Post by Eddie "Shiro" Felt on Mar 27, 2016 16:05:39 GMT -5
I am awake. I am alert.
I am repeating that to myself ad infinitum, hoping that for one brief moment, it sticks. That I don't have to continuously remind myself that I can believe what I'm seeing, even though half the time it seems I'm full of shit even there.
A /flash/ of color pulls Eddie out of his head and back to REALity; the cluttered, dirty apartment belonging to Lola Livingstone. Groggy, Eddie rubs his eyes and forces himself up into a seated position as Lola comes into field of vision, her \shark\-like eyes once again seeming to stare past him at darker horizons and pitch black clouds bleeding crimson rain. Those were her dreams - hellfire and apocalypse rained down from the heavens; from those who claim to be humanity's protectors.
"Look who's alive," she said, taking a seat next to him. "Was starting to think you were worm food. Would've sucked if you died on my couch."
He shook his head.
"Why would I be dead on your couch?"
"Message from the NSA. Stuffing you into the fridge so I can find the motivation I need to finally, definitively, expose them."
"I think you'd be the one stuffed in the fridge."
"Nah."
Eddie scoffs, letting his head fall backwards, resting on the back of the couch. He closes his eyes, staring up at the stucco ceiling above.
I am awake. I am alert.
Lola glares at me; I know what she wants to ask, she's been dying to ask it since I woke up. She's trying to get onto the topic naturally, let it organically come up in conversation but the thing is, she's painfully obvious.
I clear my throat and sigh, ready to finally indulge her desire for information. However, when I open my eyes I find that she's no longer here. I'm not in her apartment anymore; instead I'm seated in a lavishly furnished office. Beige walls adorned with military memorabilia; antique weaponry, WWII-era medals (all Nazi, natch), the head of Osama Bin Laden stuffed and mounted on the wall above the man seated across from me.
His face is stuck in a perpetual smile; the corners of his mouth stretched as far as they can be, exposing rows and rows of /shark/ teeth. His eyes /flash/ a brilliant vibrancy of colors, before they change for the last time, to black. The man lays his hands on the desk, twisting one corner of his mouth upwards. He cocks his head to the side and begins to speak, his voice a twisted cacophony of grating, shrill voices. A choir of cats in heat.
"Good day, my child."
I look into the man's eyes and see myself reflected back at me. The lizard mask. The attack. The bathroom. I turn away from him, at a mirror on the wall but I don't see my own reflection. No, I see him, still smiling, though his expression is sinister. In the mirror I see one of his hands reaching for me but when I turn back to him on guard, ready to defend myself, I see he's seated in the same position he was when I looked away. His eyes still playing my greatest hits. I'm waiting for the look at my headstone.
Here lies Eddie Felt, peperony and chease.
"Where am I?"
"Where you need to be, my child."
Trying to reach you.
Trying to reach you.
Trying to reach you.
A sudden throbbing in my skull forces my head into my hands. Though the man's mouth isn't moving I can hear the demented chorus shouting, squealing, ripping through my eardrums and dancing on my brain like a scalpel slicing through flesh. A fine, clean cut. Surgical precision.
The man pushes his chair out and stands up; his eyes /flash/ing once more.
"You can call me the Kingmaker."
He approaches me and takes a seat on the corner of the desk. He raises one of his hands, and waves his index finger in my face, watching as my eyes follow his finger as it sways back and forth like a pendulum to the beat of a metronome. Sixty beats per minute. Click. Click. Click.
"How do you feel, my child?"
I open my mouth to speak, but the words don't leave my mouth.
"Would you say you feel, overwhelmed?"
He continues to wave his finger in front of my face.
"We're counting on you, Eddie."
For a second, one voice stood out in the whirlwind of grating, nails-on-a-chalkboard sounds. Ethan's. The throbbing in my head intensifies, and I hide my face in my hands, not wanting to see the Kingmaker anymore. I don't want to be here I don't want to be here
"I don't want to be here."
"Tsk tsk. A shame Eddie, you had such potential…"
The Kingmaker grabs my hands and pries them from my face, his eyes wide and a wild expression exaggerating his features. He begins to laugh hysterically, the odor of blood escaping his mouth.
"Just kidding you're fuccin trash!"
The Kingmaker backhands me in the face, forcing a mouthful of spit from my mouth.
"Oh, come on! Doesn't that shit motivate you? Be a fuccin man for once in your life you weak-willed little shit."
In the blink of an eye, the Kingmaker is gone. I'm far away from the office.
Sweat pours down my face as I stare into the sun. The light at the end of the tunnel; a staggering oasis in the pitch black hell I find myself in now. The sweltering heat cooks my organs from the inside out; blasts of humid hot wind whipping my bare skin like a cat o' nine tails. Sweat bleeds from my back, my stomach, my arms and legs.
I force myself to walk towards the sun.
Walk towards the light.
Complete evacuation of mind and body.
With each step the heat beats down harder, each breath I draw in more labored, every time I open my mouth I end up with a mouthful of my own boiling perspiration. I collapse to my knees, dragging myself on all fours through the endless black void.
Is this how Andre Aquarius feels? Pulling himself through matches he couldn't care less about, always cognizant of the fact that his efforts can and will often be for naught? Does he too, struggle with the daydreams and delusions of what could be, should be, would be if something had gone different. Maybe if he had just seen Bonnie Blue coming, he could've stopped Grayson Pierce from pinning John Gable. Maybe if #BeachKrew had a little more faith in him being able to finish the job, he wouldn't have a DQ loss to one of their first victims in Derek Moreno.
He has to think about these things, right? They have to gnaw away at his sense of self-worth, seeing as he proclaims to the world to be a winner. Seeing as he makes these grandiose claims that he will succeed; he is back and better than ever; he won't fall into the same traps as last time. Every time he missteps, it has to reverberate through his bones; loop endlessly in his mind; play hopscotch in the empty ribcage of his soul because his heart is gone.
Maybe it isn't. He is back after all.
He's won this run. Maybe he's playing the long game. Really cherishing the moments where he's looked at as a scrub, a joke, the lowest of the low in the #BeachKrew hierarchy. What was it I had said earlier?
He was the hungry, hungry, caterpillar?
Maybe it's truer than I could've ever imagined. Maybe he wanted this to happen. To look weak; to look like he hadn't changed much even with his new "attitude". He wasn't a caterpillar; he was a fucking spider.
And I found my way onto his web.
I drag myself further. The sun is always moving away. I'll never make it out of this hell.
The consolation is; neither will Andre. See, he's the wolf in sheep's clothing but it seems like he's become the mask a little too much. A loss to Bonnie Blue and Grayson Pierce isn't anything to really brood over; Rebellution possess the tag titles. But to an alpha like Andre, that isn't good enough. He knows what he wants.
He knows what he needs.
He lives for those props. The thrill of victory. One he can really brag about. One where he gets the pin. One where for the first time in his career; he's the guy on everyone's radar. Not overshadowed by Jared. Not overshadowed by Wade. Not overshadowed by his own partner Dustin.
He's dragging himself through the same hell as me, but for different reasons. He's fighting to stay on the pedestal he's built up for himself. I'm fighting because my fucking life depends on it.
I'm backed into the fucking corner. Back up against the wall.
It's go time, motherfucker.
I collapse on the black nothingness under me. Panting. Body drenched in sweat. Skin red, peeling, cracking. Looking up at the blinding oasis; my salvation, approaching.
My salvation takes the shape of a man with two faces; the angel and the demon. The sheep and the wolf.
The \badger\ and the /shark/.
"The Kingmaker is lying to you," the badger says, offering his hand to help me up. Weakly, I reach out and try to grab it but just my finger brush his, he pulls his hand away and stomps on my hand as it falls limply to the ground.
"You're not a soldier; you're cattle. Led to the slaughter. A smokescreen." The shark speaks with a fiery intensity, dropping to one knee and looking me in the eye. "He doesn't give a shit about you. This is about him."
Trying to reach you.
Trying to reach you.
Trying to reach you.
"You're adorable; a child playing war. In another world, you could've been my pet instead of his."
The shark grinds his foot into my hand. I grimace in pain but no sounds escaped my mouth.
I roll over onto my back as the two-faced man looked down on me; the badger with a concerned frown, the shark with a callous grin.
"Don't you see it now? You played yourself; you and your group of fresh-faced fuccbois with your sights set on something too far out of your grasp. Or did the Kingmaker convince you that you wanted this? Lying, pandering cunt. It's obvious he's full of shit. Everyone can see it. Oh, wait."
The shark inspects me, sneering.
"Your head would make a great gift for him; don't expect him to mourn you. You already served your purpose. He's done with you."
Trying to reach you.
Trying to reach you.
Trying to reach you.
The badger closes my eyes for me and the world goes black.
Though, in the darkness I can't help but fixate not on the shark's venom or the badger's kindness; but the duality therewithin. Two separate beings inhabiting the same body. Like Dustin Beaver. The egomaniac and the sycophant. The superstar and the minnow. Desperate for validation, wanting nothing more than for someone to tell him that they're proud of him. It's no wonder he joined #BeachKrew; they're a family, more or less. A highly dysfunctional family of delusional (oh how rich it is for me to be calling someone else that) narcissists sure, but a family nonetheless.
They protect his fragile ego from each loss. Each shattering performance where he gave it his all, but it wasn't good enough. Maybe I'm being callous; after all, I haven't tasted the sting of defeat yet. Yet. Beaver and Aquarius are looking to change that, to break us and assert their dominance.
They see us as their way of affirming the pedestal they put themselves on. To give them the affirmation that they so desperately desire. Beaver gets a win here, he keeps on trucking along with the momentum he's got building, all the way to another championship. Another way for him to think that he's good enough. That he's #betterthanyou. Oh, wait that's Kemp. Is it?
Beaver's a former champion, I can't forget. That was his peak; he's just too blind to see it. Like Dennis Reynolds, you confront him on it and he'll puff out his chest and tell you that he hasn't begun to peak. He'll peak so hard the entire WCF will feel it.
But he's blind to the fact that right now, the strongest thing about him is the aura that makes everyone near him lose any bit of nuance and become 1 dimensional caricatures of themselves.
Trying to reach you.
Trying to reach you.
Trying to reach you.
The two sides of Dustin Beaver are at war with themselves. How could they not be? They're diametrically opposed. There's the egomaniac; the uncrowned king. Orcus on his throne. Just waiting, biding his time to strike and make sure the entire WCF feels the impact of his every strategically placed blow. Waiting to make sure everyone's paying attention before he declares checkmate. That he won three turns ago, he was just playing with his food. We're still waiting for this; the longer it goes on the more sure we are that it isn't happening but the egomaniac will say it is. Just you wait and see.
Then there's the sycophant; the one who desperately craves attention, admiration, and affirmation. The side that wants you to beavleave; wants everyone to beavleave because then and only then can he beavleave himself. Who hitched himself to the #BeachKrew post in exchange for that support system. That validation he craves. To be told he is good enough. That he is deserving.
That the egomaniac isn't wrong. He wants to be the guy looking down on everyone. Orcus on his throne.
But he isn't.
He wants to dismiss everyone, then prove himself worthy of being able to do so in the ring.
But he can't.
And so he goes 'round and 'round, hoping and praying that one day; the two sides will become one. That the bipolar cycle that consumes so much of his life will be over.
In that moment and that moment only, will he truly beavleave.
But I can't let that happen. Not tonight. Not at our expense.
I open my eyes and before I can even conceptualize my surroundings, the familiar discord of the Kingmaker cut through the peaceful, serene, silence.
"You don't believe them, do you?"
I'm not in his office.
I'm back in Colorado Springs. Staring into the dirty mirror to find my own reflection with /flash/ing eyes and /shark/teeth, grinning wildly, mouth open wide. The Kingmaker's voice emits from my reflection's mouth, "They're liars."
My reflection spits; the blob of saliva striking me /on the nose/.
"They're afraid of you, my child. They're afraid of the fact that you and your buddies did what no one else would dare to dream. You took the fight to them. You went on the attack. You were the aggressors; not them for once. They're scared that they're losing their grip. Their stranglehold over all the armies in the land because now, thanks to you; there's one army that can't scare into submission."
The Kingmaker's face eclipsed his; two overlapping visages dueling for promenence.
Then nothing. The mirror is black. The mirror is gone. The mirror is a wall.
I scream at the wall; raging against the dying of the light. Like Andre Aquarius challenging for the Hardcore Championship. Like Dustin Beaver begging everyone to beavlieve.
The world around me goes black once again, and in the blink of an eye, I'm back in the REAL world.
"Earth to dipshit," Lola's always comforting voice questions, violently shaking my shoulder. I shake my head to rid myself of the rest of the cobwebs left in my head before glaring at her with all the faux-ire I can muster. I'm so full of shit. So, so full of shit. Everything I do is fabricated or exaggerated because I'm scared of my own feelings and the worst part is I'm aware of that. I am awake. I am alert. I see my flaws and yet, I can't save myself from them. I can't fix me; how am I supposed to the fix the world?
"Dipshit to Earth, suck my ass."
She chuckles, before slapping my lightly in the face.
"C'mon, tell me."
"You saw that weird fuckin' post before the site went down, right?"
"The one about the chick whose husband went missing?"
I nod.
"Fuckin' weirdo."
You don't know the half of it.
"You mean they did it?"
"Yeah, it was her. I've, kept in contact."
Her eyes go wide and she gives me a smile. "What, you gonna fuck her?"
"Fingers crossed," I say with a chuckle.
"How the fuck did she do it?"
She stares at me, expecting an answer.
I am awake. I am alert.
I'm not in her apartment. I'm running down the street, stark raving naked, screaming at the top of my lungs. Not words; just incoherent sounds. As I run down the street no one pays attention to me; no, they're too focused staring at their phones, reading the same propaganda that I preach against online.
I have a mouth. I am screaming.
My screams fall on deaf ears.
"I don't know," I tell Lola as my mind's a million miles away.
Trying to reach you.
Trying to reach you.
Trying to reach you.
I think back to my first conversation with KMIWI after truthboards fell.
>r u okay???
>Yeah, I didn't go through with the plan, obviously.
>thats good.
>I'm glad you believe me. I don't think anyone else on the site did. Fucking Admin.
>howd u take down the site???
>The fake spambot accounts were a backup measure. Didn't plan on using them.
>how long have u been planning this???
>For a long time. I could use some help.
>i got a friend who could help us
>No. Just us.
TRYING TO REACH YOU.
TRYING TO REACH YOU.
TRYING TO REACH YOU.
I'm running again. No eyes on me.
I'm screaming again. No ears on me.
My legs feel like they're going to explode as I continue to pound the pavement. Feet blistering with each step. My knees buckle and I collapse to the ground, reaching out to grab something, anything to break my fall.
My fingers wrap around a green T-shirt. I look upwards and see the writing on the shirt.
"Kiss Me I Was Irish."
"Eddie!"
I'm back again. Lola is fuming, her pasty face now beet red. "What the fuck?"
"Sorry, my mind's everywhere at once today."
Everywhere at once. That's the problem; I'm spreading myself too thin. I'm a fucking activist, a wrestler, a social media personality, a student; all at once. I'm so fucking tired; but I can't sleep. I won't. If I sleep, I'm dead.
I close my eyes and brace myself for another transition into some fantasy world. It's going to happen, I know it. But when I open my eyes, I'm still in Lola's apartment; chest rapidly expanding and contracting, heart racing, breathing heavy. The usual. She cocks her head and shoots daggers into my eyes with her glare.
"Are you on drugs?"
I shake my head no.
I am awake.
I am alert.
Trying to reach you.
Trying to reach you.
Trying to reach you.
"Then stop acting like it."
>I think the Admin is in on it.
>in on what???
>Whatever it is my husband was looking into. He was so quick to shut me down.
>yeah that did seem fishy
>More than fishy. I've been lurking those boards for a while; the Admin is never that quick to shut something down even when it's obviously a hoax.
Once again my thoughts turn towards the television. The television that controls our lives. Lets us see what it wants us to see; the images and words that best push forth its own agenda. What agenda is that today? Who knows? Nothing the television pushes is coherent; it's nothing. A blur. A meaningless, expressionless cesspool promoting obedience and nihilism. Red lips like tenth.
11B-X 1371.
Flashy showmanship to disguise for a lack of substance by design. To get speculation brewing without ever offering an explanation. Explanations don't matter so long as you continue fueling baseless pondering. Justifications aren't necessary if you have a captive audience. Ones so thoroughly mindfucked that they'll smile and go along with everything you preach even when it contradicts our values. Our morals.
The President doesn't lead this country.
The television does.
The television rules the world. Influences everyone. It's what we all have in common. Rich and poor. Black and white. Christian and Muslim. We're all being led astray by the television, and yet we don't see it. We can't see it. They won't let us see it because a peek behind the curtain, a look at the man pulling the strings, keeping the illusion alive would end it. End it all right then and right there. They only have the power because we let them.
I wish I could say these words aloud with the confidence to make people believe. Soon enough I'll hopefully have a platform, but by then, there's the fear that I've sold out. That I'm only speaking the "truth" that's acceptable. The kind that's fit for the fucking television.
That's it.
The truther's dilemma (or dilemna).
We aren't heard. We aren't listened to. At least not until we get the exposure. But once we get the exposure, we lose our credibility. Once our voices can be heard, no one wants to hear them.
Truth is; I'm scared.
I'm scared to death.
I am repeating that to myself ad infinitum, hoping that for one brief moment, it sticks. That I don't have to continuously remind myself that I can believe what I'm seeing, even though half the time it seems I'm full of shit even there.
A /flash/ of color pulls Eddie out of his head and back to REALity; the cluttered, dirty apartment belonging to Lola Livingstone. Groggy, Eddie rubs his eyes and forces himself up into a seated position as Lola comes into field of vision, her \shark\-like eyes once again seeming to stare past him at darker horizons and pitch black clouds bleeding crimson rain. Those were her dreams - hellfire and apocalypse rained down from the heavens; from those who claim to be humanity's protectors.
"Look who's alive," she said, taking a seat next to him. "Was starting to think you were worm food. Would've sucked if you died on my couch."
He shook his head.
"Why would I be dead on your couch?"
"Message from the NSA. Stuffing you into the fridge so I can find the motivation I need to finally, definitively, expose them."
"I think you'd be the one stuffed in the fridge."
"Nah."
Eddie scoffs, letting his head fall backwards, resting on the back of the couch. He closes his eyes, staring up at the stucco ceiling above.
I am awake. I am alert.
Lola glares at me; I know what she wants to ask, she's been dying to ask it since I woke up. She's trying to get onto the topic naturally, let it organically come up in conversation but the thing is, she's painfully obvious.
I clear my throat and sigh, ready to finally indulge her desire for information. However, when I open my eyes I find that she's no longer here. I'm not in her apartment anymore; instead I'm seated in a lavishly furnished office. Beige walls adorned with military memorabilia; antique weaponry, WWII-era medals (all Nazi, natch), the head of Osama Bin Laden stuffed and mounted on the wall above the man seated across from me.
His face is stuck in a perpetual smile; the corners of his mouth stretched as far as they can be, exposing rows and rows of /shark/ teeth. His eyes /flash/ a brilliant vibrancy of colors, before they change for the last time, to black. The man lays his hands on the desk, twisting one corner of his mouth upwards. He cocks his head to the side and begins to speak, his voice a twisted cacophony of grating, shrill voices. A choir of cats in heat.
"Good day, my child."
I look into the man's eyes and see myself reflected back at me. The lizard mask. The attack. The bathroom. I turn away from him, at a mirror on the wall but I don't see my own reflection. No, I see him, still smiling, though his expression is sinister. In the mirror I see one of his hands reaching for me but when I turn back to him on guard, ready to defend myself, I see he's seated in the same position he was when I looked away. His eyes still playing my greatest hits. I'm waiting for the look at my headstone.
Here lies Eddie Felt, peperony and chease.
"Where am I?"
"Where you need to be, my child."
Trying to reach you.
Trying to reach you.
Trying to reach you.
A sudden throbbing in my skull forces my head into my hands. Though the man's mouth isn't moving I can hear the demented chorus shouting, squealing, ripping through my eardrums and dancing on my brain like a scalpel slicing through flesh. A fine, clean cut. Surgical precision.
The man pushes his chair out and stands up; his eyes /flash/ing once more.
"You can call me the Kingmaker."
He approaches me and takes a seat on the corner of the desk. He raises one of his hands, and waves his index finger in my face, watching as my eyes follow his finger as it sways back and forth like a pendulum to the beat of a metronome. Sixty beats per minute. Click. Click. Click.
"How do you feel, my child?"
I open my mouth to speak, but the words don't leave my mouth.
"Would you say you feel, overwhelmed?"
He continues to wave his finger in front of my face.
"We're counting on you, Eddie."
For a second, one voice stood out in the whirlwind of grating, nails-on-a-chalkboard sounds. Ethan's. The throbbing in my head intensifies, and I hide my face in my hands, not wanting to see the Kingmaker anymore. I don't want to be here I don't want to be here
"I don't want to be here."
"Tsk tsk. A shame Eddie, you had such potential…"
The Kingmaker grabs my hands and pries them from my face, his eyes wide and a wild expression exaggerating his features. He begins to laugh hysterically, the odor of blood escaping his mouth.
"Just kidding you're fuccin trash!"
The Kingmaker backhands me in the face, forcing a mouthful of spit from my mouth.
"Oh, come on! Doesn't that shit motivate you? Be a fuccin man for once in your life you weak-willed little shit."
In the blink of an eye, the Kingmaker is gone. I'm far away from the office.
Sweat pours down my face as I stare into the sun. The light at the end of the tunnel; a staggering oasis in the pitch black hell I find myself in now. The sweltering heat cooks my organs from the inside out; blasts of humid hot wind whipping my bare skin like a cat o' nine tails. Sweat bleeds from my back, my stomach, my arms and legs.
I force myself to walk towards the sun.
Walk towards the light.
Complete evacuation of mind and body.
With each step the heat beats down harder, each breath I draw in more labored, every time I open my mouth I end up with a mouthful of my own boiling perspiration. I collapse to my knees, dragging myself on all fours through the endless black void.
Is this how Andre Aquarius feels? Pulling himself through matches he couldn't care less about, always cognizant of the fact that his efforts can and will often be for naught? Does he too, struggle with the daydreams and delusions of what could be, should be, would be if something had gone different. Maybe if he had just seen Bonnie Blue coming, he could've stopped Grayson Pierce from pinning John Gable. Maybe if #BeachKrew had a little more faith in him being able to finish the job, he wouldn't have a DQ loss to one of their first victims in Derek Moreno.
He has to think about these things, right? They have to gnaw away at his sense of self-worth, seeing as he proclaims to the world to be a winner. Seeing as he makes these grandiose claims that he will succeed; he is back and better than ever; he won't fall into the same traps as last time. Every time he missteps, it has to reverberate through his bones; loop endlessly in his mind; play hopscotch in the empty ribcage of his soul because his heart is gone.
Maybe it isn't. He is back after all.
He's won this run. Maybe he's playing the long game. Really cherishing the moments where he's looked at as a scrub, a joke, the lowest of the low in the #BeachKrew hierarchy. What was it I had said earlier?
He was the hungry, hungry, caterpillar?
Maybe it's truer than I could've ever imagined. Maybe he wanted this to happen. To look weak; to look like he hadn't changed much even with his new "attitude". He wasn't a caterpillar; he was a fucking spider.
And I found my way onto his web.
I drag myself further. The sun is always moving away. I'll never make it out of this hell.
The consolation is; neither will Andre. See, he's the wolf in sheep's clothing but it seems like he's become the mask a little too much. A loss to Bonnie Blue and Grayson Pierce isn't anything to really brood over; Rebellution possess the tag titles. But to an alpha like Andre, that isn't good enough. He knows what he wants.
He knows what he needs.
He lives for those props. The thrill of victory. One he can really brag about. One where he gets the pin. One where for the first time in his career; he's the guy on everyone's radar. Not overshadowed by Jared. Not overshadowed by Wade. Not overshadowed by his own partner Dustin.
He's dragging himself through the same hell as me, but for different reasons. He's fighting to stay on the pedestal he's built up for himself. I'm fighting because my fucking life depends on it.
I'm backed into the fucking corner. Back up against the wall.
It's go time, motherfucker.
I collapse on the black nothingness under me. Panting. Body drenched in sweat. Skin red, peeling, cracking. Looking up at the blinding oasis; my salvation, approaching.
My salvation takes the shape of a man with two faces; the angel and the demon. The sheep and the wolf.
The \badger\ and the /shark/.
"The Kingmaker is lying to you," the badger says, offering his hand to help me up. Weakly, I reach out and try to grab it but just my finger brush his, he pulls his hand away and stomps on my hand as it falls limply to the ground.
"You're not a soldier; you're cattle. Led to the slaughter. A smokescreen." The shark speaks with a fiery intensity, dropping to one knee and looking me in the eye. "He doesn't give a shit about you. This is about him."
Trying to reach you.
Trying to reach you.
Trying to reach you.
"You're adorable; a child playing war. In another world, you could've been my pet instead of his."
The shark grinds his foot into my hand. I grimace in pain but no sounds escaped my mouth.
I roll over onto my back as the two-faced man looked down on me; the badger with a concerned frown, the shark with a callous grin.
"Don't you see it now? You played yourself; you and your group of fresh-faced fuccbois with your sights set on something too far out of your grasp. Or did the Kingmaker convince you that you wanted this? Lying, pandering cunt. It's obvious he's full of shit. Everyone can see it. Oh, wait."
The shark inspects me, sneering.
"Your head would make a great gift for him; don't expect him to mourn you. You already served your purpose. He's done with you."
Trying to reach you.
Trying to reach you.
Trying to reach you.
The badger closes my eyes for me and the world goes black.
Though, in the darkness I can't help but fixate not on the shark's venom or the badger's kindness; but the duality therewithin. Two separate beings inhabiting the same body. Like Dustin Beaver. The egomaniac and the sycophant. The superstar and the minnow. Desperate for validation, wanting nothing more than for someone to tell him that they're proud of him. It's no wonder he joined #BeachKrew; they're a family, more or less. A highly dysfunctional family of delusional (oh how rich it is for me to be calling someone else that) narcissists sure, but a family nonetheless.
They protect his fragile ego from each loss. Each shattering performance where he gave it his all, but it wasn't good enough. Maybe I'm being callous; after all, I haven't tasted the sting of defeat yet. Yet. Beaver and Aquarius are looking to change that, to break us and assert their dominance.
They see us as their way of affirming the pedestal they put themselves on. To give them the affirmation that they so desperately desire. Beaver gets a win here, he keeps on trucking along with the momentum he's got building, all the way to another championship. Another way for him to think that he's good enough. That he's #betterthanyou. Oh, wait that's Kemp. Is it?
Beaver's a former champion, I can't forget. That was his peak; he's just too blind to see it. Like Dennis Reynolds, you confront him on it and he'll puff out his chest and tell you that he hasn't begun to peak. He'll peak so hard the entire WCF will feel it.
But he's blind to the fact that right now, the strongest thing about him is the aura that makes everyone near him lose any bit of nuance and become 1 dimensional caricatures of themselves.
Trying to reach you.
Trying to reach you.
Trying to reach you.
The two sides of Dustin Beaver are at war with themselves. How could they not be? They're diametrically opposed. There's the egomaniac; the uncrowned king. Orcus on his throne. Just waiting, biding his time to strike and make sure the entire WCF feels the impact of his every strategically placed blow. Waiting to make sure everyone's paying attention before he declares checkmate. That he won three turns ago, he was just playing with his food. We're still waiting for this; the longer it goes on the more sure we are that it isn't happening but the egomaniac will say it is. Just you wait and see.
Then there's the sycophant; the one who desperately craves attention, admiration, and affirmation. The side that wants you to beavleave; wants everyone to beavleave because then and only then can he beavleave himself. Who hitched himself to the #BeachKrew post in exchange for that support system. That validation he craves. To be told he is good enough. That he is deserving.
That the egomaniac isn't wrong. He wants to be the guy looking down on everyone. Orcus on his throne.
But he isn't.
He wants to dismiss everyone, then prove himself worthy of being able to do so in the ring.
But he can't.
And so he goes 'round and 'round, hoping and praying that one day; the two sides will become one. That the bipolar cycle that consumes so much of his life will be over.
In that moment and that moment only, will he truly beavleave.
But I can't let that happen. Not tonight. Not at our expense.
I open my eyes and before I can even conceptualize my surroundings, the familiar discord of the Kingmaker cut through the peaceful, serene, silence.
"You don't believe them, do you?"
I'm not in his office.
I'm back in Colorado Springs. Staring into the dirty mirror to find my own reflection with /flash/ing eyes and /shark/teeth, grinning wildly, mouth open wide. The Kingmaker's voice emits from my reflection's mouth, "They're liars."
My reflection spits; the blob of saliva striking me /on the nose/.
"They're afraid of you, my child. They're afraid of the fact that you and your buddies did what no one else would dare to dream. You took the fight to them. You went on the attack. You were the aggressors; not them for once. They're scared that they're losing their grip. Their stranglehold over all the armies in the land because now, thanks to you; there's one army that can't scare into submission."
The Kingmaker's face eclipsed his; two overlapping visages dueling for promenence.
Then nothing. The mirror is black. The mirror is gone. The mirror is a wall.
I scream at the wall; raging against the dying of the light. Like Andre Aquarius challenging for the Hardcore Championship. Like Dustin Beaver begging everyone to beavlieve.
The world around me goes black once again, and in the blink of an eye, I'm back in the REAL world.
"Earth to dipshit," Lola's always comforting voice questions, violently shaking my shoulder. I shake my head to rid myself of the rest of the cobwebs left in my head before glaring at her with all the faux-ire I can muster. I'm so full of shit. So, so full of shit. Everything I do is fabricated or exaggerated because I'm scared of my own feelings and the worst part is I'm aware of that. I am awake. I am alert. I see my flaws and yet, I can't save myself from them. I can't fix me; how am I supposed to the fix the world?
"Dipshit to Earth, suck my ass."
She chuckles, before slapping my lightly in the face.
"C'mon, tell me."
"You saw that weird fuckin' post before the site went down, right?"
"The one about the chick whose husband went missing?"
I nod.
"Fuckin' weirdo."
You don't know the half of it.
"You mean they did it?"
"Yeah, it was her. I've, kept in contact."
Her eyes go wide and she gives me a smile. "What, you gonna fuck her?"
"Fingers crossed," I say with a chuckle.
"How the fuck did she do it?"
She stares at me, expecting an answer.
I am awake. I am alert.
I'm not in her apartment. I'm running down the street, stark raving naked, screaming at the top of my lungs. Not words; just incoherent sounds. As I run down the street no one pays attention to me; no, they're too focused staring at their phones, reading the same propaganda that I preach against online.
I have a mouth. I am screaming.
My screams fall on deaf ears.
"I don't know," I tell Lola as my mind's a million miles away.
Trying to reach you.
Trying to reach you.
Trying to reach you.
I think back to my first conversation with KMIWI after truthboards fell.
>r u okay???
>Yeah, I didn't go through with the plan, obviously.
>thats good.
>I'm glad you believe me. I don't think anyone else on the site did. Fucking Admin.
>howd u take down the site???
>The fake spambot accounts were a backup measure. Didn't plan on using them.
>how long have u been planning this???
>For a long time. I could use some help.
>i got a friend who could help us
>No. Just us.
TRYING TO REACH YOU.
TRYING TO REACH YOU.
TRYING TO REACH YOU.
I'm running again. No eyes on me.
I'm screaming again. No ears on me.
My legs feel like they're going to explode as I continue to pound the pavement. Feet blistering with each step. My knees buckle and I collapse to the ground, reaching out to grab something, anything to break my fall.
My fingers wrap around a green T-shirt. I look upwards and see the writing on the shirt.
"Kiss Me I Was Irish."
"Eddie!"
I'm back again. Lola is fuming, her pasty face now beet red. "What the fuck?"
"Sorry, my mind's everywhere at once today."
Everywhere at once. That's the problem; I'm spreading myself too thin. I'm a fucking activist, a wrestler, a social media personality, a student; all at once. I'm so fucking tired; but I can't sleep. I won't. If I sleep, I'm dead.
I close my eyes and brace myself for another transition into some fantasy world. It's going to happen, I know it. But when I open my eyes, I'm still in Lola's apartment; chest rapidly expanding and contracting, heart racing, breathing heavy. The usual. She cocks her head and shoots daggers into my eyes with her glare.
"Are you on drugs?"
I shake my head no.
I am awake.
I am alert.
Trying to reach you.
Trying to reach you.
Trying to reach you.
"Then stop acting like it."
>I think the Admin is in on it.
>in on what???
>Whatever it is my husband was looking into. He was so quick to shut me down.
>yeah that did seem fishy
>More than fishy. I've been lurking those boards for a while; the Admin is never that quick to shut something down even when it's obviously a hoax.
Once again my thoughts turn towards the television. The television that controls our lives. Lets us see what it wants us to see; the images and words that best push forth its own agenda. What agenda is that today? Who knows? Nothing the television pushes is coherent; it's nothing. A blur. A meaningless, expressionless cesspool promoting obedience and nihilism. Red lips like tenth.
11B-X 1371.
Flashy showmanship to disguise for a lack of substance by design. To get speculation brewing without ever offering an explanation. Explanations don't matter so long as you continue fueling baseless pondering. Justifications aren't necessary if you have a captive audience. Ones so thoroughly mindfucked that they'll smile and go along with everything you preach even when it contradicts our values. Our morals.
The President doesn't lead this country.
The television does.
The television rules the world. Influences everyone. It's what we all have in common. Rich and poor. Black and white. Christian and Muslim. We're all being led astray by the television, and yet we don't see it. We can't see it. They won't let us see it because a peek behind the curtain, a look at the man pulling the strings, keeping the illusion alive would end it. End it all right then and right there. They only have the power because we let them.
I wish I could say these words aloud with the confidence to make people believe. Soon enough I'll hopefully have a platform, but by then, there's the fear that I've sold out. That I'm only speaking the "truth" that's acceptable. The kind that's fit for the fucking television.
That's it.
The truther's dilemma (or dilemna).
We aren't heard. We aren't listened to. At least not until we get the exposure. But once we get the exposure, we lose our credibility. Once our voices can be heard, no one wants to hear them.
Truth is; I'm scared.
I'm scared to death.
