like most actors, was also an unfulfilled screenwriter. “I feel like it’s missing something.”

“Just don’t change anything about it,” Adam said strongly, also filling in as a screenwriter in the project.

“But how do I know what woke me up?”

“Because you didn’t wake up in the hospital, but in your cryo-capsule, and you find out that the failure was caused by negligence of the management board,” Adam explained to him, as he usually did, emphasising the key words. “You figured it out because you’re so clever. A dazzled genius is still a genius.”

“But how did I survive my own death? Most scientists say that cryonics is a waste of time.”

The agent impatiently gestured with his hands.

“Are you a doctor or a scientist, by any chance? Or maybe you’re an engineer? Let’s not talk about things we don’t know much about, okay? We both work in entertainment. Let’s focus on what we know. People will buy anything you sell them, as long as you package it well. They’ve already bought frozen Walt, and they’ll buy the defrosted Walt too, as long as you stay sober and stay in the role.”

He looked accusingly at the actor, who lowered his gaze and grimaced.

“Is TV really coming here?” Robert asked, looking around the shabby hole. He was still trying to handle his mounting tension. He wasn’t sure if the roller-coaster was moving up the hill again, or if his heart was beating faster and faster. The idea of performing live in front of the cameras seemed even more daunting than it did a month ago. Today it brought back not only forgotten desires and dreams, but also forgotten fears.

“Yes, yes, I’ve already reached out to my old contacts,” Adam reassured him. “This bloody network hasn’t absorbed everything yet, there is also independent media out there. They’ll come, and it’s not charity. It’s not every day that the whole complex fails.”

“And if there are victims?”

“Then all the stations will be here.”

The rumbling got louder and Robert covered his ears and cringed. Adam, who was used to the sounds, looked up to the calendar on the wall and smiled. It was decorated with the famous silhouette of a palace with an arch in the background. He shifted his gaze to the paint peeling off the door and then to the mouldy ceiling.

“Tomorrow, this circus will stand in dead silence and darkness. It’ll be quite the earthquake, with a capital ‘E’. And it’s about time…”

He stopped as the walls shook so much that plaster fell from the ceiling, and a piece of it dropped over his eye.

“And the stars in the sky fell to earth, just like figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind,”  Robert recited a phrase that he remembered from some performance he’d seen before. Adam rubbed his eye while glaring at the actor with the other, then waved his hand.

“Tomorrow’s failure will be the last straw for this disastrous management,” he replied, getting up and walking toward the door. “Your first decision as president will be to kick them out. And if there are victims, they will be brought to trial.”

Robert got up, put on his jacket and with a heavy heart, walked toward the door. His poor head had just been crushed by the wheels of an electric locomotive, and its wagons had broken his arms and legs… He knew in his heart that it was all nonsense. The locomotive that had demolished him was called alcoholism, and it pulled wagons of caries, rheumatism, alopecia and eczema. He still lacked money to treat these ailments.

Adam, seeing his expression, couldn’t help but smile wider and pat him on the back.

“Just remember your speech and you’ll be fine.”

“Where’s the… ahem… that goddamn pod?” Robert asked, coughing.

“Right here, behind the wall. It doesn’t really work, the engineer just made it look real. We’ll bring the nitrogen over tomorrow. If you’re feeling chilly, you’ve got a sleeping bag there. Just another hour of the roller-coaster, then we’ll be in a palace-like warmth and quiet. Are you ready?”

“No.”

Adam laughed.

“Come on, come on, you can do it. You’ll get some rest and you’ll be like a newborn again tomorrow.”

“What about the real Disney?”

 “And rich,” Adam kindly added, as if he hadn’t heard him. “And famous, and…”

“Oh, what if they really froze him?” the actor asked. “Oh, there’ll be two of us?”

“Oh, the world is waiting for its Messiah. We’re all waiting for you. Hallelujah!”

WALT 2

The next day, only a big mouse was waiting for them at the emergency exit of the Pirates of the Caribbean complex.

“Oh no, he died!” it squeaked.

This was the first time the artist had seen his most famous creation in half a century.

Of course, none of it was true. The scream came from an actor in a spongy disguise, and another actor pretended to be the creator of the mouse.

Adam hadn’t actually died. He was semi-conscious from an electric shock which had paralysed him when he had tried to immobilise a roller coaster by short-circuiting the underground installation. Robert woke him up in the corridor and helped him out with a fireman’s lift, carrying him outside.

There they discovered that the Pirates of the Caribbean ride was still in full swing, delighting crowds with its lively soundtrack and thrilling journey into the caves. No one but they paid any attention to them.

“Leave me alone,” Adam said, sounding cross as he shook off Robert. “Let’s see if we can find the media. That’s him!” he called to the people who rushed to his aid. “This is Walt!”

Robert tried to stand up straight and smile. But suddenly, a stun gun, tucked under his jacket, gave him a little jolt through his shirt. Robert stiffened, then flopped just like his friend had fifteen minutes ago. Two broad-shouldered bodyguards in gardener uniforms grabbed him by the arms and scooped him into an electric car, whose open boot was loaded with shovels. In the general confusion, no one noticed them, and no one registered Robert’s resemblance to anyone.

Or so it seemed.

The e-vehicle meandered along park alleys, past palaces, merry-go-rounds and fairy-tale characters. Merry children passed before Robert’s stunned eyes.

“I had a dream…” he murmured the speech he had memorised earlier. “I dreamed of a world where sick people wake up from comas, orphans… parents… everything ends well… Adults look after children… Everyone enjoys every moment… Paradise… Florida… my mission into the world,” he whispered, pausing to add his own inserts: “The wolf… the lamb… The leopard… the goat… The calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child…”

The electric car stopped, and one of the guards slapped Robert across the face. They carried him through the gate that had welcomed Disneyland visitors for five decades, the very gate that said “Happiest Place on Earth.” They opened the door of the old Chevy and helped him into the back seat. They handed him a plastic water bottle, which was about half full.

For Robert, it was half empty.

“Who drank it?” he asked. He shook his head and pushed the bottle away.

They found a spot in the beach parking lot. The guy, who had zapped and slapped him earlier, now swung again, but his friend was there to stop him. With Robert in tow, they switched vehicles to a long limousine, the kind driven by newlyweds and one-day millionaires in Las Vegas.

“What’s next?” Robert mumbled under his breath. “A… a helicopter?”

He was dumped in the back of the car. An armrest jabbed his paralyzed side.

“Is it real?” a grey-haired woman next to him asked, looking him up and down through dark glasses as if trying to decide. The guards left, and the door closed behind them with a slam. The car started up, rocking at the parking lot threshold and joining the lazy afternoon traffic on the freeway.

“Is it real?”

Robert looked at the woman. Her hair was neatly tied back. Her sharp cheekbones and pointed chin gave her the appearance of a weasel. Her jacket was elegant and the pearls in her ears and on her neck reflected the leather and wood finish of the car’s interior perfectly.

“Yes, absolutely,” he replied, returning her patronising smile. “Call me Walt, my dear.”

The weasel-woman took off her glasses, leaned over and brought her hand to his face. He straightened up quickly and threw his head back, laughing.

“It’s real,” he said, covering his moustache.

“Did you grow it yourself? Bravo! You’ve done a great job of creating an illusion.”

Robert felt anger, fear and irritation. For a moment he pushed all his confusion aside, wanting to prove something to her and to himself. He’d been abstaining and waiting for the promised billion to help him reenact the forgotten actor that he was. For too long he had been preparing himself for the role of his life to be satisfied with being an extra or a prop, tossed from pillar to post. With a smile, he smoothed his thin black tie and white pocket. He rested one hand on his knee and the other on his chin in a characteristic pose.

“Illusion is my middle name, my dear,” he said, imitating a slight Kansas accent with a warm smile. The woman laughed, then looked at him with a whole new interest.

“You’re ok,” she said. “But that partner of yours…” she gave a soft tut and shook her head. A few lines appeared above her pursed lips.

“Oh, what did you do to him?” Robert asked, straightening up. “Was it you who had him electrocuted?”

The woman let out a deep sigh and became quite serious.

“He’ll be fine,” she said. The actor nodded and looked around. There was a black circle over two smaller ones embossed on the seat headrest. The same logo was on the notebook next to the woman. It only reinforced his suspicions.

“Did you have a microphone in his office?” he asked. “You stopped the media from coming in, is that right?”

She put her sunglasses back on.

“We are the media.”

A phone rang with a familiar tune. The woman retrieved it out of her bag and put it to her ear.

“Yes?”

She frowned as she listened, then hung up and began tapping the display. She winced, clearly not happy with what she was seeing.

“Where are we going?”

She waved her hand impatiently, as if she was swatting a fly. The limousine jumped over a few bumps and then stopped. The door opened and a man with a moustache, wearing a grey jacket, a black tie, and a white pocket square, shuffled in. He nodded to the woman and sat down next to her, facing Robert.

“Call me Walt, sport,” he said with a smile.

Robert was so taken aback that he couldn’t move. His outstretched hand hung midair. It was only later that he realised that the shock of meeting the resurrected genius was intensified by smaller surprises. Why was the woman still tapping away on her phone, ignoring him so obviously? Even if she was the head of the company, she couldn’t be any higher up the ladder than its founder. A few details didn’t quite add up to him, either.

The limousine glided noiselessly down the highway again, and the outstretched hand slowly descended. Men in grey jackets looked at each other with curious eyes.

Robert had the feeling that he was looking at himself in a mirror that was a little out of focus. The hairstyle, tie, shirt, eyes and nose were quite similar, but his cheeks were a little on the large side. And there was more. A double chin and a bulging belly. He couldn’t help but think that he looked more like Walt Disney than the original.

If he was the original.

“You had a great idea, but we were the ones who made it happen,” the other man began. “Your fairy tale is starting to crumble like a house of cards. He wasn’t frozen; he was cremated. You missed doing your homework, didn’t you? Well, the family officially announced it fourteen years ago.”

“Then where did you come from?” Robert asked, curious.

“I’m his clone.”

The actor shook his head and frowned.

“Cryonics is a pitch,” the man said. “On the other side, cloning — there’s not much information out there, but every word is true.”

“Was it already a thing in the 60s?”

“Scientists knew what DNA is and the government was able to secure it. And they found it was definitely worth doing in a few cases. And don’t forget, Kennedy and Elvis fans will soon have their big days too.”

Robert looked at the CEO’s furious face and then at the clone. He still didn’t know where they were taking him, and thought perhaps that the cast for this show had yet to be approved. Maybe he was just being cast for another role? It seemed that the stakes might have been higher than the fee they had promised.

There could only be one Disney.

The woman finally looked up from the phone.

“We have a problem,” she said and pointed at Robert. “Someone took a picture of this disguise and posted it online.”

She showed him a photograph taken just an hour ago, as he and Adam had exited the roller coaster. “Disney is alive and well,” read the caption underneath the cropped portrait. Robert couldn’t help but smile genuinely for the first time that day.

“People have all kinds of theories and guesses about where he is now,” said the weasel-woman in a soft, gentle voice. “Memes, like viruses, spread like wildfire.”

She ran her fingers across the screen and showed them a picture with the distinctive silhouette of cartoon characters leaning against a reindeer with the headline “Disney” and the title “Frozen” with a question mark attached. The second photo showed Robert with the title “Defrost”.

“People are gullible and will swallow any crap as long as it is well packaged,” said the younger man with a smile.

“I think I heard it somewhere,” the old actor said with a sigh, adding a hint of sarcasm. “But aren’t you in the media too?”

The CEO and the rival looked at Robert furiously. He stood his ground and politely offered, “Why don’t we just stick to the plan and hold a conference in an hour? Let’s take advantage of the hype and seize the initiative.”

“I’d love to speak at the conference,” his rival interjected.

“Please,” Robert said with a sigh. “They have my photos. And you’re younger and not to mention fatter…”

“Shut up, both of you.”

The woman threw her phone into her bag. Her pursed lips and furrowed brow made her triangular face look more predatory.

“I beg your pardon,” the man said, loosening his tie. “You must be forgetting something. This comedy has been going on for far too long. You can see for yourself what it led to, if you like. Why have you kept me hidden for so many years? And why are you holding my scripts?”

“Because they suck.”

His chubby cheeks turned red.

“That’s just your opinion. Others believe that the studio will make a fortune on them, especially if they appear under my name…”

“D256-X / B7?” the woman replied with a laugh. “Or Arthur Smith, from your driver’s licence? The government programme is secret and you are officially gone, clone.”

“You will regret it,” the man said, trying to recover his voice. The grey-haired lady pursed her lips and looked at Robert. The actor sensed the curtain before him rise again.

“It’ll be safer to stick to the cryonics story,” he began to speak quickly. “I’ll play everything for you. I will say that in my will, I kept my hibernation a secret and instructed my family to issue a declaration of cremation. And I will prove that I am myself, that is…”

He took a fountain pen from his pocket and bent over his notebook embossed with a Mickey Mouse head. He opened it on the first blank page, put the nib against it, and without tearing it off, penned the signature he had been practising for the last month. The CEO looked at the famous autograph and at Robert. She turned her face to the window and stared at the palm trees moving behind him. She looked as if she was hesitating, but the actor could tell from her expression that the decision had already been made. The producer doesn’t take unnecessary risks. Environmental selection doesn’t promote the most gifted, the truest or the most beautiful, but the best adapted, in a pond full of fish or in show business, no difference. The value of genius in the age of cloning may soon drop, but it’s more sensible to invest in loyalty. However, if her opinion of the scripts written by the clone was true, a talent cannot be copied. Or, at least, it had failed this time. The new — old — head of the studio would be a figurehead, thank goodness!

After all, there could only be one Walt.

WALT 3

Robert looked into his face, illuminated by the warm glow of the vanity mirror. The smell of perfume in the dressing room effectively masked the scent of cleaning products and adrenaline.

“You did it, my friend,” he said to his reflection with a smile.

Diet, meditation and massages had fulfilled their task. All his nasty withdrawal symptoms had disappeared completely. And all his other persistent ailments had been cured too, as there finally were enough funds. His rotten teeth were replaced by a set of implants — for now only temporary, but still even and white, like real ones. After two months of abstinence he had finally begun to sober up. No more stage fright or dark thoughts. He was ready to conquer the world, or rather, to take control of the world that had already been conquered on his behalf.

“Mom, Dad, I’m ready,” he said to his agent and the President of Development, the official function of the weasel-woman, Fiona Cartwright. She spoke first.

“Our last teaser had more viewers than the finals of the last World Cup,” she informed Robert. “Your speech will be seen by half of humanity in just fifteen minutes.”

“Not bad for a piece of ham that I recently pulled out of the rat hole,” smirked Adam Cox. The dressing room buzzed as several assistants ran around, chatting excitedly with each other and on their phones. The make-up artist standing next to him bent down to listen in on the conversation. Robert glared at his agent.

“Just remember it was my idea,” Adam muttered and looked down.

“Which, thankfully, I tweaked ‘a little’,” Fiona said. “Thanks to me, your fairy tale gained more class and a few more authentic touches.”

Adam turned to her angrily.

“Your main contribution was getting me plugged into a million volts.”

“You did that yourself,” she teased.

“I could have died!”

“You could have broken the carousel!”

They stared at each other with fierce expressions, then both smiled.

“Champagne after the show?” Adam asked. And she began to consider his proposal, which showed how quickly the elevator of corporate promotion sometimes runs.

“And to think that not so long ago you were planning to ‘kick this disastrous management out’,” Robert reminded his agent. The President turned to him, raising her eyebrows, and behind her back, Adam put his finger to his lips. The actor waved his hand and sat down comfortably.

“By the way,” he said, “has the security guard, who beat me up a month ago, been fired?”

Fiona smiled briefly and opened her mouth.

“You get on air in fifteen minutes.”

Everyone looked at the assistant standing in the doorway — a bearded man with a samurai bun. Adam looked at his watch.

“We’re starting at six,” he informed him. “And it’s five-fifty already.”

“So, we’re on air in ten minutes,” Fiona added.

“Unfortunately, we may have a slight delay,” he replied, pointing towards the window. “There’s some fuss at the studio.”

“The fuss has been there since the morning,” the president said. “I don’t care about stupid fans.”

Even through the closed windows, the roar of drumrolls and the crackle of flares and sirens could be heard. People seemed friendly, but the producer of the programme assured them ‘just in case’ that the station had a helicopter and a helipad on the roof.

“It’s not about the fans,” said the assistant, pressing the Bluetooth clip in his ear. “It’s about new guests of the show. They’ll be here soon.”

In the silence that fell upon the room, only muffled chants, horns and the beating of drums were heard.

“Guzman!” Fiona roared. She looked around and strode up to the nearest camera. “Guzman! Get your fat ass up and come here. Now.”

A blonde girl in a Mickey Mouse apron passed by, nodded to Robert and quickly looked away. She sat in the chair on his right and arranged the cosmetics in the cabinet. Another girl turned on the lights by the mirror to his left.

“I’ll kill you,” hissed Fiona, turning into a predator again. “You know very well that in five minutes, half of humanity will be sitting in front of the screens.”

One of her smoothly combed locks fell across her face in a grey line. She was about to spit venom from her pursed lips.

“And I know how to attract the other half,” said Alonso Guzman, the show’s executive producer, with a confident smile. His brown eyes and athletic physique were enhanced by a fitted suit. He strode over to Fiona and spoke in a firm, decisive tone, “With the help of the new show’s guests, we’ll…”

“Are you crazy?” she demanded. “You invited a new guest without even telling me? Who?”

Guzman gave the assistant a sharp nod, and he immediately got to his feet. He strode to the door, waved his hands and shouted something down the hall.

“It’s an improvisation in the style of your tacky ‘Tijuana TV’ from which you came here…”

Fiona paused as two men in grey jackets entered the dressing room.

“Good morning,” said the first one. It was the young clone that Robert had met in the limo.

“Hello, I’m Henry Disney,” said the second in a deep, commanding voice. He was an elderly man whom he had seen for the first time. The young clone gazed at Fiona with a hostile look and, without a word, strode towards Robert, nodded and sat on his left with an ironic smile. Behind him, the old clone, helped by a blonde in an apron, climbed into the armchair on the other side.

“What is this?” hissed Fiona. She looked at the producer, narrowing her eyes. “Are you having a clone rally here at five to twelve? I knew you’d mess up eventually. You’re a cocaine-addicted, tacky, provincial dickhead. But today?”

“Shut up.”

Fiona’s face was a white mask of amazement.

“First of all, you invented the ‘Copy of the Master’ action,” Guzman stated, pointing to the clones. “And I’m certain people will believe in real cloning rather than in a fictitious freeze and frostbite.”

“You’re fired.”

Guzman’s laugh sounded like a bark.

“And who will produce this show, you old witch? I can do it in a few minutes and do it my way. All three Disney candidates will enter the studio. The best will win and take it all. They’ll deal the cards.”

Robert caught a knowing look from the actor to his left, who exchanged it with the producer.

“Tell me: do you prefer one chance in three or none?” asked Guzman.

“Why three?” she demanded. Her fury was still battling with surprise. She pointed to the old man. “Who is he?”

“This is the candidate preferred by the Disneys. They contacted me today because they discovered that their great-uncle had a twin.”

“Nonsense,” Adam bellowed, finally recovering his voice. “He didn’t, and even if he did, he’d be dead a long time ago.”

Fiona produced a rattling box from her pocket and the producer moved closer to her.

“Let’s show the old man to the world and laugh at him today,” he said firmly. “Why make him a new sensation tomorrow?”

Fiona swallowed the white pill from the box and opened her mouth again, but at that point, they all started talking simultaneously.

“Let viewers point to the real Disney after the debate.”

“It will be a shit show, not a debate.”

“People are stupid. They like the shit shows.”

“In five minutes, we’ll be on air!”

“Wouldn’t it be better to do DNA tests on them?”

“Which moron said that?”

“This is television, not a laboratory.”

“This will be the show of the century.”

“More like the failure of the millennium.”

Robert’s teeth, which had been replaced with implants, suddenly started hurting. It seemed that they were growing artificial roots deep into his head, entwining with the roots of the implants in his new hair. The nonexistent nerves hurt just as much as real ones.

“Why don’t you freeze time in your capsule?” the younger Disney clone smirked, tapping his shoulder. Robert flinched, slipped his hand under his shirt and began scratching himself. He needed an eczema ointment, a head compress and an anaesthetic pill.

“Let’s start with the fact that a third of humanity is asleep right now.”

“When they wake up, they’ll watch the rerun online.”

“I’m sure they have Wi-Fi even in the boonies.”

“I’ll be on air in four minutes.”

Robert knew exactly what kind of anaesthetic he needed. A golden liquid with a spicy aroma and a barley flavour would put him on his feet in seconds. One shot would be enough. He turned in his chair and looked at an open drawer of a cupboard, standing under the window.

“And why did you have the ‘Frozen’ movie produced and promoted as the biggest hit of the studio?”

“To make money, of course.”

“So that after entering ‘Disney Frozen’ Google throws out different answers than data about freezing Walt Disney. You’ve done your best to stop people from pursuing this topic.”

“It’ll be on air in three minutes.”

“Aaaah!”

His critics would have been delighted — Robert had let out an authentic primal scream. It was pure emotion, with no words. The blonde, who was standing closest to him, jumped back and covered her ears, while her friend dropped the powder compact. Fiona turned pale, Guzman turned red, and the assistant gripped his beard and nearly tore it out. Robert got up and walked on, silently. His rivals stepped aside without question, and the rest followed suit. He kicked the garbage can, shifted the fan on the stand and approached the cupboard. He reached into the top drawer and pulled out a bottle that he had sniffed out an hour ago, right after entering the dressing room. He uncorked it, put it to his mouth and took a swig.

The warm vodka burned his throat, adding to the soreness of screaming. Once swallowed, it came back up, but he followed it with a second gulp. The third one went down smooth as silk.

It was like receiving a defibrillator charge on your deathbed. His heart started beating again, and his pain and helplessness passed instantly. Robert exhaled and regarded the people around him as if he was seeing them for the first time. He dazzled them with the whiteness of his implants, but they didn’t smile back. He huffed dismissively and turned to the vibrating glass.

Smog hovered over the city, but the artificial lights shone brighter than stars. Fireworks shot out against the dark December sky, and New York glistened with its own light like New Jerusalem in Saint John’s vision. A parade of cartoon characters flowed slowly through the streets below. The crowd chanted one name.

The view was spoiled only by a dark smudge on the glass. Robert grabbed the lever and opened the window. A choral song with drum rolls — rum, pum, pum, pum — flowed over him like a stream of warm water. Like a blessing. He closed his eyes, opened his mouth and began to absorb the vibrating energy. Hundreds of instruments and thousands of throats joined together to create a single, unified sound in response to the horns. Robert raised his hand. Someone must have noticed him and pointed him out to the people around them. The news spread through the streets into the city like an earthquake. With a single gesture, he silenced the raucous crowd. He filled his lungs with the smoke-touched air and screamed again. His voice reverberated from Fifth Avenue to Central Park and back again, echoing back in time. People screamed, and the tune they had searched for before came successfully from thousands of throats.

“Walt!”

They were not strong, they were the strength. Filled with them, Robert felt himself hovering above the floor. This mystery had nothing to do with a hoax anymore. The scam had grown into art and surpassed it. In this situation, was his pop-culture prophet costume still a disguise? The illusionist — the trickster — began to levitate. The body became the Word.

“Walt!”

Who did they love? Who did they shout to?

“Okay, okay, man,” Adam said firmly in his ear. “Keep it up.”

He placed his hands on Roberts’ shoulders and turned him to face him.

“But not everyone on Earth will see you through the window,” he said, looking him in the eye as if he were hypnotising him. “They’re all waiting for you there,” he said, his voice a spell.

“Over there,” he pointed to the door marked ‘In the air’ and firmly guided Robert towards it. He wanted to say something, but his scratched throat wouldn’t let him.

“Go, Prophet,” Adam commanded, sticking the handset in his ear. “Repeat my every word, and today we will be in Eden. Go.”

Robert turned to the window, but someone had closed it, and the glass separated him from his fans again. He emptied the bottle, set it down and shrugged. He allowed himself to be led through the deserted dressing room to the small crowd of people gathered by the studio door. Next to them were his two powdered doubles.

“Five seconds,” Guzman said. He opened the door and, with a gesture of authority, invited the three men in grey jackets inside. He motioned for the others to step back.

But they all backed away.

On the threshold stood a Black man with a grey moustache, also dressed in a grey jacket with a black tie and a white pocket square. He laughed at the sight of wide-open eyes staring at him.

“Don’t worry boys, you’ll get your chance too,” he called to the other Walts in a condescending tone. “People already know from the snapshots that Disney is me. The stations broadcasted it a moment ago. But we play fair until the end. I saw you there on the monitor.”

He turned to Robert. “New York may be yours, Mr. Screamer, but what about the rest of the world? Will you tell your fairy tale to the viewers?”

He laughed and gave Robert a firm pat on the shoulder. His hand was firm, cold and strong, and the skin strung tight over it gleamed like plastic.

WALT 4

Robert wobbled into the studio and stopped only at the brightly lit couch.

The host welcomed the guests and introduced them to the audience. He shook hands with ‘the clone’, ‘the twin’ and ‘the real Disney’ one by one. He called each of them Disney, although it was only with the fourth guest that his ironic smirk disappeared, as if he had dropped the quotes from the name. He let the black man speak first, justified by the fact that the other guests were speechless. Robert sat huddled at the far end of the couch, staring at the man’s hand gesturing excitedly.

He still felt its cold, shivering touch on his shoulder.

The man’s words, now slurred by alcohol, slowly began to register. He made a long list of complaints about the racist 1940s in which the ‘real Disney’ could not reveal the colour of his skin and had to send an adult white actor to meetings. He started using the actor in interviews and documentaries, and that’s how things stayed.

“Did you really make all those cartoons as a kid?” the showman asked.

“I kept making them,” replied the black man, “after my white face died.”

The word ‘died’ was clearly understood, not to be confused with the words ‘was frozen’.

“Did you create all the later Disney movies?” The presenter shook his head in disbelief.

“All of them, up to this day,” the man asserted with certainty and a grin. “Have any of you ever seen their writers’ faces?”

There was a long, awkward silence in the studio.

“We see it now,” the host declared, “because it’s one face.”

Robert was jolted awake by the roar of applause. He fixed his gaze on the black man’s hand and the word ‘Applause’ that flared over the audience. He also felt like applauding in the face of such an internally consistent absurdity. He knew he had to act fast, or fiction would soon become truth. Unfortunately, his sore throat still hurt and he knew it would probably fail to obey him. Furthermore, his mind was blank, and somewhere along the way, he had lost the earpiece through which Adam was to give him instructions.

And there was something else. This competitor would strike up close and take the audience away. That’s why he was the ideal avatar — he didn’t need a voice in his ear.

Robert stood up, silencing the host and the audience with a hoarse mutter. He took a fountain pen from his pocket, rolled up his sleeves and raised his hand.

The host froze, but the drummer didn’t miss a beat. He played the tremolo on the snare drum. Robert didn’t autograph with his famous signature. The studio’s logo was created after Disney’s death and had nothing to do with his authentic autograph. Fiona or Adam might not have known it, but the average internet user could look it up in seconds.

No, Robert did something else. He took a swing and plunged the nib into the iron hand of his black rival with a furious force.

Something clicked, sparks flew and false fingers spread apart. Thick lips cried out, “Man, you damaged my hand,” but they didn’t even wince.

Robert had been right, and the cables and sparks confirmed his suspicions. He seized the pen from the artificial hand and, with a swift and decisive move, thrust it into the black man’s neck. To his astonishment, he found no plastic surface hiding cables, actuators and sensors.

The steel smoothly entered the man’s living flesh, from which blood spurted. The man’s uninjured hand grabbed his wounded neck, while his steel hand swung like a shovel, hitting Robert in the ear and sending him flying to the couch. The cyborg, with a terrible growl, fell on him, put his mechanical arm around his neck and squeezed.

Robert’s consciousness escaped him for a moment, and he ceased to be human. His reptilian brain, buried somewhere under his secondary ganglia and cortex, took control. His head turned, and his jaws opened and tightened on a fleshy cheek. The black man’s hand released his wounded neck and seized his bitten face. Robert bowed his head and thrust the pen into the man’s forehead with all his might. The pressure of steel eased, and at that moment, his consciousness returned. He shook himself, spat out iron-flavoured saliva and sat up. Rubbing his bloodshot eyes, he demanded, “Did I kill him or turn it off?”

It took a long time for the audience to recover from shock. After a while, only Robert stood motionless in the eye of the cyclone, which he had himself unleashed. The familiar, brutal security guard slammed him in the face again and overpowered him (as it later turned out, he had not lost his job — in fact he had become head of security for the studio in recognition of his prowess a month earlier). The dying black pseudo-Disney was taken via an elevator to the roof, to the helicopter, and a Mickey Mouse image interrupted the screens.

And then, everyone started talking at once.

“Viewership jumped to five billion,” Guzman declared as he and his assistants burst into the studio.

“Start the broadcast and point all cameras at Robert,” Adam said, running right behind them. He pushed the bodyguard aside, sat his ward down in an armchair and put the receiver in his ear. “Keep calm, man. We can still salvage this.”

The actor read the words from Adam’s lips because he was deafened by electric alarms sounding from every corner of the studio.

“This madman broke my programme.” Fiona was furious. “I won’t let him tear it down.”

“We’ve won the audience. Are you deaf?” Adam shouted, massaging Robert’s shoulders. “Our Disney just got back into the game. He’s now famous and scary — and he’s entertaining bingo.”

“The audience is five and a half billion, but it’s starting to decline.”

“You broke the hit, you retards! The historic human-cyborg battle has just taken place here. Resume broadcasting now.”

When Robert regained consciousness, he promised to be polite and say the whole truth on air. After hearing it, Adam slapped him back into sanity. Fiona ordered both of them to leave and turned to the cameras to call the other members of the board to a teleconference. She tabled an immediate proposal to fire Guzman, which was approved unanimously. The lawyers delayed police intervention, and the PR agent kicked off a debate with the eternal question, “What are we going to tell stupid people?”

Meanwhile, Robert sat in the corporate cafeteria, washed, dressed and patched up by paramedics. He accepted Adam’s apology. He was in shock, but otherwise fine. He just couldn’t hear in one ear. Adam swore that no one would ever hit him again, and Robert promised that he would never lose the earpiece again. They went from whiskey to vodka, and at midnight, when the bosses finally got along, Robert didn’t care. He stood alone in front of the cameras in the spotlight, as the CEOs sent his rivals home.

“We have a problem,” Adam stated firmly in his good ear on behalf of the board.

“We have a problem,” Robert stated automatically to a select few of his most loyal viewers.

Like the Great Depression and many other disasters, this one had begun with rumours. Four hours earlier (about an hour after the suspension of transmission), the fans gathered in front of the studio had become bored with the choral singing and, as is customary, had begun tweeting from their phones.

There, the surviving Disneys were furious that their candidate had been ignored. In response, they had published the death certificate of their great-grandfather. Someone had posted a photo of the urn with Disney’s ashes, and someone else had posted a statement from the cemetery confirming the cremation. However, the heirs’ triumph had been short-lived. Someone had discovered Walter E. Disney’s birth certificate from 1901, which listed no twin. Someone else had found a movie where the real, undoubtedly white Walt, was drawing Mickey Mouse. Advanced technology had juxtaposed the archival footage with the studio recording and had picked up anatomical details that differentiated the original Disney from the three white fakes. And that had been the end of the story. The human ocean had drained from the studio building and spilled over the narrow streets.

Robert was the Messiah at 6 o’clock; at 7 o’clock he was again breaking popular news as the Beast, but by midnight became a scammer. He stuttered in front of the cameras, sweating, and neither his drunk in-ear agent, nor his predatory boss, nor any of the television magnates had a clue on how to stop the catastrophe. They tried to react to what they saw on the screens, because although in their minds they were still addressing idiots, these idiots were no longer passive television viewers, but active internet users. Overactive ones. The cyber-trolls shouted Robert down with comments, parodied him with memes, turned his speech into a grim joke.

“They didn’t have to turn,” he said to his reflection in the mirror of a one-man cell. The studio’s mercenaries had tried to reverse the trend with fabricated reports, but they had all been identified as fakes and stopped in their tracks. Mickey Mouse, who had brought good luck to the real Disney, had brought down the fake one. The icon that had started it all a hundred years ago, the black-and-white mother of other characters, hung on the screens for too long. Mickey was friendly, chummy and famous, but his strength was his movement and voice. Unlike the Mona Lisa, his smile didn’t intend to hide a secret. While the emotions in the studio soared, the ones in front of the screens simmered. The viewers’ attention to the Mouse waned, just as surely as blood drained from the neck of one of its alleged creators.

The unions of Disney Entertainment Studios,  whose Chair turned out to be the programme’s host, knew exactly what to do at the last minute. They were right to assume that a black Vietnam veteran could be easily controlled, thanks to a surgical implant in his brain, and would arouse sympathy even if people did not believe his story.

The jury bought it. They convicted Robert of manslaughter despite his story of a nervous breakdown. The prosecutor made it clear that he and his partner had planned the fraud and then, in cold blood, removed the obstacles in their way.

“There were at least three obstacles in the studio,” the attorney stated, determined to maintain the frenzied narrative. “Why did he only attack one?”

And there was an answer to that. The allegation of racism was the nail in Robert’s coffin, both in the courtroom and online.

He was to get a fortune; instead, he got a life sentence. He was to be famous; now he was sore and scratched and sober for a year. He was to talk to billions; now he was talking to himself. Adam, on probation and relegated to being an assistant to a demoted Fiona, did not speak with him. Robert was alone again.

“We’re late,” he said to his reflection in the glass, and he was right.

“We are five hours late,” he added, and he was wrong.

In the previous century, he and his agent would have taken control of the studio and participated in its unprecedented expansion into the 21st century. But by Year 2026, they were already out of the running. The web users had taken an interest in him for only a moment — rightfully so — and after a quick verification of facts, they had turned their restless attention to yawning bears, melting glaciers, burning forests and other eco-scandals. Robert was nothing but a distant memory, the freak, the offender.

And the Word became flesh. Both Words.

“They considered live animals more important than the drawn ones,” he said, looking through the mirror behind him. “Can you believe me, Mickey?”

The mouse in the corner of the cell blinked and ran a paw over its mustache. Day by day, Robert was slowly letting go of the bitterness that had initially disgusted him to the sight of the rodent. Now, he saw the reflection of its famous namesake in it. He smiled at the mouse more and more often and spoke to it, certain that one day it would answer him. The animated Mickey had also been silent for several years before speaking. Thank God, they had plenty of time.