Post by Kyle Shane on Jun 3, 2018 23:56:41 GMT -5
"Draw the hands of the clock at 3 and 7, and count backwards." The ticking of the metronome, back and forth, hit, every tick of the beat like a grandfather clock. It filled my world until there was nothing else in it, only the tick, back and forth.
"Keep your eyes closed," Krista was saying, from far away. And to think, only minutes before --
"Hypnosis is bullshit," I said, pushing back in the uncomfortable, un-lumbar supported chair. My doctor friend's new work space was al dente as fuck. It barely classified as an office; there was no secretary yet, desk space was maneuvered to by stepping around the piled boxes that contained Krista Miller, blackballed psychotherapist's ruined life. All that hung on the wall was one sad frame degree. Krista and I sat opposite each other in broken chairs; leaning, squeaky, uncompromising things salvaged from flea markets. She had put a lot of loans into just renting the space... the furniture obviously was not going to be IKEA teakwood. Krista had looked at me over the rims of her glasses, and steepled her fingers together as she melted into her own misshapen chair.
"You asked me for help with your headaches and missing time, didn't you, Kyle?"
I pursed my lip and bit my thumb, looking out the sole port in this dingy little efficiency. It overlooked the alley. I looked back at Krista, sitting there with her boxed piles of psychology texts around her ankles, and even though she seemed desperate for a win, I wasn't sure if she was of the right mind to give me answers. But, yes, I had been losing time. Even more concerningly, I was sleep walking, in a direction I didn't know, and seeing things. Krista leaned forward again, but I read her expression as more than just desperation for a win. There was a hungry curiousity to her look that I hadn't seen in her before.
So I admitted it. "Yes, I've lost a little time."
"When the mind enters a fugue state, the subconscious can record what the awake mind is blind to. When you lose time, Kyle, where do you go? What do you see?"
I couldn't access the memory as anything more than a burning, blazing brand, searing into the front lobe of my brain. "The eldritch stag," I said, rubbing my temples, feeling the baking heat underneath my fingertips. "The one I described to you on the phone... the one with the coal black pelt and the luminous, unworldly eyes. I follow it... I follow, and I don't know where it's leading me. And I can't be sure if it's a dream or if I'm awake. And then I find myself where it led... and hours have gone."
"Mmm-hmmm," she said, tapping her teeth with the edge of a short, badly manicured nail. "And do you know what time it is now? What part of the day?"
"It's fucking - " I'm blanking, and that's not good, and then it comes to me, rushing with a wave of mixed obligation, annoyance, and deep, deep relief at the answer. Because if I know, then obviously that beats back the cuckoo theory for a little while. But my disdain shows through. "It's Sunday. Tomorrow I'll have to go catch my flight so I can start the promotional work for Living A Legacy."
"Day job. Got it." She says, making notes, "And Living a Legacy is - ?"
"Krista, why are you asking me these baby questions," my mood is souring and the fact that she's turned this into a fucking therapy session against my better will has made me want to walk out all the more. "Pure Class Wrestling. I'm the World Champion. I have a title defense against, ugh, Tyler Scott. And don't get me fucking started on that, okay? I'm aggravated at the slapped together nature of it all, one, just one cycle removed from where Grimm was gifted a title shot on the flimsy reason that he was owed a rematch and I put him down, along comes someone much less worthy who's only claim to fame is he attacked me from behind like five minutes before the show went off the air. This is a man who lost in the first round of the tournament, Krista. This is a man who -"
Interrupting, not letting me get into full promo mode, Krista aims her sight and shoots a bullet right into my brain, " - And what do you think the stag symbolizes?"
I'm taken off guard. "I - I don't know."
"I think the stag is you. I think it symbolizes your anger. And it's asking you to follow it down it's natural path, and see where it leads."
I have to scoff at that, it's so glib and pop-psych, even if I can't help but wonder about the kernel of "but if" that I feel deep down in my pit. Still, I blow my lips and wave it off. "No offense Krista, but shrinks working with wrestlers on their anger issues are a dime a dozen. And I've been in and out of therapy for longer than you've been practicing. That's not satisfying. It - it can't be - "
"You don't think that wrestling is, at the very bottom, an outlet for your rage?"
This chair is killing my back. I shift to the next butt cheek uncomfortably, looking away. "No, because I'm not an obvious, entry level tool like Tyler Scott. I don't need to attack randoms and cuss and call myself something dark like a Transgressor to feel edgy. I don't -"
"Then why, when you black out, do you want to follow the stag?" She probes, and her manner is infuriating this night. There's no hint of playful, camraderie banter between us tonight, she's mining for something. "And the missing time... when those hours pass, what do you think happens?"
I can't answer. Because I don't know.
"And if you don't have anger to work out, why is it manifested in your relationships? Like the calls to Array, when her boyfriend, Alastair is ten seconds away from calling out a restraining order? Or about any of your other -"
I get up, grabbing my hoodie. "Yeah, okay, doc. Thank you and goodnight."
Her hand on my arm is restraining, ever so slightly, brooking no question, but she tries to act friendly. Her smile is a little frosty. My burning head can't take this, and my back is a little damp from a line of sweat. She calmly asks me to stay. I throw my hoodie over the seat of the chair, and when I sit, I flip my palms up to her. Krista rearrangers herself, stroking her chin as she looks down at her notes. "But the lost time, that question can be accounted for. And, Kyle, I think, if we probe just a little under the surface, we'll see the answers."
"Fuck. Alright." And Krista grinned like an enigmatic Lama as she placed the metronome on the desk in front of her and pushed the pendulum to start. The tick was loud, like a gunshot, and as it moved back and forth, tick, tick, Tick, TIck, TICk, TICK... my eyes focused on it. Krista came around the front of the desk, sitting on it so I was at eye level with her sensible length skirt and pantyhosed legs, and the metronome by her hip. She slid me over a piece of paper, but said, "Look at me, Kyle. Now bring the pencil down the paper while you do... we're going to try a little exercise..."
And the ticking was going off like a bomb in my burning head. The blood in my temples beat, sticking out in veins, and my forehead baked like a kiln, and the entire world was spinning at a Dutch angle as I licked my sweaty lips, watching the metronome... and hearing it tick.
Which brings us back to where we were, right. I felt the pencil in my hand, moving in a circle, and as I squeezed my eyes shut I saw the dials of a clock, and the numbers. 3 and 7. 3 and 7. The little hand moving around the halfway point. Tick, tick, tick.
Time seemed to be slowing, each tick coming as an elongated sonic boom between minutes. And when I opened up my eyes, I held the sheet of paper in my hands. I lifted it up, and I saw a photo realistic sketch of a clock in pencil. The pencil drawing's hands ticked seconds away, moving on the page.
And I looked up from the page, and I found myself on the country road, 30 minutes outside of the city. The figures were walking in the fog again, and I found myself stripped to the waist. I heaved out a few pants, disoriented.
But I heard Krista ask, clearly, "Tell me who you are?"
Tyler Scott was on my brain, on the tip of my tongue to say, but that wasn't right. Tyler Scott? The man who couldn't beat Gabriel in the first round? No... I'd never had an issue beating Gabriel.
Tyler Scott, the man who failed to win the Last Chance Battle Royale, as one of the first ones eliminated?
Tyler Scott, the man who had two chances to win the North American championship, and despite putting up an "impressive showing" in the first one, didn't do enough to secure a victory? Tyler Scott who, despite being given the label of someone who showed so much promise as a young talent, did absolutely nothing to further that good will and grab the brass ring.
No. Not Tyler Scott. And that picoseconds' confusion of Tyler on the brain firmed up who I am. In fact, so did the figure marching up next to me, not a sweating, half-naked waif, but a spry young blade in his prime. I blinked double as I saw a shade of myself. He looked over at me as we continued our walk side by side. "Some people have said I'm acting not myself. Too aggro, too pissed off. Personally, I think that's his fault," he said, and he nodded over both of our right shoulders, to the one catching up behind us. There was another figure on this walk, it was my body, just the way I'd always known it, but the head was engulfed in a gout of flame that burned all the time, a living fireball of a head that nonetheless walked in step with the two of - me. "Tell me who you are and what you're seeing."
"I see fire." I can hear myself gasping. And flame head me sheepishly shrugged, and hung his head, chagrinned, almost audibly saying My bad, brother, can't be helped, you know?
"But the thing is, it's hard to be all things to all people. All the shades of a person. When you're fragmented but whole as a mission statement. Ahh, but what do I know. I'm just the voice that tells you that you're going to make it."
"Because I'm Kyle Shane,"
"Because you're Kyle Shane," me said, eyes rolling in a manner that said falls under the header of: duh. "But what's more important is that fractured means facets, means layers. Doesn't mean one-dimensional like SOME Tylers."
"Tyler..." and now my head was smoking, searing, the sweat on my burning forehead sizzling like water in a hot pan. "Tyler was the name of him in the movie, too... Array's new boy. Tyl-Alastair. He was Tyler, but he was -"
"Hey, no. Focus. They walked back that way," said me, grabbing me by my shoulders, and my wrestling persona looked peeved, "They walked on without you. Don't you give them that much thought."
And in front of them, in the middle of the road, a giant, monster black stag slammed into the pavement, bucked and stood on two hooves. And when it's thunderous hooves hit the pavement again, it turned and watched, luminous milk star eyes gauging them. The flame head me pointed at it in affirmation, as if to say "Damn right."
"Why are we chasing the stag? Where is it leading us?" I asked, to one or both or either. I looked from one to the other, seeing if they could give me an answer. My cocky self, he just blew it off. "The bet though, that was a good idea. Even if it was mine. It got people interested in the Icemann Invitational Tournament, when on the first week it was kind of boring. Nobody cared, because there wasn't much surprise to it. Everyone knew it would shake down to the Grimms and Seromines once the Hiroshis and High Tides washed out of it. Nobody cared. But if we added a little intrigue, spice things up, you know, get a little of that going - " he made the rubbing fingers sign of money.
"I don't need this explained to me, I need to know where we're walking and what we're chasing."
The flaming head me's head whipped around, fixing straight on me.
The me in my wrestling gear's mouth pooched out. "What are we always?"
"Achievements? Wins? Titles? Glory?..." I threw them all out one by one. The other just shook his head. "Incidental. Not satisfying. Goes away quickly. What... do you... want."
And then, the black stag kicked up again, and it's hooves slammed down on the pavement. And then, there was no cocky, dressed up wrestler version of me, no me with a burning head, it was just me standing in the middle of the road with a black stag looking across the gulf from me. And then it bent over, and it knelt on the ground. It began to take a form, muscles on it's back rippling and it's fur ruffling. Hooves began to meld into corded, muscled arms, and my mouth fell open.
The me that spoke to me appeared by my side, arm over my shoulder companionably, as he grinned, "Listen, here's the thing, don't worry about it. So some stupid little never deserved a title shot in his life punk hits you from behind and leaves you laying. What does that mean to you? A broken clock is right twice a day, after all."
True enough.
It wasn't even about getting attacked, I came to realize in that eternal picosecond between metronome ticks. I'd done similar before, because getting noticed and making a name was part and parcel of the game. It was that it was hollow, futile, and meaningless, as nihilistic as the eventual heat death of the universe. Nobody ever believed that just because you attacked someone and got them off guard one week before a pay-per-view that that put you in the lines of strong contenders or made you worthy to be a champion, it was your committment and your dedication to growing that made you who you were. Contrast Kyle Shane with his current "Transgressor" and we'd see how utterly futile that name is. A transgression is typically a minor, forgettable offense that achieves no lasting mark on society. And so he is. Compared with the World title he now aspired to, weeks after losing not one but two chances to qualify for it in earnest. And his beef probably stemmed back from the betting game and Kyle Shane COSTING him his championship match, without ever seeing the plain and utter truth that he was never, ever going to get it. Hell on a bad enough week it's a crapshoot whether he's even going to TRY. So no. There is nothing in that Transgressor that says I'm going to put forth the effort. I'm going to get my respect. And in the end, that's what the endless walk is all about... isn't it? A broken clock's hands may point right at the time at the maximum twice a day... but it won't ever mean anything.
"I understand," I can hear me saying to the stag.
The coal, eldritch black wendigo that stands on two legs, it's antlers sprouting high into the sky, looks down. It's emitting a ticking that splits the entire universe with it's sound, it's Tick, Tick, TICK...
Tick...
"Come out of it now," she says, snapping her fingers near my ear and stopping the metronome with her hand.
I gasp for air as if I'm swimming to the surface, and even though my head is burning, my mind is what's on fire with the imprint of the message. Or at least, my interpretation. I wipe some sweat away.
"Did you recover where you were walking when you lost time?" Krista says, crossing her feet at the ankles and her elbows over her chest. I look down at the paper, seeing my photorealistic clock. "Not exactly, but I did gain some... insight from my psyche."
Krista takes the sheet of paper from my hand, freezes looking at it, cuts her eyes back up to meet mine. "Mmmmhmmm... and?"
"I think there's something to it..." I have to admit. "There is something the stag is trying to tell me, but it couldn't yet... and I don't know - I don't know, god, Krista. This is all so big."
She puts her hand on my knee, and in that moment, the icy, prying therapist is my friend again, as she kneels next to me among her boxes of all her possessions in this rank little shithole office. "We can explore this more. I want - I need to probe this further, Kyle."
I have to chuckle. "What do you gain out of this, Krista? I'm not a paying client."
She looks at the sheaf of paper in her hands, and one side of her mouth quirks up in a curious smile. Not sure what she'd glean from a drawing of a clock, but... "Insight," she says cryptically.
I stand, and then I pick up my hoodie. "But doc... the headaches, and the fever... I'm trusting you with all of this, and I haven't gone to the ER because I believe you and in this... whatever you want to do with hypnosis. If you think it'll unlock the secret, I have to believe you."
She looks up at me pleasantly. "I think it will, Kyle. When we get to the bottom of your visions and your lost time, I think we'll clear your head right up."
I nod, my upper lip sweaty. "I trust you, Krista." And I exit the room, as Krista says, "Come back tomorrow for another session? Or soon? We have so much to unpack..."
I didn't see it then, and I wouldn't see the real clock I drew on that sheaf of paper, the misshapen, deformed, incoherent slide of letters off to the right, and the hands laying on the bottom of the clock, their broken points pointed towards scribbled symbols, until it was far later, and far too late.
"Keep your eyes closed," Krista was saying, from far away. And to think, only minutes before --
"Hypnosis is bullshit," I said, pushing back in the uncomfortable, un-lumbar supported chair. My doctor friend's new work space was al dente as fuck. It barely classified as an office; there was no secretary yet, desk space was maneuvered to by stepping around the piled boxes that contained Krista Miller, blackballed psychotherapist's ruined life. All that hung on the wall was one sad frame degree. Krista and I sat opposite each other in broken chairs; leaning, squeaky, uncompromising things salvaged from flea markets. She had put a lot of loans into just renting the space... the furniture obviously was not going to be IKEA teakwood. Krista had looked at me over the rims of her glasses, and steepled her fingers together as she melted into her own misshapen chair.
"You asked me for help with your headaches and missing time, didn't you, Kyle?"
I pursed my lip and bit my thumb, looking out the sole port in this dingy little efficiency. It overlooked the alley. I looked back at Krista, sitting there with her boxed piles of psychology texts around her ankles, and even though she seemed desperate for a win, I wasn't sure if she was of the right mind to give me answers. But, yes, I had been losing time. Even more concerningly, I was sleep walking, in a direction I didn't know, and seeing things. Krista leaned forward again, but I read her expression as more than just desperation for a win. There was a hungry curiousity to her look that I hadn't seen in her before.
So I admitted it. "Yes, I've lost a little time."
"When the mind enters a fugue state, the subconscious can record what the awake mind is blind to. When you lose time, Kyle, where do you go? What do you see?"
I couldn't access the memory as anything more than a burning, blazing brand, searing into the front lobe of my brain. "The eldritch stag," I said, rubbing my temples, feeling the baking heat underneath my fingertips. "The one I described to you on the phone... the one with the coal black pelt and the luminous, unworldly eyes. I follow it... I follow, and I don't know where it's leading me. And I can't be sure if it's a dream or if I'm awake. And then I find myself where it led... and hours have gone."
"Mmm-hmmm," she said, tapping her teeth with the edge of a short, badly manicured nail. "And do you know what time it is now? What part of the day?"
"It's fucking - " I'm blanking, and that's not good, and then it comes to me, rushing with a wave of mixed obligation, annoyance, and deep, deep relief at the answer. Because if I know, then obviously that beats back the cuckoo theory for a little while. But my disdain shows through. "It's Sunday. Tomorrow I'll have to go catch my flight so I can start the promotional work for Living A Legacy."
"Day job. Got it." She says, making notes, "And Living a Legacy is - ?"
"Krista, why are you asking me these baby questions," my mood is souring and the fact that she's turned this into a fucking therapy session against my better will has made me want to walk out all the more. "Pure Class Wrestling. I'm the World Champion. I have a title defense against, ugh, Tyler Scott. And don't get me fucking started on that, okay? I'm aggravated at the slapped together nature of it all, one, just one cycle removed from where Grimm was gifted a title shot on the flimsy reason that he was owed a rematch and I put him down, along comes someone much less worthy who's only claim to fame is he attacked me from behind like five minutes before the show went off the air. This is a man who lost in the first round of the tournament, Krista. This is a man who -"
Interrupting, not letting me get into full promo mode, Krista aims her sight and shoots a bullet right into my brain, " - And what do you think the stag symbolizes?"
I'm taken off guard. "I - I don't know."
"I think the stag is you. I think it symbolizes your anger. And it's asking you to follow it down it's natural path, and see where it leads."
I have to scoff at that, it's so glib and pop-psych, even if I can't help but wonder about the kernel of "but if" that I feel deep down in my pit. Still, I blow my lips and wave it off. "No offense Krista, but shrinks working with wrestlers on their anger issues are a dime a dozen. And I've been in and out of therapy for longer than you've been practicing. That's not satisfying. It - it can't be - "
"You don't think that wrestling is, at the very bottom, an outlet for your rage?"
This chair is killing my back. I shift to the next butt cheek uncomfortably, looking away. "No, because I'm not an obvious, entry level tool like Tyler Scott. I don't need to attack randoms and cuss and call myself something dark like a Transgressor to feel edgy. I don't -"
"Then why, when you black out, do you want to follow the stag?" She probes, and her manner is infuriating this night. There's no hint of playful, camraderie banter between us tonight, she's mining for something. "And the missing time... when those hours pass, what do you think happens?"
I can't answer. Because I don't know.
"And if you don't have anger to work out, why is it manifested in your relationships? Like the calls to Array, when her boyfriend, Alastair is ten seconds away from calling out a restraining order? Or about any of your other -"
I get up, grabbing my hoodie. "Yeah, okay, doc. Thank you and goodnight."
Her hand on my arm is restraining, ever so slightly, brooking no question, but she tries to act friendly. Her smile is a little frosty. My burning head can't take this, and my back is a little damp from a line of sweat. She calmly asks me to stay. I throw my hoodie over the seat of the chair, and when I sit, I flip my palms up to her. Krista rearrangers herself, stroking her chin as she looks down at her notes. "But the lost time, that question can be accounted for. And, Kyle, I think, if we probe just a little under the surface, we'll see the answers."
"Fuck. Alright." And Krista grinned like an enigmatic Lama as she placed the metronome on the desk in front of her and pushed the pendulum to start. The tick was loud, like a gunshot, and as it moved back and forth, tick, tick, Tick, TIck, TICk, TICK... my eyes focused on it. Krista came around the front of the desk, sitting on it so I was at eye level with her sensible length skirt and pantyhosed legs, and the metronome by her hip. She slid me over a piece of paper, but said, "Look at me, Kyle. Now bring the pencil down the paper while you do... we're going to try a little exercise..."
And the ticking was going off like a bomb in my burning head. The blood in my temples beat, sticking out in veins, and my forehead baked like a kiln, and the entire world was spinning at a Dutch angle as I licked my sweaty lips, watching the metronome... and hearing it tick.
Which brings us back to where we were, right. I felt the pencil in my hand, moving in a circle, and as I squeezed my eyes shut I saw the dials of a clock, and the numbers. 3 and 7. 3 and 7. The little hand moving around the halfway point. Tick, tick, tick.
Time seemed to be slowing, each tick coming as an elongated sonic boom between minutes. And when I opened up my eyes, I held the sheet of paper in my hands. I lifted it up, and I saw a photo realistic sketch of a clock in pencil. The pencil drawing's hands ticked seconds away, moving on the page.
And I looked up from the page, and I found myself on the country road, 30 minutes outside of the city. The figures were walking in the fog again, and I found myself stripped to the waist. I heaved out a few pants, disoriented.
But I heard Krista ask, clearly, "Tell me who you are?"
Tyler Scott was on my brain, on the tip of my tongue to say, but that wasn't right. Tyler Scott? The man who couldn't beat Gabriel in the first round? No... I'd never had an issue beating Gabriel.
Tyler Scott, the man who failed to win the Last Chance Battle Royale, as one of the first ones eliminated?
Tyler Scott, the man who had two chances to win the North American championship, and despite putting up an "impressive showing" in the first one, didn't do enough to secure a victory? Tyler Scott who, despite being given the label of someone who showed so much promise as a young talent, did absolutely nothing to further that good will and grab the brass ring.
No. Not Tyler Scott. And that picoseconds' confusion of Tyler on the brain firmed up who I am. In fact, so did the figure marching up next to me, not a sweating, half-naked waif, but a spry young blade in his prime. I blinked double as I saw a shade of myself. He looked over at me as we continued our walk side by side. "Some people have said I'm acting not myself. Too aggro, too pissed off. Personally, I think that's his fault," he said, and he nodded over both of our right shoulders, to the one catching up behind us. There was another figure on this walk, it was my body, just the way I'd always known it, but the head was engulfed in a gout of flame that burned all the time, a living fireball of a head that nonetheless walked in step with the two of - me. "Tell me who you are and what you're seeing."
"I see fire." I can hear myself gasping. And flame head me sheepishly shrugged, and hung his head, chagrinned, almost audibly saying My bad, brother, can't be helped, you know?
"But the thing is, it's hard to be all things to all people. All the shades of a person. When you're fragmented but whole as a mission statement. Ahh, but what do I know. I'm just the voice that tells you that you're going to make it."
"Because I'm Kyle Shane,"
"Because you're Kyle Shane," me said, eyes rolling in a manner that said falls under the header of: duh. "But what's more important is that fractured means facets, means layers. Doesn't mean one-dimensional like SOME Tylers."
"Tyler..." and now my head was smoking, searing, the sweat on my burning forehead sizzling like water in a hot pan. "Tyler was the name of him in the movie, too... Array's new boy. Tyl-Alastair. He was Tyler, but he was -"
"Hey, no. Focus. They walked back that way," said me, grabbing me by my shoulders, and my wrestling persona looked peeved, "They walked on without you. Don't you give them that much thought."
And in front of them, in the middle of the road, a giant, monster black stag slammed into the pavement, bucked and stood on two hooves. And when it's thunderous hooves hit the pavement again, it turned and watched, luminous milk star eyes gauging them. The flame head me pointed at it in affirmation, as if to say "Damn right."
"Why are we chasing the stag? Where is it leading us?" I asked, to one or both or either. I looked from one to the other, seeing if they could give me an answer. My cocky self, he just blew it off. "The bet though, that was a good idea. Even if it was mine. It got people interested in the Icemann Invitational Tournament, when on the first week it was kind of boring. Nobody cared, because there wasn't much surprise to it. Everyone knew it would shake down to the Grimms and Seromines once the Hiroshis and High Tides washed out of it. Nobody cared. But if we added a little intrigue, spice things up, you know, get a little of that going - " he made the rubbing fingers sign of money.
"I don't need this explained to me, I need to know where we're walking and what we're chasing."
The flaming head me's head whipped around, fixing straight on me.
The me in my wrestling gear's mouth pooched out. "What are we always?"
"Achievements? Wins? Titles? Glory?..." I threw them all out one by one. The other just shook his head. "Incidental. Not satisfying. Goes away quickly. What... do you... want."
And then, the black stag kicked up again, and it's hooves slammed down on the pavement. And then, there was no cocky, dressed up wrestler version of me, no me with a burning head, it was just me standing in the middle of the road with a black stag looking across the gulf from me. And then it bent over, and it knelt on the ground. It began to take a form, muscles on it's back rippling and it's fur ruffling. Hooves began to meld into corded, muscled arms, and my mouth fell open.
The me that spoke to me appeared by my side, arm over my shoulder companionably, as he grinned, "Listen, here's the thing, don't worry about it. So some stupid little never deserved a title shot in his life punk hits you from behind and leaves you laying. What does that mean to you? A broken clock is right twice a day, after all."
True enough.
It wasn't even about getting attacked, I came to realize in that eternal picosecond between metronome ticks. I'd done similar before, because getting noticed and making a name was part and parcel of the game. It was that it was hollow, futile, and meaningless, as nihilistic as the eventual heat death of the universe. Nobody ever believed that just because you attacked someone and got them off guard one week before a pay-per-view that that put you in the lines of strong contenders or made you worthy to be a champion, it was your committment and your dedication to growing that made you who you were. Contrast Kyle Shane with his current "Transgressor" and we'd see how utterly futile that name is. A transgression is typically a minor, forgettable offense that achieves no lasting mark on society. And so he is. Compared with the World title he now aspired to, weeks after losing not one but two chances to qualify for it in earnest. And his beef probably stemmed back from the betting game and Kyle Shane COSTING him his championship match, without ever seeing the plain and utter truth that he was never, ever going to get it. Hell on a bad enough week it's a crapshoot whether he's even going to TRY. So no. There is nothing in that Transgressor that says I'm going to put forth the effort. I'm going to get my respect. And in the end, that's what the endless walk is all about... isn't it? A broken clock's hands may point right at the time at the maximum twice a day... but it won't ever mean anything.
"I understand," I can hear me saying to the stag.
The coal, eldritch black wendigo that stands on two legs, it's antlers sprouting high into the sky, looks down. It's emitting a ticking that splits the entire universe with it's sound, it's Tick, Tick, TICK...
Tick...
"Come out of it now," she says, snapping her fingers near my ear and stopping the metronome with her hand.
I gasp for air as if I'm swimming to the surface, and even though my head is burning, my mind is what's on fire with the imprint of the message. Or at least, my interpretation. I wipe some sweat away.
"Did you recover where you were walking when you lost time?" Krista says, crossing her feet at the ankles and her elbows over her chest. I look down at the paper, seeing my photorealistic clock. "Not exactly, but I did gain some... insight from my psyche."
Krista takes the sheet of paper from my hand, freezes looking at it, cuts her eyes back up to meet mine. "Mmmmhmmm... and?"
"I think there's something to it..." I have to admit. "There is something the stag is trying to tell me, but it couldn't yet... and I don't know - I don't know, god, Krista. This is all so big."
She puts her hand on my knee, and in that moment, the icy, prying therapist is my friend again, as she kneels next to me among her boxes of all her possessions in this rank little shithole office. "We can explore this more. I want - I need to probe this further, Kyle."
I have to chuckle. "What do you gain out of this, Krista? I'm not a paying client."
She looks at the sheaf of paper in her hands, and one side of her mouth quirks up in a curious smile. Not sure what she'd glean from a drawing of a clock, but... "Insight," she says cryptically.
I stand, and then I pick up my hoodie. "But doc... the headaches, and the fever... I'm trusting you with all of this, and I haven't gone to the ER because I believe you and in this... whatever you want to do with hypnosis. If you think it'll unlock the secret, I have to believe you."
She looks up at me pleasantly. "I think it will, Kyle. When we get to the bottom of your visions and your lost time, I think we'll clear your head right up."
I nod, my upper lip sweaty. "I trust you, Krista." And I exit the room, as Krista says, "Come back tomorrow for another session? Or soon? We have so much to unpack..."
I didn't see it then, and I wouldn't see the real clock I drew on that sheaf of paper, the misshapen, deformed, incoherent slide of letters off to the right, and the hands laying on the bottom of the clock, their broken points pointed towards scribbled symbols, until it was far later, and far too late.
