Now for most people that first one is easy, 'cause there really has to be something wrong with you in order for you to be lying to yourself so damned bad that you're a goddamn stranger to your own sorry ass self. And I don't me lying on your left arm til it goes numb and using it to jerk off.
Knowing your enemy? That can be easy or it can be hard. But with video tape… well motherfucking DVD's and the interbutts these days, it's pretty easy to get to know the person you're aiming to skullfuck into sausage meat if they're a pro wrestler. They invite you into a jam session in their skulls twice a week and then you get to see 'em fight.
Now knowing the world? That's the motherfucking kicker. There's a bunch of shit that goes down that most people don't know about, 'cause they can't fucking see it. I'm not just talking about angels and demons and ghosts and devils and shit (well, maybe not shit. You can see shit. Though sometimes you don't, you step in it, and you track filth all over the fucking place.)
That's simple stuff, that's shit you can see by turning the dial every so slightly so that you get a bid of a bleedover between channels. Spooky shit you can understand, because it does stuff. It wants stuff. The creeps fucking do things, ya know?
Not the Eyes, man. Not the motherfucking Eyes. They might not be there all the time, but they're there for import things, and they're watching, man. They're fuckin' watching."
-SPIDER
There are times when you just want to be alone, to just sit by yourself along with your own thoughts and hash them out. Or in my case get them all in order so you can sit down and write an article about how exactly you managed to go from your native high-magic, rather interesting world with a plethora of sentient species to a magically barren crudball of a world with only one species of person that can carry a conversation.
The universe hates those times and will move heaven and earth to do whatever it can to fuck with them. Case in point, I'd plopped myself down with my laptop and a big orange mug of hot chocolate that was approximately one third marshmallow by volume when somebody started pounding on my door like it owed them money.
That somebody turned out to be none other than SPIDER, the rather scruffy looking "freelance pharmacist," reluctant lawyer, HARDCORE MESSIAH, and pro wrestling legend. He just so happens to be one of the folks who trained me to compete in the squared circle and the one I hit it off the best with on a personal level. I consider him a friend.
He's also weird as all hell from his exploration into recreational substances and by virtue of having "licked the correct series of toads" is one of about half a dozen people I know that can see my little menagerie of head-dwelling malevolents without the aid of enchanted glasses or video picked up from rune-etched camera lenses.
I open the door and he gives it another few smacks and a hard kick for good measure before doing the two finger pointing to the eyes "I'm watching you" hand motion.
"Kid," he says, "You got this fuckin' close to being World champion two weeks ago and this Friday you may damn well bring the fucking thing home. So there's something I need to tell you about pro wrestling."
He shakes the snow off of his long, unkempt hair, and equally long, unkempt ZZ Top length beard, though he doesn't bother to kick the snow off his boots as he tracks it across the majority of my apartment heading for the living room area.
He flops down on a bean bag chair that's usually where Kitty lies. Thankfully the thing's been made with sturdy materials and has extra reinforcement so three hundred pound things (and people) can hop onto the thing without a loud FOOF sending little styrofoam balls everywhere with enough static cling that they coat EVERYTHING.
"So what? Is it secretly run by the Illuminati?" I say with a chuckle, getting an annoyed glare in response.
"Don't be a moron. The Illuminati disbanded in the 1780's. The REAL secret society that's been running the world from behind the scenes is actually a fraternal order of clowns."
"Clowns?" I ask incredulously.
"Motherfucking clowns!" SPIDER repeats, "You know how people are always saying things like "Who the fuck elected THIS clown to office?""
"I'm pretty sure that's just a figure of speech."
"That's what THEY want you to think! Why do you think Congress is a bunch of pasty white dudes? Huh? HUH? It's because they're trying to resemble their white-faced overlords!"
I sigh disgustedly. "So you came over to tell me that clowns are running pro wrestling? 'Cause I already know one's running ULW. He's short and fat and waddles comically."
"Fuck no! I came over to tell you to be really careful 'cause you're being watched!"
I want to facepalm so badly. "I'm on TV every other week and seen by millions of people. I've got Mr. Hush keeping a watch on me with his magic camera taping stuff most of my days just in case some supernatural weirdness happens, or I say something totally awesome and that way it's recorded for posterity."
SPIDER shakes his head and looks like he wants to facepalm. "Not like being watched on TV or being taped on a video camera." he waves to Mr. Hush, who of course waves back. "I call 'em the Invasive Eyes of DOOOOOOOM" SPIDER says, clenching his fists and virtually bellowing the word.
"Anyway, these Eyes aren't always watching you. But they always seem to be around when some important life event is going down. Sometimes when good stuff happens, almost always when bad stuff happens, and if there's something important or informative going on you'll just about be tripping over the damned things."
"Private eyes, you mean? Investigators?"
"No, I mean motherfucking invisible time travelling Invasive Eyes of Motherfucking DOOOOOOOM. You can't see them. Hell, I can't see them. But I can feel the fucking things! Like I can tell that we've got one watching us right now, because I'm telling you something important!"
Half of the things SPIDER says are batshit crazy and utterly ridiculous, the other half are batshit crazy, utterly ridiculous, and unpleasantly true. "So why are these Invasive Eyes of Doom..."
"Of DOOOOOOOM Seven O's. You already use the right tone when you speak anyway."
"Riiiiiiight. So why are these Eyes watching me?"
"They're not just watching you. They're watching all the other active pro wrestlers in the world. That's where they seem to show up the thickest that I've found, anyway. It's like ULW TV. You've got the bit where you talk shit and the bit where you're doing stuff. Only the Eyes see beyond the film, they see what you're doing in your life outside of wrestling, outside of what you allow on air."
"Why are they watching the wrestlers?"
"As far as I can tell? Entertainment. It's just like TV to the fucking things, only more so. The fucking things will oogle your personal life like nobody's business. And they're not limited to seeing what's going on right now, oh no."
"That's what's really fucking scary. If you mention some point of interest, some event that happened in the past, they'll go and dive right in to take a look see and see what the fuck was up with that."
"And you can feel it. You can feel when that happens if you're attuned to things like I am. You can feel the momentary shift as the thing starts to look back at something that happened a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away. That's also the time when people are most likely to feel them."
I'm not sure what to think about this. Of course there are times when I feel like I'm being watched, but there is literally nothing around to be watching me in the first place. Though I'm also pretty sure that SPIDER isn't trying to fuck with my head, so I'm pretty sure that he believes whatever he's saying. He also, however, believes in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.
"Dude, the Easter Bunny will fuck up your shit if you're not careful. And no, I'm not telepathic. I can fucking HEAR you narrating."
Blank stare. He does things like that sometimes. But he's always done it before with an unheard voice referred to as the narrator, he's never actually done it with me before.
"You've never narrated around me before. You've only got yourself to blame." he says, grinning.
Whatever. We ought to get back on the matter of the Eyes.
"You'll probably want to speak aloud and not narrate. People will think one or both of us is bugshit nuts."
"Okay, that is a little weird and a lot of fucking creepy."
"Maybe this magically barren crudball of a world has a little more too it than you think it does, eh?"
I stare at him with a baffled look on my face.
"Heard you narrating that to yourself on the way in. You narrate LOUD. And also blue."
"Sounds like synesthesia."
"Gesundheit."
"That's when you have bleed over between senses. Like hearing colors or smelling sounds."
"I know what it is, and it's fucking kick ass to taste speed metal. But you don't want to know about that, I'm sure."
"So why are you telling me about the Eyes now?"
"'Cause you're on the cusp of being a breakout star. You're poised to win a World title and you'll be defending it against folks who have the capacity to match you in the ring, and maybe win."
"So?"
"So that means that you've put yourself in a position where the Eyes are going to want to learn more about you, see more about you. They'll be poking and prodding into all sorts of moments from your past. Sometimes that information can leak out and make its way into the world at large. Like when that Frost chickie went batshit insane and spent what seemed like hours ranting about shit you hadn't actually done until you got to ULW."
"I was wondering what the fuck was up with that."
"Yeah, so you're going to have to be very careful from here on out. If there's something you want to keep hidden, don't even hint at it out loud. You can think it, just don't try to do it in any sort of narrative style package, or the Eyes will go peeking in there."
"So if I were to mention something like "Think back to the first time we met…""
"Oh fuck."
"Oh fuck what?"
"Yeah, that's the sort of thing that you say if you want them to get up close and personal and giving that particular point in history the ol hairy eyeball."
"So did that trigger an Eye to go and see what happened when we first me?"
"Nah, cause nothing particularly important happened. I went "Ooh, you're a big chickie, ain't ya?" and then chased you around the dojo and gave you being hit with things lessons."
"But if I directed it to someone else, with whom my first meeting did in fact have a big impact on me, like say the..."
"NOPE! DON'T SAY IT! NOPE, NOPE, NOPE!"
"Why not?"
"Because if you're going to say who I think you're going to say, you're going to set one off for sure. There will be squiggly lines as the flashback happens and I'm going to barf."
"A flashback? Like on TV?"
"I don't know how else to describe it, but everything goes all wiggly for a moment while the damned Eye phases out and then back in to the time stream. It makes me puke worse than tequilla plus watermelon wine cooler plus a taco that's been sitting on my dashboard in the summer sun for three days."
"...why did you eat a three day old taco?"
"I wasn't paying attention and accidentally grabbed, opened, and downed the watermelon wine cooler. I needed something to get the taste out of my mouth."
"And a rotten sun-charred, disease infested taco was the way to go?"
"It was a fucking emergency, alright? I'd thrown the damn taco in the trash."
"Mmm, that is rather interesting." the Manyfold Matriarch purrs, her pearlescent snout peering over the couch at the two of us. I'm not quite sure how long she'd been manifesting herself so as to better hear the conversation (she complains frequently about how inefficient and useless my ears are. On the outside they're well on their way to being appropriately draconic, but on the inside it's bog standard humanoid.)
"Yeah, watermelon wine cooler is literally worse than the devil's ass sweat. We were both drunk and he bet me fifty buck I wouldn't run my tongue over one of his big red ass cheeks. I spent that fifty on fried chicken and Slayer t-shirts."
"No, fool. I was referring to the Eyes of Doom, as you call them."
"DOOOOOOOM." I correct her.
"I am not playing your ridiculous games with your limited vocal chords and strange inflections."
"If you don't want to play those games, we could always play Slapjack. You know, if you could find your paws in that huge slithering pile of… yourself." SPIDER says with a smirk.
The Matriarch fixes him with the biggest, happiest, most pleasant grin she can muster. There are an amazing number of teeth and it would also be pants-wettingly terrifying to most people. But SPIDER and I are not most people.
"When I think back to the first time I met Kalinda..." the Matriarch begins in a saccharine sweet voice.
"Oh you BITCH!" growls SPIDER, who is already looking a bit green around the gills and darts right for the bathroom. For a moment I feel an odd tingle as something seems to be taking place of a magical nature just ever so slightly beyond my perceptions...
-o-
It was dark, it was empty, and it was neither hot nor cold. For the most part it simply was. There was no sound to be heard, not even any air to be felt. A void, featureless, limitless, senseless. My ties to the world had been severed long ago. I was blind, I was deaf, I was mute, I was numb. I could scarcely feel myself.
My massive body, which once contained what seemed to be near limitless power and knowledge, that now seemed to serve more as a prison. Perhaps once I had a clear comprehension of the true extent and majesty of my form, but it slipped away as I burned everything to prevent myself from slipping into true oblivion.
Heads, necks, coils, tails. I was unsure how I fit together, how many of each I had, where they divided, where they joined, and how they meshed with one another. My body was my own prison, my serpentine masses wrapped and knotted around each other.
My hungers had passed, the hungers that had been my undoing. The addiction to consume others of my kind, to take their knowledge, to take their power, to take their flesh and add it to my own existence. I had devoured all of dragonkind with my need to know more, my need to feel the delicious sensations of growth, to feel their essences trapped within me as they were slowly absorbed to become a part of my divine majesty.
I knew that I should not be awake, conscious enough to ponder these things lest I burn what little energy I had left, to fall even further into oblivion. But in the nothingness I sensed something that I had not felt for what may have been millenia. Something else. Something beyond me. Something watching silently in the bleak infinity. I could not see it, or hear it, or touch it. I could not reach out and consume it. I simply knew it was there.
It was an annoyance and its awakening me had sapped a portion of my strength that I could not bear to lose. I coiled myself tighter and sought to drift back into dreaming when I heard a voice.
A rather snide and sarcastic voice asking "If there are any gods out there that need some shit done, I'm sure we can work something out!"
-o-
"...I can recall being awakened by the sensation of something watching me shortly before you made your little offer. I might actually have been too deep in slumber to hear you had I not been drawn from sleep by the sensation of being watched."
I can hear SPIDER in the other room violently heaving his guts out. Flashbacks apparently really fuck that dude up.
"Is this some of that cause and effect bullshit that gives me a headache trying to comprehend it? It's like getting directions to go anywhere in a small town; they venture into the fourth dimension."
"Turn left where the great big oak tree that got struck by lightning used to be, then turn onto the road that just got paved five years ago, go down that way until you pass the place where the Olsens used to live."
"Perhaps. And perhaps it is simply a coincidence. But it was as he mentioned. We are, apparently, being watched, and we have in a way been watched for quite some time now. But if such a thing did occur, then perhaps there is something useful to be learned here, child."
"Which would be?"
"Why, the fact that if the Eye of Doom, don't look at me like that I'm not going to say it in that fashion, did in fact peer into past events it did so effortlessly across dimensional barriers."
"Hmm, that IS interesting. We might have to experiment with this phenomenon."
SPIDER lets loose with another dreadful gale of vomit.
"How undignified. If he had a proper elemental-based digestive system like a true dragon does he wouldn't be having this reaction."
"No, he'd probably be breathing fire all over my porcelain right not. I should probably go and check just to make sure he isn't spewing melted rubber all over my tub fixtures or something. You never know what the fuck he's been eating, or what he thinks he's been eating."
The Matriarch makes a disgusted face and ceases manifesting her presence leaving me to tend to the puking hardcore legend in my bathroom.
I think I'd rather listen to Angel Kash bitch at me and call me unmarketable than deal with this, thank you very much.
"Wait, what? SPIDER, why do you have that microphone in my face? You want me to say something nice about Kalinda like I do Bob? What for?
Can you explain that a little bit better? I'm not sure what you mean by "Quotes from a mfing cast of thousands to make it look like more people support me than actually do." SPIDER, who are these ass-pals you're speaking of?
Okay, fine. Kalinda is a big and blue lady, who is the greatest and only dragoness in all of the land! Not even Mnooseville boasts such a lovely and beauteous dragoness! She spends her time bringing the people joy with her amusing sayings and silly antics on the television each and every week!
And why she even has a rather nice bum. Not as nice as Bob's bum, mind you. Bob's bum is big and round and covered by the most radiant of tight leather pantaloons. Why Bob is even… *CRASH!* he never lets me finish."
-Mr. Narrator
"Helloooooo mnooses and mnoosettes! Blueberries McGarbagecan of stuff to hit the peoples is the nicest nice this side of Bob's bum! She says the bestest things about all of the means, showing Bob and the world that they are nothing but smelly queefmeisters!
And then, here's the bestest part, she beats them up! She may not send them TO THE MOON ALICE! but the HEY CULLIGAN MAN DRAG QUEEN DRIVE is just about as almost as good. She also gives Bob pizza that has tiny hams on it. The teeniest, tiniest of hams!
Some mean has decided that the tiny ham is Canadian Bacon and not actually ham. That person is not a nice! That person is probably FRENCH! Those are in Canadia and they are MEANS and they make sure that aaaall the things have silly words on them and make it so there is never any cheese curds of gravy when Bob makes his bum SCREEEEEAAAAAM!
*bending over and the sound of a blood-curdling shriek*"
-Bob
And here we are, sitting here one whole week later and nothing has changed. No one has said anything. Everybody is hiding in the gods damned bushes and is ignoring the elephant in the room.
Willow Wilkes threatens to quit the fed like a three year old stomping her feet and threatening to hold her breath until she dies, that gets an answer! That gets a fucking mention on the ULW website.
Kalinda Kreigsdottir brings up allegations of favoritism, corruption, and malfeasance? FUCKING NOTHING! "Scandal Free" Cassandra Mason is off cowering in the corner trying to figure out how to make Cameron MacNichol suffer more. Nobody has anything to say on Twitter about the whole thing.
Nobody's called, nobody's e-mailed, I haven't gotten so much as a smoke signal from ULW management. You people will fucking bend over backwards to make Silas Mason and New Eden happy, you will cater to people who have done fuck all for this company, but you won't give so much as 140 characters to being not only called out but being verbally SODOMIZED on air by one of your top talents?
Weeping Willow's pwecious widdle feewings are hurt because she doesn't get to be the focus of a mass marketing campaign and she gets all sorts of verbal hugs and cuddles and warm fuzzies from management. "Aww, don't be sad, Willow! The crowd boos you, so that means we will do everything within our power to make the situation all nice and happy for you!"
My fucking god, the ego on this woman. "Waaaaah! Someone else is getting a thing! I wanted that thing! Why didn't you give me that thing, 'cause I deserve it! Waaaaah!" Of course because she's a petulant little bint she gets showered with comforting words and promises to make things better.
Serenity blows her title opportunity against Colton, "Waaaah! There was a ref bump! Waaah, there was interference in my match!" And of course she immediately gets granted her title match despite having LOST. "Oh, poor Serenity! The crowd boos you, that means you need a self-esteem boost! Here have some ULW management love and another title match!"
The same thing happened to me. Ref got in the way, somebody interfered in my match. Except I actually got the job done, I got Willow down for the one, two, three. That was more than Serenity managed to accomplish. Do I get rewarded? Do I get a one on one match with the former World Heavyweight Champion to decide who ought to hold the big belt? No.
Willow screamed bloody murder because Grace Morningwood was standing on the goddamned apron. Lenore Mason laid her fucking hands on me and Silas belted me across the skull with a chair about five or six times.
Where's my title belt band aid, hmm? Or do I need a an ally that wants to be absolutely the bestest buddies in the whole wide world that I absolutely loathe before you get handed title belts, hmm? I had my match fucked over far more than Willow Wilkes had, and I've got nothing. No band-aids, no hugs, no kisses, no pats on the head and assurances that Uncle Ray-Ray will make everything better.
Because people cheer me. Because I don't have crippling self esteem issues. Because I won't piss all over Twitter and piss all over this company and threaten to quit at the drop of a hat because somebody said mean, angry words on the internet! Awww!
And Willow knows she can't get the job done. She knows that she can't reach out and grab the gold on her own damned merits. Because she's gone out and found friends. She's literally brought people in to this company so that they can carry her ass to victory because she can't get the fucking job done in the ring.
She's got New Eden, she brought back Dante (whoever the fuck he is), she's got Lenore Mason who hates my fucking guts and gets a magic permission slip to butt in to each and every one of my motherfucking matches that's taken place since she's joined the company, since she's had her "Who are you to doubt El Dandy?" moment with Piddle.
So what kind of titanic bitch fit is she going to throw when she loses anyway? When Uncle Fester in a paintball mask, when Adam Smith and the Magic Underwear After School Special Squad, when Silas Mason and his sister-wife-cousin Lenore, and the whole of the motherfucking 82nd Airborne drop into the ring and it's STILL not enough to overcome Jason and I?
I don't know if you've been paying attention, but overcoming the odds is what we do. I crush handicap matches. Jason King has a magic tattoo on his butt placed there by Raymond der Vaart which means he is utterly incapable of being pinned or submitted. Heh. Holy shit Jason, you've got a cutie mark!
And we all know Willow has this figured out, that through the dark eldritch power of professional wrestling you can tip the odds in your favor by tipping the odds out of your favor. No, that's not a contradiction.
We all know that when some dire stacking of the odds occurs that what usually happens is that the person in peril rises to the challenge and overcomes the adversity. Unless you look like a goat, then you get shit on time and time again despite being the most awesomest in ring dude in the whole wide world.
And having figured this out, Willow has decided that she's going to be the most underest underdog of all time. No, not only does she have the odds stacked against her in the ring, but out of it as well!
Everything is a dire threat to poor Willow Wilkes. Even the teensiest tiniest inconvenience is a dire obstacle thrown in the face of our meat flap fluttering sociopath of a heroine. Every setback is a barricade purposefully erected by a vast conspiracy to fuck over poor Weeping Willow Wilkes, no matter how slight.
And guess what? Even when it's not an active persecution of Willow, it's an active persecution of Willow. It doesn't matter that she has a piece of ULW Title cake for herself, a big piece of cake that she has share with Dr. Gracie. But noooo, she has to have it all to herself! Screw sharing, sharing is oppression!
Jason King has the biggest piece of cake and his has a frosting flower on it! That piece of cake belongs to Willow Wilkes by right of her being Willow Wilkes! WHAT?! Raymond der Vaart is giving Jason some ad campaign sprinkles?! WHAT THE FUCK?! Doesn't he know that by divine right those sprinkles should be given to Willow Wilkes?
And Willow isn't alone in this. Oh no. There are a lot of people out there just like Willow, people who think that every setback, every incidence of them not getting their way, every little thing that doesn't happen according to how they believe the world ought to work is a jab sent straight at them, a slap in the face, yet another sign of oppression and persecution.
I call it martyr-bation, because when you see it in public it's disgusting, it's offensive, and it appears to give great pleasure to the martyr-bater. A martyr-bater is never wrong, because being wrong is for other people. Oh no, when a martyr-bater appears wrong that's simply just another sign of the endless conspiracy against them, run by the atheist muslim Kenyan antichrist lizard person secret society member in charge of the free world.
Just like you can't be an oppressed minority when you're the motherfucking majority religion, you can't be oppressed when you get opportunity after opportunity after reward after accolade showered upon you by ULW management.
I've got a better in ring record, and I've had one less contendership opportunity, one less title match, and one less title reign than Willow Wilkes.
If Willow Wilkes is fucking oppressed, if she's being the target of a dire butt-fucking conspiracy, what I've got on my cute blue butt is up there with the combined forces of faking the moon landings, the earth being flat, OJ being framed, and 9/11 being an inside job. That's right, each and every space agency in the WORLD, shades of Jeremy Clarkson, is not only colluding to make sure that we never pierce the firmament of the heavens, break the vapor barrier, and bring about another worldwide flood, but they're actively using their spy satellites, space rovers, and the Hubble Space Telescope to make sure that there are never any tissues left when I need to blow my nose!
What? Don't look at me like that. It's no less ridiculous than the Amazing Worldwide Conspiracy to Fuck Over Willow Wilkes and Be-Sand Her Mighty, Mighty Meat Curtains!
There is no conspiracy.
There is no dark cabal waiting in the wings to besmirch the good name of Willow Wilkes and crush her pwecious widdle feewings.
The only dark cabals in ULW are the one Willow brought in to the fed and made herself and the one that bends over backwards to cater to her whiny bitch ass and shower her with kisses and makeup gifts so that she doesn't storm off to some other wrestling company and whine about how badly she's treated there.
No more whining, Willow. No more excuses.
Yours is the only conspiracy here.
You're going to get your pals to storm the ring because you're not good enough.
You're going to call in help because you can't get the job done.
You not the designated Chosen One and that pisses you off to no end.
But you know what? I'm going to make a choice.
And that choice is to make sure that you never, EVER come anywhere near the ULW World Heavyweight Championship.
I'm going to make it my personal mission. Jackson Adams is going to get the world title before you do, if I have to pull his corpse on top of me to make it so.
And why is that, Willow?
Why would I do such a thing?
Because it's going to make you whine. It's going to make you moan. It's going to make the salty tears of agony stream down your face.
And this time the tears are going to be fucking real.
[Fade to white.]
"What the hell? Why do you want me to read this? Fine, if I read it will you go away and take the CHUD with you? The purple skin clashes with my suit.
*ahem*
And now we come to a close with a quote from somebody completely and utterly unrelated to ULW. Probably a person of some importance in the life of the individual being spoken about. But for some reason we need four of them each and every week, like clockwork, week in and week out. Sunrise and sunset, tide goes in tides goes out can't ex…
SPIDER, I'm not quoting Bill O'Reilly.
So in the end what we're left with is an inflated, artificial sense of accomplishment, of being mainstream, of being in touch with the pulse of the fanbase. Agreement through false consensus, a creation of astroturfing. A fake grassroots movement to extol on the supposed virtues and reinforcing the position of the single individual.
It is the ultimate expression of tell and not show, the anathema of entertainment, of writing of any sort, and of professional wrestling in general. Simply informing of a trait, aspect, or position is not enough.
The world needs to be shown that something is right, that it is truth, that it is reality.
And soon, so very soon, Kalinda Kriegsdottir will be showing the world just that."
-Leeland Gaunt
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