Post by Kyle Shane on Aug 14, 2017 20:11:13 GMT -5
In the dream, he's alone.
No high concept sci-fi here, no heart to heart with a sounding board, he finds himself totally alone. There's such emptiness as he opens one eye, rolling it around to observe his state. Such terrible emptiness.
He's not where he remembers being last; behind the wheel of his car, or where we possibly may remember him, in some fantastic otherworldly hall with mirrors into elsewhere. He is in an encroached, drab, stark vault with riveted sides, the only lighting comes from yellow motion sensor lights that cast a sphere of illumination in isolated circles.
He pushes himself up onto one elbow, feeling crusted blood and snot connected in rivulet husks between his nose and cheek, and bites back a surging chunk of bile that wants to come up, flavored with alcohol and Thai food. S'okay, not his first rodeo, and he tamps it back down and sits up, wiping his mouth and nose. It amazes him though that something that feels so surreal could have such minute details down pat. As he gazes around him in wonder, he realizes he's on a conveyor belt, leading him down a track through the vault. As he let the track carry him down, a sheet metal panel opened into a window, and tinkling key-wind music began playing as the window began a mechanized puppet show. A Punch and Judy-esque little carcaiture of an authoritative suit wearing man popped up, little slash marks over his rolling glass eyes to make him look mean. His name badge, an officious ribbon, read, "PCW Prez" and he's probably supposed to be Michael Wright or Loki or whoever the fuck the last turn of the revolving door was. Opposite him in a spindly, clockwork Pinocchio with a carefully crafted coif of metal hair, over a segmented jaw that hung open like a ventriloquist's dummy.
Okay, this was hilarious.
"You're-Our-Breakout-Star, Kyle-Shane," intoned the prez puppet in a high, halting chiptuned titter, bringing out a big, shiny trophy. "We-Think-You're-An-Asset-To-The-Company! Hee-Hee-Hee!"
As the puppet handed over the comically sized trophy, with a big poofball explosion and a golden #1 emblazoned on it, the top of it fell off. The puppet's heads sunk in unison, and the Kyle puppet looked back up at him and said, "So-You'll-Be-Rewarding-My-Hard-Work-With-Title-Matches, Correct?"
"Oh-God-No-We-Are-Booking-You-Against-Alyce-Starchylde! Hee-hee!"
The Kyle puppet hung it's head in despair and sadness, but by that point the spotlight behind the glass had clicked off and the conveyor belt was taking him out of the view of that exhibit.
His stomach continued to roil and he felt the burning of vodka thick on his throat. As the conveyor belt haltingly took him through the vault, several of the spotlights sputtered and died, and the ride became a little more empty feeling, and dark, in more ways than one. As he noted the feeling of gloom that overcame him, he decided to try bucking against the dream and going against the conveyor belt or getting off. He searched for a way off, as he heard a voice piped in from some speaker overhead begin to narrate. It had a homily, sort of Southwestern twang to his voice, and an amused, kind of friendly camaraderie to how it addressed him. Jesus Christ, he thought with a start, did my subconscious get Sam Elliot to narrate it's monologues?
" - But the dark thoughts began to grow. Because the truth about the Kyle Shane character is that his antics were so obviously a cover."
He ran backwards, and as he did more steel panels shot upwards, revealing more puppets on their clanking, mechanoid, Rube-Goldberg like tracks, dead jaws wagging to simulate speech. This young Kyle Shane puppet was in his XWF gear from the year 2012. "I'm-Kyyyyle-Shane-And-I-Am-The-Game-Boy! Game-On! Boy, -I-Don't-Like-To-Work-Hard, I-Would-Rather-Be-Sitting-in-Front-of-My-Xbox-Than-Filming-A-Promo!"
"Oh, sure," Kyle mutters to his dream-realm, "I never thought saying things like that would come back to haunt me."
"But the simple truth was, folks, heck," the down-home, folksy commentator coming through the speakers chuckled, "That all along, Kyle Shane's words could be seen as cries for help. The type'a man that says he don't like working hard, well, that's a man running away from his own demons. Going to therapy, taking medication, facing your demons instead of putting coping mechanisms in front of them, that takes work. When you brush your teeth or shave your whiskers, folks, you're doing basic maintenance and upkeep, and sure maybe it's not as flashy, but it is neccesary."
"Okay Sam Elliot voice, stop talking," he shouts at the speakers overhead, as the little puppets with the segmented limbs are still moving back and forth in the display boxes.
"Cold hard fact was," the voice got even louder, and the cowboy's voice grew even smarmier, smugger in retaliation to him not going with the grain of the dream, "that he had always became his own worst enemy. And the enemies he made in his little wrassling venture, they picked up on it. 'Cause he was weak, and he defeated himself, and ain't that always the way, amen."
"OH, ENTRY LEVEL FUCKING PSYCHOLOGY, THIS IS GREAT NIGHTMARE FUEL," he snarks at the box.
That was when he heard the chainsaw, ripping through the metal. Sparks flew and steel shrieked as the tip of a blade rasped through, a bit at first, and then the blades widening the gash. Great, if this is going to be some funhouse version of Grimm I'm going to have to confront so my subconscious can kick me over my feelings of inadequacy, I'm going to pinch myself until I wake up. Another second, and the rasping began again, the shrieking of blade against metal, the sparks lighting up the dim vault. He was aware that his heart started beating faster in anticipation.
He looked around the vault. The flat, unburnished metal of the walls on every side and the conveyor belt leading to a giant, heavy circular door. As he ran back the other way, along the conveyor, the lights overhead flickered, real horror show.
A distant and loud CHOOOM made him look back, and he saw a hulking figure emerge from a ragged hole cut into the metal. Despite the unreality of everything, his chest felt a tightness that would not release. The titanic figure raised a shadowy implement over it's head, and the sound of a chainsaw once again roared to life. He gasped.
"Weeell folks, truth is, ya can only run so far from yourself."
Heavy footsteps made the floor feel like it was being trod by some colossus. The figure only seemed to grow in bulk and mass as it drew nearer, and he stood by, not able to affect the direction of the dream at the moment, helpless as a mouse before a cobra.
As the figure stepped into one of the guttering spotlights, a line of light moved over it's face, and he saw his own visage, mounted on top of the giant psycho, a maniacal smirk plastered over it's face. The chainsaw rumbled to life, and the thing sheared through the air with it.
The saw blade sliced over his head. He almost felt the heat from the blade, the rumble of the engine. This was all too real. The side to side arc ended, and the big, monstrous him turned it's slab of a body to face him. It was wearing an apron that read words like RegretPainFearInsecurity down the front in block letters, like a macabre "Kiss the Cook" because his brain was just that subtle.
It lifted the chainsaw over it's head. He had turned to run again, pushing off with his feet and shoving it hoping to put his face off balance. It stood solid as a stony shoreline. It brought the blade down in a sweep, and the blade bit into his shoulderblades and back. He couldn't even scream for the pain as he felt it rip up muscle and flesh, and yet he could not black out. The dream had him savagely in it's grip and was shaking him.
Run, he screamed hoarsely in his mind, RUN!
Holding his now torn trapezius muscle and grimacing, he ran. More side panels along the walkway slid open, and as he moved past them, their little show lights flickered on. The animatronic ventriloquist dummies came to life. He could not stop to look, because his terrible double was right on his heels, bearing his grumbling appliance. He felt it swing behind his back.
There was a tableau of two puppets, a more up to date work up of himself and one that was a small, petite brown girl, in an apartment setting. The two puppets stood opposite each other, and Kyle-puppet put his arms around Array-puppet.
"Kyle-I-love-you, but-your-shitty-behavior-makes-it-hard-to-be-around-you-sometimes, if-you-cared-about-me-you-would-get-therapy-for-your-issues."
"Well-the-problem-is-Array-I-don't-love you anymore, I'm-leaving-because-there's-a-new-opportunity-for-me-"
"Where-are-you-going-to-go?"
"Don't-worry-about-me-go-on-with-your-own-life," the puppet uttered with sincere finality in it's chiptune, mechanized voice, and he felt a tear beginning to fall. It was enough to give him pause... but then he felt the saw blade rip into his thigh, cutting through the meat. His leg should have been severed. And although he screamed his throat raw and pushed the giant doppelganger back, he was whole as he stumbled away. The giant puppet held it's distance, allowing him only far enough to keep a small distance. The whole experience would be totally profound if it didn't suck.
More puppets on the next window as he let himself get carried. It was him, standing by himself, with a phone in his puppet's hand. His puppet's jaw hung open, as it listened to a voice.
"Hello-Kyle-this-is-your-sister, I-really-think-you-should-come-to-Seattle-to-stay-with-our-family, I-can-teach-you-a-lot-about-our-father"
Before he could even process that he had to roll out of the way of the slashing saw blade, and it rammed through the conveyor belt, ripping into it with a sparky shower. Kyle yelped. He rolled and scrambled kittycorner, trying to put distance between them. He stumbled to his feet, bleeding from incomprehensible wounds.
The next window showed Kyle's puppet, sitting dejectedly in a locker room setting. A "Pure" Class Wrestling banner was hung up, and the Prez puppet was back. They moved together on their track, with Prez talking to him.
"Listen-I-know-you-just-lost-a-match-to-Grimm-but-it-was-just-such-a-tough-close-match. We-still-hold-you-in-a-lot-of-value-and-think-you-will-be-a-future-world-Champion-here. What-do-you-say-about-resigning-a-contract-extension..."
The Kyle puppet had raised up on it's spindly limbs, in a dramatic monologue pose, and started to say "This-isn't-worth-the-headac-" and then he had to dodge out of the way of another deadly swipe. It was only on a deeper, back of the mind level did he note the symbolism of everything he was passing was everything he was ever trying to run away from.
"Leave... me... alone!!" He growled at his giant double. His own eyes stared intent with madness at him as he stood, chainsaw in both hands, raised overhead, and Kyle kicked out with both feet, hitting it right in the midsection. He sent the thing toppling backwards.
He moved forward on his elbows. He was right at the end of the vault, at the big circular door. The slasher with his face, was recovering instantly. Despite multiple wounds that should have had his body parts hanging on by a strand of tendon, he pulled himself together enough to push his aching body up. He grabbed the wheel handle of the vault door and twisted it. It skronnnnked open with a horrendous grinding noise, and he looked back. The apparition was back to it's eight-foot height, and was recovering it's weapon. He saw it pull the cord and the motor start puttering to life.
He ducked through the vault door, and with a massive heave, pushed it closed.
He slumped against the door, near tears. The pain was excruciating, all over hurt. All over wounds. Feeling at his most broken and vulnerable, because the weight of the entire dream was haunting him. The stupid cowboy had had the right of him. It was all him that tripped himself up. It was all him that tore himself into shreds. How was he supposed to compete with that. How could he go on when he was so closed, and yet opened himself to such scrutiny. It was, perhaps, his biggest failing, in that he had given so much of himself to differentiate himself from the pack and make himself not like the rest of his competition that he had gone out there and shown himself in many ways, despite bravado, one of the most human there was. It felt like he was his own monster, his own Grimm. "No more," he groaned, "No more..."
He thought he heard someone clear their throat.
"Hello?" he called cautiously.
Gritting his teeth, he stood, assessing his damages. The cuts through his shoulder blade and his thigh were deep, down to the bone, in fact, and yet he could stand and move his arm. It was that crazy, just go with it logic. And yet, as he looked up from the bloody cut, he felt the oppressive presence of someone with their eyes on him, wanting to say something, but not. He called out again, to no response.
He got his bearings of the surroundings. He was in another vault, on a similar conveyor belt, but this one had less regular lighting along it's path. It looked in more disrepair. This one, however, instead of windows into little 1950's style puppet demonstrations, had wax figures. Each one in it's little stand, equidistant from each other on both sides of the belt. He looked in wonder at the staid, unmoving figures.
"You look lost, young man," said Abraham Lincoln.
Kyle's head snapped to the side, looking at the Lincoln statue, which, much like all the wax earlier, seemed to still be looking at him. "Lincoln?"
The wax figure's lips did not move, and yet it gazed at him with an intensity that was hard to look away from. "Now, I can sense your inner conflict, and I can tell you, young man, wasn't nothing ever gained from running away. I was given the keys to this great nation at a time when a great many people felt like you did. They felt like the work of healing a split in our nation's fundamental beliefs wasn't worth the hassle, they liked things simpler. But the true grit of our great country's leaders knew that when something needs to be done, you have to roll your sleeves up and do it. That's what my country was founded on. Every man reaches a point where they decide what they're going to be. When they pull themselves out of the gutter and goes on to make his own destiny. My father wanted me to be a simple carpenter and work the land, but I taught myself how to read, and do arithmetic, and practice law."
"Well that's nice for you," Kyle said, spinning around. The wax all seemed to be looking at him now. Kyle turned back to the monologuing wax figure of Lincoln. "But they didn't face conflicts like I'm facing in your day. They didn't face the crippling weight of falling on your own face time and time again. They didn't face the fear that comes with being afraid you're letting people down, that you'll never live up to the promise of being their Breakout Star and that you'll hit a wall, or a glass ceiling, time and time again," he said, thinking of his dark shadow.
"Welll, I don't know about that," Lincoln mused, his pallid, unmoving frog's face seeming to chew these words over. "But I know this, son. No ground was gained by the Union forces after harsh defeats at Bull Run and Antietam, until my generals tried again at the battles of Sharpsburg and Gettysburg. And their men knew what they were getting into. So much blood was spilled. So much personal cost, but in the end, everything those men sacrificed out there was for a good greater than they understood."
Something stirred in Kyle when he heard those words, but he turned to the other wax figures, looking at them for confirmation.
"What Abe is trying to say," said another voice, this one behind him, higher and softer with a thick Germanic accent, "Is that big things start from small beginnings. But you have to leave your restrictful surroundings. It's up to you to discover the person you're meant to be. Look at me, I was a simple mail clerk," and Kyle finally pinned the voice down to right behind him, turning to stare at the shock of white hair and pushbroom mustache of Albert Einstein. "People told me I would never amount to anything, my boy, because of my lack of attention in ze school. But look what I became."
"But how can I ever live up to the expectations on me if I fail time and again," Kyle said uncertainly. "How am I ever supposed to believe in myself as some breakout star, some innovative storyteller, if I keep trying for high concept, bigger ideas and I keep getting shot down."
"Well, I can answer that, baby," said a smooth, Rat-Pack like voice. He turned to another wax figure down the line, to meet the gaze of Fred Astaire. "See, when I was working with Ginger, they had another cat dancing with her, her first partner, dig? And this guy, he's fresh outta the mail order dance tutorials. You can see that he's envisioning the placement of his foot on those steps and counting the meter in his head. He's going one two three, one two three. And then you look over at Ginger, and she's moving so fluidly, so surely, in heels, yet. She makes it look effortless. And she's just... dancing. The boy, he trips up over his own feet because he tries to step outside of something he'd never tutored himself in, and getting in his own way, and overthinking every step, and he isn't letting the movement come naturally. He's trying to dance... and Ginger... she's just dancing. So that, in my professional opinion, is the problem. Ring-a-ding-ding." He didn't know how Fred Astaire actually sounded, he realized.
"Just dance," he said softly to himself, taking in the words at their most profound.
"The biggest thing tripping you up is you, over your own fears. You let them grow too big, too insurmountable," said a bald man with a broad forehead and a scholarly beard. He held a cigar in one unmoving wax hand, and Kyle knew he was supposed to be a representation of Freud. "You cannot run from your subconscious ego, because no matter where you go, it will find you."
As if in answer, he heard the chainsaw ripping at the door to the vault.
He turned back towards the vault door, away from the wax figures. But then, his head sunk. "But what if I lose again?"
"You won't ever lose if you stand true to yourself, my boy," said a voice with a Southern twang, a stately, gravitas laden rumble. It was the voice of a real statesman, a general. He looked over, and saw himself looking into the eyes of a man in a grey Rebel uniform, his hand stiffly in his pocket. "You have to fight for something you really believe in. Take me for an example, I believed in my state, and I believed in what my rebel sons were fighting for. I gave everything I had to my cause, and I did so with the honor and pride of the South."
"But you lost," Kyle said, raising his eyebrows in alarm.
"I did lose, t's true. You can do everything the absolute right way and still lose. But that don't mean that you didn't stay true to yourself."
"Besides," cackled one of the other wax dummies, "His side lost and yet millions of people still wave his flag to this day and act like his side won."
"Shut your mouth, Lincoln," Robert E Lee snapped. Then, he seemed to turn and address him once again. "The point is, when the time came to face my biggest battle, I did not waver in my duty, and I did not run. You are waging such a battle, all the time. But this is your calling, to your destiny, and it is the path you've chosen for yourself. So you can't run from it. You have to stand, and face it. Will you? Will you answer the call?"
His mouth becomes a firm line. He nods.
The vault door booms open as it is kicked in. The chainsaw is revving at it's highest speed now, as it's hulking entity waves it in a loop in the air. He steels himself against it. He knows it is a manifestation of his fears, his doubts and that they will chase him forever, until he stands. Until he masters them. He holds his arms out, letting everything come to him. The biggest hurdle, is him. The biggest enemy, is no one else but him. It is nearly upon him, it's chainsaw blade snarling and spitting at the air. He says, "come on home." And his face glares madly down at him, raising the blade up to bring it swinging down on him.
He awakes with a start.
He sits up, groaning. He wipes the blood from his nose and crust from his lips, and he looks around him. He is in a wax figure museum. And he can feel, from the bubble of burp and the little bit of vomit that he has to fight back, that part of the passed out dream he had came from getting smashed and wandering in here. He groaned, lifting the empty flask that sits beside him, and he discards it. But the dream sticks with him, as he looks at the frozen, unrealistic wax faces. Unsurely, he casts his eye on Robert E. Lee and Lincoln, standing near each other, their arms raised in the midst of oration or pontification. And he nods to himself, thinking in bolstered measures of facing demons and rising above the way that these memorialized heroes did their respective battles. He tips the empty flask at the statue in a salute.
"Hey, you, what are you doing here?" snaps a voice, from off center. Kyle looks over, and sees one of those kinds of security guards with no real power except a flashlight and maybe a phone to call the police, playing his light over the exhibits. Kyle holds his arms up innocently, trying to soothe the man. "I think I got locked in to the bathroom after it closed, sir, if you'll just..."
"You can't be in here after hours, what were you thinking..."
"I just really like the exhibits, that's all," he says, eyeing them one last time and taking in their stoic, unyielding faces, "their words reach out to me through the years, they really speak to me."
"Okay," mutters the not paid enough security peon, "C'mon crackpot, let's go before we trip the alarm..."
Silence then, poignant and cloying, hangs over the museum. The historical figures stand, frozen to time, unmoving, eternal.
Finally, Lincoln breaks the quiet, saying to apropos of no one, "Man, that kid is all kinds of fucked up, huh?"
Unlike so many others, I've never claimed to be invincible. I never claimed to be a man without fear. I wear who and what I am on my sleeve, and while it occasionally makes me fallible, it also gives me strength when I remember what I'm truly capable of. I've overcome more adversity to get here, standing where I am today, than any one of you. I've overcome, and defeated demons that would break each and every one of you. On any given day, I'm given a choice to forget everything and run, or to face it and rise... and every day I come back to PCW, and fight, is a battle I've won. So when I remind myself of that, it's not weakness. And no entry level, superficial attempt at mindfucking or psychology is enough to give me pause.
It's people like Alyce Starchylde that I have much less respect for. Bottom feeding, pathetic wannabes. Wo haven't known a real struggle in their lives. Pathetic wastes of fucking space. Little girls and cheap, useless men like her or High Tide, who suck off the teat of attention, who whore for it. That's all they want.
And to think, Alyce is the higher bar set.
Alyce concentrates all of her fire on me because High Tide means nothing to her. High Tide isn't a big enough star for her to put her stretched out lips around, a cavernous sucker like her needs a big meaty name to wrap around. That's why she fixated on me. It would be vintage Alyce Starchylde, if Alyce Starchylde had been in the wrestling industry long enough or done anything in the business interesting enough to be said to have left a footprint. As it is, all Alyce has ever done is call people out and try to schmooze with people. That was her, buddying up with Grimm in multiple segments everywhere and if you knew Alyce from her appearances anywhere at all you'd know it was because she was trying to ally herself with Grimm. Not because she thinks she has enough skill to be an equal partner to Grimm, but because his strength as a competitor will cover up a deficit of talent that Alyce does not possess. And yet Alyce is emboldened to speak my name because I've had a few tough losses as of late, I lost my Underground Championship and I lost to Grimm twice. Such is the life of a scavenger, someone who's too weak to do their own work, so they pick the bones.
Except for the fact that I'm not wounded prey.
If I'm taking it easier on Alyce than I have in the past it's because I've already said everything I need to say to and about her. She knows her place in the pecking order, she knows that everything she is is a dearth of creativity and a lack of anything of substance. She knows that when you put her name next to mine one of us has a clear history of strong effort and of flourishing when you put us in big match situations, and the other one says "Welcome To Wonderland, It Gets Dark From Here!" As if that has any weight or meaning. Pathetic, stupid spoiled whore, Hollywood glitterati, ring rat who can't fight her own battles, weak little pissant rich girl who openly talks about her wealth and lack of struggle. She is the epitome of privilege and it does not fucking matter how many gods she interacts with, she will never come off as relatable or interesting because there isn't a real person in there. She's obsessed with image, with how people see her. And yet, no one will ever see her as tough.
The bitch couldn't even beat Lunatic to earn a shot at me last month. She got made a meal of by Sicko. Please, name me one thing Alyce has DONE here, and I'll pretend to be impressed for five seconds.
And then there was High Tide.
And then I stopped caring about speaking about High Tide.
It seemed to me at first that this fight had no stakes and that I didn't care about it. I wanted to bail on it and to start shedding myself of responsibilities, in the wake of everything. Because living up to the expectation of being your Breakout Star was daunting.
But the more I turn it, the more I see the ceiling I perceived that putting in place on me is of my own making. This match is more than just a lackluster excuse to throw me on there, it is a proving ground for me, to step up to the plate and show why what I do matters, and to show whoever emerges from Return to Glory as the World Champion that I do not run from a challenge, no matter how big, or in Alyce and High Tide's case how small and unworthy they seem at first blush. If I am fighting an enemy here, it is pushing back the negative thoughts in my brain that say, this sucks, bail on it, for a variety of reasons. It is not fear of losing. It is fear of becoming irrelevant. It is fear of not mattering.
Well, I will face that fear and overcome it, because I won't be the one that comes out of this looking like nothing. I will not be the one slumping out of Return to Glory feeling like an afterthought that's been left behind. That's been High Tide's wheelhouse for years. That is where Alyce Starchylde currently lives.
Where I live, where I inhabit, is riding to the top. In kicking down the doors that are put in place, whether by my opponents, or by myself. I am better. I know this. I am better, when I put my mind to it, than even I think I am.
So when put in position, I will shake the earth for those unlucky enough to be across the ring from me. When they see the terrifying nightmare version of me that manifests when I am really and truly motivated, the beast I can unleash, I will instill the worst fear in them imaginable. The quivering hesitance, the maybe I shouldn't have stepped up in his way. Fight or flight. Face it and run. And when I face our illustrious World Champion, he will have the same reaction. Because I am going to show him, I am going to show the entirety of Pure Class Wrestling, the definition of true fear.
Face Everything And Rise.
No high concept sci-fi here, no heart to heart with a sounding board, he finds himself totally alone. There's such emptiness as he opens one eye, rolling it around to observe his state. Such terrible emptiness.
He's not where he remembers being last; behind the wheel of his car, or where we possibly may remember him, in some fantastic otherworldly hall with mirrors into elsewhere. He is in an encroached, drab, stark vault with riveted sides, the only lighting comes from yellow motion sensor lights that cast a sphere of illumination in isolated circles.
He pushes himself up onto one elbow, feeling crusted blood and snot connected in rivulet husks between his nose and cheek, and bites back a surging chunk of bile that wants to come up, flavored with alcohol and Thai food. S'okay, not his first rodeo, and he tamps it back down and sits up, wiping his mouth and nose. It amazes him though that something that feels so surreal could have such minute details down pat. As he gazes around him in wonder, he realizes he's on a conveyor belt, leading him down a track through the vault. As he let the track carry him down, a sheet metal panel opened into a window, and tinkling key-wind music began playing as the window began a mechanized puppet show. A Punch and Judy-esque little carcaiture of an authoritative suit wearing man popped up, little slash marks over his rolling glass eyes to make him look mean. His name badge, an officious ribbon, read, "PCW Prez" and he's probably supposed to be Michael Wright or Loki or whoever the fuck the last turn of the revolving door was. Opposite him in a spindly, clockwork Pinocchio with a carefully crafted coif of metal hair, over a segmented jaw that hung open like a ventriloquist's dummy.
Okay, this was hilarious.
"You're-Our-Breakout-Star, Kyle-Shane," intoned the prez puppet in a high, halting chiptuned titter, bringing out a big, shiny trophy. "We-Think-You're-An-Asset-To-The-Company! Hee-Hee-Hee!"
As the puppet handed over the comically sized trophy, with a big poofball explosion and a golden #1 emblazoned on it, the top of it fell off. The puppet's heads sunk in unison, and the Kyle puppet looked back up at him and said, "So-You'll-Be-Rewarding-My-Hard-Work-With-Title-Matches, Correct?"
"Oh-God-No-We-Are-Booking-You-Against-Alyce-Starchylde! Hee-hee!"
The Kyle puppet hung it's head in despair and sadness, but by that point the spotlight behind the glass had clicked off and the conveyor belt was taking him out of the view of that exhibit.
His stomach continued to roil and he felt the burning of vodka thick on his throat. As the conveyor belt haltingly took him through the vault, several of the spotlights sputtered and died, and the ride became a little more empty feeling, and dark, in more ways than one. As he noted the feeling of gloom that overcame him, he decided to try bucking against the dream and going against the conveyor belt or getting off. He searched for a way off, as he heard a voice piped in from some speaker overhead begin to narrate. It had a homily, sort of Southwestern twang to his voice, and an amused, kind of friendly camaraderie to how it addressed him. Jesus Christ, he thought with a start, did my subconscious get Sam Elliot to narrate it's monologues?
" - But the dark thoughts began to grow. Because the truth about the Kyle Shane character is that his antics were so obviously a cover."
He ran backwards, and as he did more steel panels shot upwards, revealing more puppets on their clanking, mechanoid, Rube-Goldberg like tracks, dead jaws wagging to simulate speech. This young Kyle Shane puppet was in his XWF gear from the year 2012. "I'm-Kyyyyle-Shane-And-I-Am-The-Game-Boy! Game-On! Boy, -I-Don't-Like-To-Work-Hard, I-Would-Rather-Be-Sitting-in-Front-of-My-Xbox-Than-Filming-A-Promo!"
"Oh, sure," Kyle mutters to his dream-realm, "I never thought saying things like that would come back to haunt me."
"But the simple truth was, folks, heck," the down-home, folksy commentator coming through the speakers chuckled, "That all along, Kyle Shane's words could be seen as cries for help. The type'a man that says he don't like working hard, well, that's a man running away from his own demons. Going to therapy, taking medication, facing your demons instead of putting coping mechanisms in front of them, that takes work. When you brush your teeth or shave your whiskers, folks, you're doing basic maintenance and upkeep, and sure maybe it's not as flashy, but it is neccesary."
"Okay Sam Elliot voice, stop talking," he shouts at the speakers overhead, as the little puppets with the segmented limbs are still moving back and forth in the display boxes.
"Cold hard fact was," the voice got even louder, and the cowboy's voice grew even smarmier, smugger in retaliation to him not going with the grain of the dream, "that he had always became his own worst enemy. And the enemies he made in his little wrassling venture, they picked up on it. 'Cause he was weak, and he defeated himself, and ain't that always the way, amen."
"OH, ENTRY LEVEL FUCKING PSYCHOLOGY, THIS IS GREAT NIGHTMARE FUEL," he snarks at the box.
That was when he heard the chainsaw, ripping through the metal. Sparks flew and steel shrieked as the tip of a blade rasped through, a bit at first, and then the blades widening the gash. Great, if this is going to be some funhouse version of Grimm I'm going to have to confront so my subconscious can kick me over my feelings of inadequacy, I'm going to pinch myself until I wake up. Another second, and the rasping began again, the shrieking of blade against metal, the sparks lighting up the dim vault. He was aware that his heart started beating faster in anticipation.
He looked around the vault. The flat, unburnished metal of the walls on every side and the conveyor belt leading to a giant, heavy circular door. As he ran back the other way, along the conveyor, the lights overhead flickered, real horror show.
A distant and loud CHOOOM made him look back, and he saw a hulking figure emerge from a ragged hole cut into the metal. Despite the unreality of everything, his chest felt a tightness that would not release. The titanic figure raised a shadowy implement over it's head, and the sound of a chainsaw once again roared to life. He gasped.
"Weeell folks, truth is, ya can only run so far from yourself."
Heavy footsteps made the floor feel like it was being trod by some colossus. The figure only seemed to grow in bulk and mass as it drew nearer, and he stood by, not able to affect the direction of the dream at the moment, helpless as a mouse before a cobra.
As the figure stepped into one of the guttering spotlights, a line of light moved over it's face, and he saw his own visage, mounted on top of the giant psycho, a maniacal smirk plastered over it's face. The chainsaw rumbled to life, and the thing sheared through the air with it.
The saw blade sliced over his head. He almost felt the heat from the blade, the rumble of the engine. This was all too real. The side to side arc ended, and the big, monstrous him turned it's slab of a body to face him. It was wearing an apron that read words like RegretPainFearInsecurity down the front in block letters, like a macabre "Kiss the Cook" because his brain was just that subtle.
It lifted the chainsaw over it's head. He had turned to run again, pushing off with his feet and shoving it hoping to put his face off balance. It stood solid as a stony shoreline. It brought the blade down in a sweep, and the blade bit into his shoulderblades and back. He couldn't even scream for the pain as he felt it rip up muscle and flesh, and yet he could not black out. The dream had him savagely in it's grip and was shaking him.
Run, he screamed hoarsely in his mind, RUN!
Holding his now torn trapezius muscle and grimacing, he ran. More side panels along the walkway slid open, and as he moved past them, their little show lights flickered on. The animatronic ventriloquist dummies came to life. He could not stop to look, because his terrible double was right on his heels, bearing his grumbling appliance. He felt it swing behind his back.
There was a tableau of two puppets, a more up to date work up of himself and one that was a small, petite brown girl, in an apartment setting. The two puppets stood opposite each other, and Kyle-puppet put his arms around Array-puppet.
"Kyle-I-love-you, but-your-shitty-behavior-makes-it-hard-to-be-around-you-sometimes, if-you-cared-about-me-you-would-get-therapy-for-your-issues."
"Well-the-problem-is-Array-I-don't-love you anymore, I'm-leaving-because-there's-a-new-opportunity-for-me-"
"Where-are-you-going-to-go?"
"Don't-worry-about-me-go-on-with-your-own-life," the puppet uttered with sincere finality in it's chiptune, mechanized voice, and he felt a tear beginning to fall. It was enough to give him pause... but then he felt the saw blade rip into his thigh, cutting through the meat. His leg should have been severed. And although he screamed his throat raw and pushed the giant doppelganger back, he was whole as he stumbled away. The giant puppet held it's distance, allowing him only far enough to keep a small distance. The whole experience would be totally profound if it didn't suck.
More puppets on the next window as he let himself get carried. It was him, standing by himself, with a phone in his puppet's hand. His puppet's jaw hung open, as it listened to a voice.
"Hello-Kyle-this-is-your-sister, I-really-think-you-should-come-to-Seattle-to-stay-with-our-family, I-can-teach-you-a-lot-about-our-father"
Before he could even process that he had to roll out of the way of the slashing saw blade, and it rammed through the conveyor belt, ripping into it with a sparky shower. Kyle yelped. He rolled and scrambled kittycorner, trying to put distance between them. He stumbled to his feet, bleeding from incomprehensible wounds.
The next window showed Kyle's puppet, sitting dejectedly in a locker room setting. A "Pure" Class Wrestling banner was hung up, and the Prez puppet was back. They moved together on their track, with Prez talking to him.
"Listen-I-know-you-just-lost-a-match-to-Grimm-but-it-was-just-such-a-tough-close-match. We-still-hold-you-in-a-lot-of-value-and-think-you-will-be-a-future-world-Champion-here. What-do-you-say-about-resigning-a-contract-extension..."
The Kyle puppet had raised up on it's spindly limbs, in a dramatic monologue pose, and started to say "This-isn't-worth-the-headac-" and then he had to dodge out of the way of another deadly swipe. It was only on a deeper, back of the mind level did he note the symbolism of everything he was passing was everything he was ever trying to run away from.
"Leave... me... alone!!" He growled at his giant double. His own eyes stared intent with madness at him as he stood, chainsaw in both hands, raised overhead, and Kyle kicked out with both feet, hitting it right in the midsection. He sent the thing toppling backwards.
He moved forward on his elbows. He was right at the end of the vault, at the big circular door. The slasher with his face, was recovering instantly. Despite multiple wounds that should have had his body parts hanging on by a strand of tendon, he pulled himself together enough to push his aching body up. He grabbed the wheel handle of the vault door and twisted it. It skronnnnked open with a horrendous grinding noise, and he looked back. The apparition was back to it's eight-foot height, and was recovering it's weapon. He saw it pull the cord and the motor start puttering to life.
He ducked through the vault door, and with a massive heave, pushed it closed.
He slumped against the door, near tears. The pain was excruciating, all over hurt. All over wounds. Feeling at his most broken and vulnerable, because the weight of the entire dream was haunting him. The stupid cowboy had had the right of him. It was all him that tripped himself up. It was all him that tore himself into shreds. How was he supposed to compete with that. How could he go on when he was so closed, and yet opened himself to such scrutiny. It was, perhaps, his biggest failing, in that he had given so much of himself to differentiate himself from the pack and make himself not like the rest of his competition that he had gone out there and shown himself in many ways, despite bravado, one of the most human there was. It felt like he was his own monster, his own Grimm. "No more," he groaned, "No more..."
He thought he heard someone clear their throat.
"Hello?" he called cautiously.
Gritting his teeth, he stood, assessing his damages. The cuts through his shoulder blade and his thigh were deep, down to the bone, in fact, and yet he could stand and move his arm. It was that crazy, just go with it logic. And yet, as he looked up from the bloody cut, he felt the oppressive presence of someone with their eyes on him, wanting to say something, but not. He called out again, to no response.
He got his bearings of the surroundings. He was in another vault, on a similar conveyor belt, but this one had less regular lighting along it's path. It looked in more disrepair. This one, however, instead of windows into little 1950's style puppet demonstrations, had wax figures. Each one in it's little stand, equidistant from each other on both sides of the belt. He looked in wonder at the staid, unmoving figures.
"You look lost, young man," said Abraham Lincoln.
Kyle's head snapped to the side, looking at the Lincoln statue, which, much like all the wax earlier, seemed to still be looking at him. "Lincoln?"
The wax figure's lips did not move, and yet it gazed at him with an intensity that was hard to look away from. "Now, I can sense your inner conflict, and I can tell you, young man, wasn't nothing ever gained from running away. I was given the keys to this great nation at a time when a great many people felt like you did. They felt like the work of healing a split in our nation's fundamental beliefs wasn't worth the hassle, they liked things simpler. But the true grit of our great country's leaders knew that when something needs to be done, you have to roll your sleeves up and do it. That's what my country was founded on. Every man reaches a point where they decide what they're going to be. When they pull themselves out of the gutter and goes on to make his own destiny. My father wanted me to be a simple carpenter and work the land, but I taught myself how to read, and do arithmetic, and practice law."
"Well that's nice for you," Kyle said, spinning around. The wax all seemed to be looking at him now. Kyle turned back to the monologuing wax figure of Lincoln. "But they didn't face conflicts like I'm facing in your day. They didn't face the crippling weight of falling on your own face time and time again. They didn't face the fear that comes with being afraid you're letting people down, that you'll never live up to the promise of being their Breakout Star and that you'll hit a wall, or a glass ceiling, time and time again," he said, thinking of his dark shadow.
"Welll, I don't know about that," Lincoln mused, his pallid, unmoving frog's face seeming to chew these words over. "But I know this, son. No ground was gained by the Union forces after harsh defeats at Bull Run and Antietam, until my generals tried again at the battles of Sharpsburg and Gettysburg. And their men knew what they were getting into. So much blood was spilled. So much personal cost, but in the end, everything those men sacrificed out there was for a good greater than they understood."
Something stirred in Kyle when he heard those words, but he turned to the other wax figures, looking at them for confirmation.
"What Abe is trying to say," said another voice, this one behind him, higher and softer with a thick Germanic accent, "Is that big things start from small beginnings. But you have to leave your restrictful surroundings. It's up to you to discover the person you're meant to be. Look at me, I was a simple mail clerk," and Kyle finally pinned the voice down to right behind him, turning to stare at the shock of white hair and pushbroom mustache of Albert Einstein. "People told me I would never amount to anything, my boy, because of my lack of attention in ze school. But look what I became."
"But how can I ever live up to the expectations on me if I fail time and again," Kyle said uncertainly. "How am I ever supposed to believe in myself as some breakout star, some innovative storyteller, if I keep trying for high concept, bigger ideas and I keep getting shot down."
"Well, I can answer that, baby," said a smooth, Rat-Pack like voice. He turned to another wax figure down the line, to meet the gaze of Fred Astaire. "See, when I was working with Ginger, they had another cat dancing with her, her first partner, dig? And this guy, he's fresh outta the mail order dance tutorials. You can see that he's envisioning the placement of his foot on those steps and counting the meter in his head. He's going one two three, one two three. And then you look over at Ginger, and she's moving so fluidly, so surely, in heels, yet. She makes it look effortless. And she's just... dancing. The boy, he trips up over his own feet because he tries to step outside of something he'd never tutored himself in, and getting in his own way, and overthinking every step, and he isn't letting the movement come naturally. He's trying to dance... and Ginger... she's just dancing. So that, in my professional opinion, is the problem. Ring-a-ding-ding." He didn't know how Fred Astaire actually sounded, he realized.
"Just dance," he said softly to himself, taking in the words at their most profound.
"The biggest thing tripping you up is you, over your own fears. You let them grow too big, too insurmountable," said a bald man with a broad forehead and a scholarly beard. He held a cigar in one unmoving wax hand, and Kyle knew he was supposed to be a representation of Freud. "You cannot run from your subconscious ego, because no matter where you go, it will find you."
As if in answer, he heard the chainsaw ripping at the door to the vault.
He turned back towards the vault door, away from the wax figures. But then, his head sunk. "But what if I lose again?"
"You won't ever lose if you stand true to yourself, my boy," said a voice with a Southern twang, a stately, gravitas laden rumble. It was the voice of a real statesman, a general. He looked over, and saw himself looking into the eyes of a man in a grey Rebel uniform, his hand stiffly in his pocket. "You have to fight for something you really believe in. Take me for an example, I believed in my state, and I believed in what my rebel sons were fighting for. I gave everything I had to my cause, and I did so with the honor and pride of the South."
"But you lost," Kyle said, raising his eyebrows in alarm.
"I did lose, t's true. You can do everything the absolute right way and still lose. But that don't mean that you didn't stay true to yourself."
"Besides," cackled one of the other wax dummies, "His side lost and yet millions of people still wave his flag to this day and act like his side won."
"Shut your mouth, Lincoln," Robert E Lee snapped. Then, he seemed to turn and address him once again. "The point is, when the time came to face my biggest battle, I did not waver in my duty, and I did not run. You are waging such a battle, all the time. But this is your calling, to your destiny, and it is the path you've chosen for yourself. So you can't run from it. You have to stand, and face it. Will you? Will you answer the call?"
His mouth becomes a firm line. He nods.
The vault door booms open as it is kicked in. The chainsaw is revving at it's highest speed now, as it's hulking entity waves it in a loop in the air. He steels himself against it. He knows it is a manifestation of his fears, his doubts and that they will chase him forever, until he stands. Until he masters them. He holds his arms out, letting everything come to him. The biggest hurdle, is him. The biggest enemy, is no one else but him. It is nearly upon him, it's chainsaw blade snarling and spitting at the air. He says, "come on home." And his face glares madly down at him, raising the blade up to bring it swinging down on him.
He awakes with a start.
He sits up, groaning. He wipes the blood from his nose and crust from his lips, and he looks around him. He is in a wax figure museum. And he can feel, from the bubble of burp and the little bit of vomit that he has to fight back, that part of the passed out dream he had came from getting smashed and wandering in here. He groaned, lifting the empty flask that sits beside him, and he discards it. But the dream sticks with him, as he looks at the frozen, unrealistic wax faces. Unsurely, he casts his eye on Robert E. Lee and Lincoln, standing near each other, their arms raised in the midst of oration or pontification. And he nods to himself, thinking in bolstered measures of facing demons and rising above the way that these memorialized heroes did their respective battles. He tips the empty flask at the statue in a salute.
"Hey, you, what are you doing here?" snaps a voice, from off center. Kyle looks over, and sees one of those kinds of security guards with no real power except a flashlight and maybe a phone to call the police, playing his light over the exhibits. Kyle holds his arms up innocently, trying to soothe the man. "I think I got locked in to the bathroom after it closed, sir, if you'll just..."
"You can't be in here after hours, what were you thinking..."
"I just really like the exhibits, that's all," he says, eyeing them one last time and taking in their stoic, unyielding faces, "their words reach out to me through the years, they really speak to me."
"Okay," mutters the not paid enough security peon, "C'mon crackpot, let's go before we trip the alarm..."
Silence then, poignant and cloying, hangs over the museum. The historical figures stand, frozen to time, unmoving, eternal.
Finally, Lincoln breaks the quiet, saying to apropos of no one, "Man, that kid is all kinds of fucked up, huh?"
Unlike so many others, I've never claimed to be invincible. I never claimed to be a man without fear. I wear who and what I am on my sleeve, and while it occasionally makes me fallible, it also gives me strength when I remember what I'm truly capable of. I've overcome more adversity to get here, standing where I am today, than any one of you. I've overcome, and defeated demons that would break each and every one of you. On any given day, I'm given a choice to forget everything and run, or to face it and rise... and every day I come back to PCW, and fight, is a battle I've won. So when I remind myself of that, it's not weakness. And no entry level, superficial attempt at mindfucking or psychology is enough to give me pause.
It's people like Alyce Starchylde that I have much less respect for. Bottom feeding, pathetic wannabes. Wo haven't known a real struggle in their lives. Pathetic wastes of fucking space. Little girls and cheap, useless men like her or High Tide, who suck off the teat of attention, who whore for it. That's all they want.
And to think, Alyce is the higher bar set.
Alyce concentrates all of her fire on me because High Tide means nothing to her. High Tide isn't a big enough star for her to put her stretched out lips around, a cavernous sucker like her needs a big meaty name to wrap around. That's why she fixated on me. It would be vintage Alyce Starchylde, if Alyce Starchylde had been in the wrestling industry long enough or done anything in the business interesting enough to be said to have left a footprint. As it is, all Alyce has ever done is call people out and try to schmooze with people. That was her, buddying up with Grimm in multiple segments everywhere and if you knew Alyce from her appearances anywhere at all you'd know it was because she was trying to ally herself with Grimm. Not because she thinks she has enough skill to be an equal partner to Grimm, but because his strength as a competitor will cover up a deficit of talent that Alyce does not possess. And yet Alyce is emboldened to speak my name because I've had a few tough losses as of late, I lost my Underground Championship and I lost to Grimm twice. Such is the life of a scavenger, someone who's too weak to do their own work, so they pick the bones.
Except for the fact that I'm not wounded prey.
If I'm taking it easier on Alyce than I have in the past it's because I've already said everything I need to say to and about her. She knows her place in the pecking order, she knows that everything she is is a dearth of creativity and a lack of anything of substance. She knows that when you put her name next to mine one of us has a clear history of strong effort and of flourishing when you put us in big match situations, and the other one says "Welcome To Wonderland, It Gets Dark From Here!" As if that has any weight or meaning. Pathetic, stupid spoiled whore, Hollywood glitterati, ring rat who can't fight her own battles, weak little pissant rich girl who openly talks about her wealth and lack of struggle. She is the epitome of privilege and it does not fucking matter how many gods she interacts with, she will never come off as relatable or interesting because there isn't a real person in there. She's obsessed with image, with how people see her. And yet, no one will ever see her as tough.
The bitch couldn't even beat Lunatic to earn a shot at me last month. She got made a meal of by Sicko. Please, name me one thing Alyce has DONE here, and I'll pretend to be impressed for five seconds.
And then there was High Tide.
And then I stopped caring about speaking about High Tide.
It seemed to me at first that this fight had no stakes and that I didn't care about it. I wanted to bail on it and to start shedding myself of responsibilities, in the wake of everything. Because living up to the expectation of being your Breakout Star was daunting.
But the more I turn it, the more I see the ceiling I perceived that putting in place on me is of my own making. This match is more than just a lackluster excuse to throw me on there, it is a proving ground for me, to step up to the plate and show why what I do matters, and to show whoever emerges from Return to Glory as the World Champion that I do not run from a challenge, no matter how big, or in Alyce and High Tide's case how small and unworthy they seem at first blush. If I am fighting an enemy here, it is pushing back the negative thoughts in my brain that say, this sucks, bail on it, for a variety of reasons. It is not fear of losing. It is fear of becoming irrelevant. It is fear of not mattering.
Well, I will face that fear and overcome it, because I won't be the one that comes out of this looking like nothing. I will not be the one slumping out of Return to Glory feeling like an afterthought that's been left behind. That's been High Tide's wheelhouse for years. That is where Alyce Starchylde currently lives.
Where I live, where I inhabit, is riding to the top. In kicking down the doors that are put in place, whether by my opponents, or by myself. I am better. I know this. I am better, when I put my mind to it, than even I think I am.
So when put in position, I will shake the earth for those unlucky enough to be across the ring from me. When they see the terrifying nightmare version of me that manifests when I am really and truly motivated, the beast I can unleash, I will instill the worst fear in them imaginable. The quivering hesitance, the maybe I shouldn't have stepped up in his way. Fight or flight. Face it and run. And when I face our illustrious World Champion, he will have the same reaction. Because I am going to show him, I am going to show the entirety of Pure Class Wrestling, the definition of true fear.
Face Everything And Rise.