Post by The Hannahverser on Jun 21, 2016 17:32:28 GMT
It is night.
My eyes are closed.
A soothing wind whispers through the tall grass crowding around my bare legs, smoothes across my face, and dances in my hair.
I needed to clear my head out here.
Said I was going to Mars.
I’ll save that for some night when the Ambien really kicks in.
A serene smile upon my lips, I sit with folded legs out on the back lawn of my cute little cabin two days past feeling the full ache of my promising debut in Boardwalk Wrestling.
It wasn’t easy.
For that I am glad. In spite of animosity, in spite of stellar competition, in spite of downright bitchcraft, and underhanded tag-team tactics, Synn and Sativah have my respect and kudos for a well-fought match.
Damn, I sound like the Rooster.
Serenity stays on my face as I realize on some accounts it’s not a bad thing to espouse the same tenets as a brother-in-arms. It’s not horrible what Rooster and I have accomplished together most recently as a tag-team, but first in Monarchy where he assisted in wresting a title belt from the grasp of Piper Terry, and helped find it into the tenuous safety of my hands.
I have thought about that event, and its fallout for some time.
No matter how hard I force the smile I recognize that I promised myself that the past was the past, history would stay behind me, and I would be free of looking back as I marked out my climb up the Boardwalk Mountain. But, in partnering with Jan if even for one night I realized that I can’t leave anything safely behind without remnants creeping back into my life.
We are historically contingent creatures.
I am seated cross-legged in meditative repose on my back lawn.
I can look behind me to see the flattened grass where I’ve stepped to get here, but I cannot just be where I am from out of nothing and nowhere. I had to get here. I came to Boardwalk to leave Monarchy, to forget 4CW. I wish I could have just landed here as I am now: wiser, more confident in myself and what I am capable of. But if I had I wouldn’t understand now that the journey has to happen. I need to remember where I have stepped so I can avoid the puddles and the mud and the false footing, I need to find the purest path possible.
$100,000 is at stake.
I am, once again, climbing a mountain.
I look up but can’t see the top. I climb anyway. Hiker’s spikes dig in to the dirt terrain at the very beginning of what promises to be something arduous no matter how many times it’s performed. My fingers grip and scrape on rocks, and my ascent begins in earnest. How can I not look back, though? How did I climb a mountain like this before?
The smile on my face, here on the back lawn, dips ever so slightly.
It’s not worry or fear that defaces me; it’s the understanding of my mentality going into Monarchy Wrestling as I set out to compete for the top-tier title. I saw the mountain I had to climb then, its tip shrouded in murk and clouds, and who knew what it would take to get there, and I didn’t believe in myself to make it in the first place.
Historical contingency’s a bitch.
It threatened me then as it threatens me now, as it threatens us all.
I’ve been around for a while. You’ve just never seen me compete in those gutters and dips in the road you never looked in while you were on your own trip up the mountain. When all I tasted was defeat for years in life, and in the ring, half the struggle is that the climb always looks like it slants ninety degrees or more into impossibility and hopelessness.
My vision was skewed when I entered Monarchy Wrestling. I don’t want it to be equally askew now, here, in my new climb up unfamiliar terrain in Atlantic City.
When I cut my first promo in Monarchy and it went so astray from what I had prepared for it felt like my past had snuck up and kicked me in the back of my knees and forced me to slide down over rocks and grass and erased my progress up the mountain. That initial failure reminded me of where I should stay.
And then, well, I won the belt, much to my surprise. It took one week after losing by inches to lay my hands on that strap and open my eyes to the climb I’d made without even realizing I’d made it.
I was at the top of the mountain almost by accident.
Luck.
Thirteen, they say, isn’t always unlucky.
I am climbing a mountain all over again.
I am sitting cross-legged on the grass in my yard.
I am looking at the plateau worth $100,000 and understanding the significance of the climb, and what it would mean to reach the summit, and how much easier everything could be once I get there; if I get there.
All eight of us do.
Why else would any of us be here?
I suppose I should learn, as I did then in those early climbs, and seemingly forget on each subsequent attempt that the top of the mountain is an illusion.
After the climb, once at the summit and you take stock of your accomplishment, you can look down on everyone still striving to reach the peak, and that can be your career, and there’s no shame in it.
As I reached the very top of the Monarchy Wrestling Mountain, smirking at my triumph, raising my arm in victory, feeling conceit creep in as I stared down at the oncoming challengers, I then turned and saw it:
“Holy shit, the mountain keeps going”.
It rises into the clouds, never-ending toil and struggle its only assured promise. Some of us relish that journey and can’t wait to make every footfall count, and each new climb its own reward, while others don’t see it as such. Some find their summit and stay there, comfortable and content.
I have been both of these types of people.
Ladies Night. Boardwalk Live! $100,000 prize.
I am on the back lawn of a cabin I rent that would be fantastic to have bought and paid for, with furnishings I’d love to redo to my tastes; there is a rental car in the driveway that could be mine if the price is right; new training shoes, by god new shoes at all; I could stand a new cell-phone with a camera that might be worth using to shoot promo videos on rather than the ultra mega pixel phone I have now that prevents me from shooting great promos and keeping up with the Kat Joneses of the world, (she shoots good promos on her cell phone – pouty face); new outfits and makeup to boost a weak self esteem; new everything.
Comfort would be a welcome change from all that’s been lacking in my past.
I am climbing a mountain all over again buoyed by the notion that, this time, I can make it to the top faster than before. My feet claw in deeper, my teeth grit and I pull myself up ever higher with confidence.
My initial hope of making this experience fresh and exciting without learning from the mistakes I made the last time won’t serve me here. To climb this mountain, I need to know what others have done to make it.
Here’s the truth: I’m not a battle royal specialist. It appears, so far as I’ve read, only one of the competitors entering that ring on Live is. Kenzie Rydell.
My foot falters on the terrain and I skid downwards trying to catch myself before a fall.
For my part, I’ve never competed in any major battle royal-type matches in my career. To my credit, I’m not even that experienced in tag-team wrestling, so success on Xtra was extra joyous validation, but I had an ally with a shared goal. A battle royal is an entirely different type of match. It’s like being locked in room with several different species of animal each with their own skill sets and temperaments and goals.
A match like this is the perfect recipe for chaos. I’m used to discipline and strategy. I’m all about setting the pace.
I catch my footing, luckily, grit my teeth and dig in.
In a Battle Royal, all bets are off. The most skilled or most highly decorated among us can wind up flying over the top rope at the sound of the bell. While someone filling a spot on the Boardwalk supporting talent roster could walk out with a career-defining achievement.
I am climbing a mountain and I know, like all the others I have climbed, this will not be an easy trek.
And I’d not have it any other way.
I am on my back lawn, the smile has drifted into a fixed face of focus and determination.
What did Ramona Epps do last year to be successful in the last Ladies Night Royal Rumble?
How did she see the field before her, did she see it for what it was, or did she make it into something it wasn’t? Did she see the Atlantic City Title on the next peak after the mountain she was climbing and project herself towards bigger and better targets?
Am I climbing a mountain, or am I stepping on a stone to reach the other side of a stream.
I’m not a battle royal specialist; this match is out of my comfort zone.
Was Ramona?
The smooth linear dream-like quality of visuals my mind was conjuring start to mix and confuse. My eyes open a peep to see the darkness of my back yard. It’s home now. I like it here. Cicadas chirrup softly. The wind rustles.
So, what’s the etiquette here, do I cut a promo for these things? It’s customary for all other matches, no? Some might even call it a generic aspect of the game. But, there it is.
You have to go on camera, or at least go on record and list every single competitor and their distinguishing features and accomplishments so you can make it clear that you know who they are and that you really don’t like their face. Not only that, but you’re ready to destroy their hopes and dreams because you’re obviously the superior competitor.
Does knowing and acknowledging out loud that Julliet Brooks recently formally joined the lost make a difference here? If I admit that she’s the one who’s career I’ve followed the most out of these competitors since god knows when, have I played my hand somehow? Does the fact that she’s always grasped for it, claimed titles, but never fully grabbed the big brass ring have an impact on her upcoming performance? Does me saying that wound her, or increase my confidence?
And what if I don’t even face Brooks? In a Battle Royal I could go an entire match facing one opponent, or every one. And what if the woman I can’t seem to dig up any information on, Robinna Hood, ends up clearing the ring like some sort of sleeper success story? Is she some big deal somewhere I haven’t scouted yet?
And, on the other hand, what if I don’t say anything?
What if I just lay low and prepare and condition myself for what’s ahead?
What if I up my training regimen, study all the existent information I can find on these competitors and set all that information in my back pocket for when I step into that ring ready to dominate the competition?
I am no longer climbing a mountain.
I am at war inside myself.
I am sitting in my back yard with my eyes open, staring out into creeping, crawling potentially nefarious darkness imagining all that could go wrong in a match that is not my specialty.
In the background, a floating bubble city. Yes, they have those now. Finally.
Before us, neatly manicured grounds are interrupted by the periodic upward jutting implantation of a stone marked with someone’s name on it. Gravestones, but language has evolved here in 2020.
We are in a cemetery. Unfortunately, people still die in the future, for this you can blame the current president. Self-driving cars park themselves nearby, and guests join a small gathering around an open hole over which a casket sits waiting to be lowered into its final resting place.
The Gravestone reads: Thirteen.
It is not a fancy, decorative stone, either. No one in attendance is crying. A priest, Reverend Adrian Moffat, presides. Just before he speaks, everyone in the gathering raises their impossibly tiny iPhone 36s up to begin recording for instantaneous upload to the world wide Facebookwebgrid.
Reverend Adrian Moffat: Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to unite—Oh. Wrong service.
The gaffe elicits a chuckle from everyone including the reverend. He shakes his head, wipes a well-intentioned tear from his eye, and replaces the offending liturgy with the appropriate sermon notes from a side pocket on his cassock.
Reverend Adrian Moffat: Sorry. Just took this gig.
He takes a swig from a flask hidden on his person. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Reverend Adrian Moffat: I have a wedding to attend after this service, so we’ll need to make this brief, cool?
Everyone nods their understanding. Someone checks his watch and murmurs to the person next to him about having a Tron light cycle race to attend, so he hopes this is expedited quickly. The reverend overlooks the gathering serenely.
Reverend Adrian Moffat: Friends, we have gathered to pay our final respects to the life of Thirteen Peake-Riddle-Pettis-Peake-Brooks— Yeesh, all those men and women? And it goes on like that.
Another chuckle. Some member of the crowd speaks up.
…: She was a ho.
An even wider chuckle comes from the gathering.
Reverend Adrian Moffat: Yes, of course she was.
…: Desperate to the very end!
Reverend Adrian Moffat: We’ll stick with calling her Thirteen for simplicity sake.
The revered goes back to his prepared remarks.
Reverend Adrian Moffat: As you all may know, no close friends opted to attend this ceremony—
…: There were none!
Another chuckle.
Reverend Adrian Moffat: Yes, well. Be that as it may, I’ve unsuccessfully prepared some comments of my own for her burial, because if there was one word that could be used to summarize young Thirteen’s life it would be unsuccessful. And so in life, so too in death her service must be that: entirely and wholly unsuccessful at articulating anything meaningful about the life she lived after the… incident.
Of course, as everyone knows Thirteen was born unluckily, her upbringing best described as a trip through the school of hard knocks and all that, and—know what? Yadda, yadda, yadda. This part’s all kind of boring. I’ll skip ahead as we all have to go watch the Genie of Boston cut another of her sidesplitting, completely ungeneric, promos identifying what’s wrong with everyone beside herself while she successfully defends her still undefeated streak.
Applause from those in attendance. A #1 foam finger appears out of nowhere on the hand of someone in the crowd and waves gently at attention at the reference to Genevie’s name. Along the perimeter of the service a vendor begins selling hot dogs in Soylent Green-style pill form. There are several buyers as the reverend continues.
Reverend Adrian Moffat: Okay! Where were we? Dut-da-dut-da-dut, right, she joins Boardwalk then dies from a lack of success. And cancer. Of the win-loss record. And arthritis. Which all could have been avoided if Thirteen had simply gone the easy route, which so many of her peers do nowadays and stuck to the tried, tested, and true method of success.
So many heads nod now fixed with sadness at the beginning of the train wreck.
Reverend Adrian Moffat: Thirteen could have easily remarked at how her fighting style was quite similar to Kenzie Rydell’s. Thirteen could have removed the bio information and noted the stark similarity in style and career trajectory. She should have seen and announced the Five Lakes Champion of NGW as viable competition instead of opting not to address Kenzie until they faced in the ring in what was obviously a sign of cowardice. This, undoubtedly, is what led Thirteen to her first failed marriage with Greg Peake and a nasty bout with depression.
At the mention some starts to cry. A gloom falls over the proceedings.
Reverend Adrian Moffat: Yes, Thirteen made the horrible decision not to call a spade a spade when faced with the likes of ‘supporting stars’ Kate Gillespie, and Shenirva Marcacos who really didn’t have a chance in hell from the onset. Thirteen opted not to give herself that much needed edge of listing off each competitor in that fated 8-woman battle royal like the others assuredly would, and that, friends, would spell the beginning of the end for our number-named could-have-been but never-was. Some say the grief at this missed opportunity to display her vaunted promo work led her straight into the arms of our current President Cyrus Riddle, which, of course, resulted in a marriage that nearly cost him his presidential run before it even happened.
Some veterans in the crowd salute, and still more tears emerge. It is unclear if these tears are present on account of the deceased, or how she impacted the lives of these great men so negatively after… the incident. The reverend lamented with a saddened shake of his head and increased the furor of this dirge sermon.
Reverend Adrian Moffat: Indeed, if Thirteen had pointed out that Genevie Carmody was barely as talented as some of the other woman in that Ladies Night Battle Royal in spite of her assertions stating otherwise, maybe history itself would have been irrevocably changed! Thirteen could’ve won that $100,000 and she wouldn’t have had to marry Michael Pettis and spend the rest of her life applying fresh lipstick and wearing kneepads—
It is still night.
My eyes are open.
I’ve drawn my knees up under my chin. My arms are pulled around my ankles and I am annoyed at my own maudlin sense of what’s possible as I look into the darkness of my property.
Historical contingency’s a bitch.
Something about going through piles and piles of shit in your life gets you used to the struggle. It makes you come to expect shit regardless of the effort you expend to avoid it.
I said I would not look into the past and I have, I have to, but only so long as to see a way forward that doesn’t include the mistakes I have made.
I am climbing a mountain. I have done so many times before. Each of the women I will come to face have, I’m sure. Each of them coming from a different place; each with one thing on their mind come Boardwalk Live, Ladies Night:
The top of the mountain.
Some of have seen it and fallen off. Some are already at the top in their respective careers. And still others have never made it.
I do not enter this match lightly. I am not a battle royal specialist. But I am one of the toughest women any of my opponents will face in any ring, in any match type, anywhere.
Kenzie, Julliet, Kat, Genevie, Robinna, Kate and Shenirva, I don’t need to list you, do I? Do I need to prove that I’ve searched you all out and studied your bios, your movesets, and picked out what I can only perceive as your flaws, knowing full well in a match like this I may never get to exploit them. I don’t need to run down your accomplishments, your accolades, your strengths or your weaknesses, do I?
You should know what they are for yourselves.
Because, when you enter that ring and the bell sounds you better or else I’ve already won. I enter this match knowing myself better than I ever have. You face a warrior becoming complete through self-awareness and unfettered training. At the risk of sounding like, him, each of you, regardless of your stature and station will have my respect before and after this match regardless of how you approach the proverbial summit of this particular mountain.
$100,000.
A Cause for celebration.
And a momentous victory that sends shockwaves throughout Boardwalk and signals to everyone watching that the woman who stands alone in that ring by the end of it all is to be taken seriously.
I really want that.
I need that.
But we all do.
I am climbing a mountain.
We all are.
My feet pulverize the rocks beneath me and I gain a stable footing.
I can see the top of the mountain.
I can see what I want.
I can see how to get there.
I wish the rest of you luck.
You are going to need it.
My eyes are closed.
A soothing wind whispers through the tall grass crowding around my bare legs, smoothes across my face, and dances in my hair.
I needed to clear my head out here.
Said I was going to Mars.
I’ll save that for some night when the Ambien really kicks in.
A serene smile upon my lips, I sit with folded legs out on the back lawn of my cute little cabin two days past feeling the full ache of my promising debut in Boardwalk Wrestling.
It wasn’t easy.
For that I am glad. In spite of animosity, in spite of stellar competition, in spite of downright bitchcraft, and underhanded tag-team tactics, Synn and Sativah have my respect and kudos for a well-fought match.
Damn, I sound like the Rooster.
Serenity stays on my face as I realize on some accounts it’s not a bad thing to espouse the same tenets as a brother-in-arms. It’s not horrible what Rooster and I have accomplished together most recently as a tag-team, but first in Monarchy where he assisted in wresting a title belt from the grasp of Piper Terry, and helped find it into the tenuous safety of my hands.
I have thought about that event, and its fallout for some time.
No matter how hard I force the smile I recognize that I promised myself that the past was the past, history would stay behind me, and I would be free of looking back as I marked out my climb up the Boardwalk Mountain. But, in partnering with Jan if even for one night I realized that I can’t leave anything safely behind without remnants creeping back into my life.
We are historically contingent creatures.
I am seated cross-legged in meditative repose on my back lawn.
I can look behind me to see the flattened grass where I’ve stepped to get here, but I cannot just be where I am from out of nothing and nowhere. I had to get here. I came to Boardwalk to leave Monarchy, to forget 4CW. I wish I could have just landed here as I am now: wiser, more confident in myself and what I am capable of. But if I had I wouldn’t understand now that the journey has to happen. I need to remember where I have stepped so I can avoid the puddles and the mud and the false footing, I need to find the purest path possible.
$100,000 is at stake.
I am, once again, climbing a mountain.
I look up but can’t see the top. I climb anyway. Hiker’s spikes dig in to the dirt terrain at the very beginning of what promises to be something arduous no matter how many times it’s performed. My fingers grip and scrape on rocks, and my ascent begins in earnest. How can I not look back, though? How did I climb a mountain like this before?
The smile on my face, here on the back lawn, dips ever so slightly.
It’s not worry or fear that defaces me; it’s the understanding of my mentality going into Monarchy Wrestling as I set out to compete for the top-tier title. I saw the mountain I had to climb then, its tip shrouded in murk and clouds, and who knew what it would take to get there, and I didn’t believe in myself to make it in the first place.
Historical contingency’s a bitch.
It threatened me then as it threatens me now, as it threatens us all.
I’ve been around for a while. You’ve just never seen me compete in those gutters and dips in the road you never looked in while you were on your own trip up the mountain. When all I tasted was defeat for years in life, and in the ring, half the struggle is that the climb always looks like it slants ninety degrees or more into impossibility and hopelessness.
My vision was skewed when I entered Monarchy Wrestling. I don’t want it to be equally askew now, here, in my new climb up unfamiliar terrain in Atlantic City.
When I cut my first promo in Monarchy and it went so astray from what I had prepared for it felt like my past had snuck up and kicked me in the back of my knees and forced me to slide down over rocks and grass and erased my progress up the mountain. That initial failure reminded me of where I should stay.
And then, well, I won the belt, much to my surprise. It took one week after losing by inches to lay my hands on that strap and open my eyes to the climb I’d made without even realizing I’d made it.
I was at the top of the mountain almost by accident.
Luck.
Thirteen, they say, isn’t always unlucky.
I am climbing a mountain all over again.
I am sitting cross-legged on the grass in my yard.
I am looking at the plateau worth $100,000 and understanding the significance of the climb, and what it would mean to reach the summit, and how much easier everything could be once I get there; if I get there.
All eight of us do.
Why else would any of us be here?
I suppose I should learn, as I did then in those early climbs, and seemingly forget on each subsequent attempt that the top of the mountain is an illusion.
After the climb, once at the summit and you take stock of your accomplishment, you can look down on everyone still striving to reach the peak, and that can be your career, and there’s no shame in it.
As I reached the very top of the Monarchy Wrestling Mountain, smirking at my triumph, raising my arm in victory, feeling conceit creep in as I stared down at the oncoming challengers, I then turned and saw it:
“Holy shit, the mountain keeps going”.
It rises into the clouds, never-ending toil and struggle its only assured promise. Some of us relish that journey and can’t wait to make every footfall count, and each new climb its own reward, while others don’t see it as such. Some find their summit and stay there, comfortable and content.
I have been both of these types of people.
Ladies Night. Boardwalk Live! $100,000 prize.
I am on the back lawn of a cabin I rent that would be fantastic to have bought and paid for, with furnishings I’d love to redo to my tastes; there is a rental car in the driveway that could be mine if the price is right; new training shoes, by god new shoes at all; I could stand a new cell-phone with a camera that might be worth using to shoot promo videos on rather than the ultra mega pixel phone I have now that prevents me from shooting great promos and keeping up with the Kat Joneses of the world, (she shoots good promos on her cell phone – pouty face); new outfits and makeup to boost a weak self esteem; new everything.
Comfort would be a welcome change from all that’s been lacking in my past.
I am climbing a mountain all over again buoyed by the notion that, this time, I can make it to the top faster than before. My feet claw in deeper, my teeth grit and I pull myself up ever higher with confidence.
My initial hope of making this experience fresh and exciting without learning from the mistakes I made the last time won’t serve me here. To climb this mountain, I need to know what others have done to make it.
Here’s the truth: I’m not a battle royal specialist. It appears, so far as I’ve read, only one of the competitors entering that ring on Live is. Kenzie Rydell.
My foot falters on the terrain and I skid downwards trying to catch myself before a fall.
For my part, I’ve never competed in any major battle royal-type matches in my career. To my credit, I’m not even that experienced in tag-team wrestling, so success on Xtra was extra joyous validation, but I had an ally with a shared goal. A battle royal is an entirely different type of match. It’s like being locked in room with several different species of animal each with their own skill sets and temperaments and goals.
A match like this is the perfect recipe for chaos. I’m used to discipline and strategy. I’m all about setting the pace.
I catch my footing, luckily, grit my teeth and dig in.
In a Battle Royal, all bets are off. The most skilled or most highly decorated among us can wind up flying over the top rope at the sound of the bell. While someone filling a spot on the Boardwalk supporting talent roster could walk out with a career-defining achievement.
I am climbing a mountain and I know, like all the others I have climbed, this will not be an easy trek.
And I’d not have it any other way.
I am on my back lawn, the smile has drifted into a fixed face of focus and determination.
What did Ramona Epps do last year to be successful in the last Ladies Night Royal Rumble?
How did she see the field before her, did she see it for what it was, or did she make it into something it wasn’t? Did she see the Atlantic City Title on the next peak after the mountain she was climbing and project herself towards bigger and better targets?
Am I climbing a mountain, or am I stepping on a stone to reach the other side of a stream.
I’m not a battle royal specialist; this match is out of my comfort zone.
Was Ramona?
The smooth linear dream-like quality of visuals my mind was conjuring start to mix and confuse. My eyes open a peep to see the darkness of my back yard. It’s home now. I like it here. Cicadas chirrup softly. The wind rustles.
So, what’s the etiquette here, do I cut a promo for these things? It’s customary for all other matches, no? Some might even call it a generic aspect of the game. But, there it is.
You have to go on camera, or at least go on record and list every single competitor and their distinguishing features and accomplishments so you can make it clear that you know who they are and that you really don’t like their face. Not only that, but you’re ready to destroy their hopes and dreams because you’re obviously the superior competitor.
Does knowing and acknowledging out loud that Julliet Brooks recently formally joined the lost make a difference here? If I admit that she’s the one who’s career I’ve followed the most out of these competitors since god knows when, have I played my hand somehow? Does the fact that she’s always grasped for it, claimed titles, but never fully grabbed the big brass ring have an impact on her upcoming performance? Does me saying that wound her, or increase my confidence?
And what if I don’t even face Brooks? In a Battle Royal I could go an entire match facing one opponent, or every one. And what if the woman I can’t seem to dig up any information on, Robinna Hood, ends up clearing the ring like some sort of sleeper success story? Is she some big deal somewhere I haven’t scouted yet?
And, on the other hand, what if I don’t say anything?
What if I just lay low and prepare and condition myself for what’s ahead?
What if I up my training regimen, study all the existent information I can find on these competitors and set all that information in my back pocket for when I step into that ring ready to dominate the competition?
I am no longer climbing a mountain.
I am at war inside myself.
I am sitting in my back yard with my eyes open, staring out into creeping, crawling potentially nefarious darkness imagining all that could go wrong in a match that is not my specialty.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
June 14, 2020
In the background, a floating bubble city. Yes, they have those now. Finally.
Before us, neatly manicured grounds are interrupted by the periodic upward jutting implantation of a stone marked with someone’s name on it. Gravestones, but language has evolved here in 2020.
We are in a cemetery. Unfortunately, people still die in the future, for this you can blame the current president. Self-driving cars park themselves nearby, and guests join a small gathering around an open hole over which a casket sits waiting to be lowered into its final resting place.
The Gravestone reads: Thirteen.
It is not a fancy, decorative stone, either. No one in attendance is crying. A priest, Reverend Adrian Moffat, presides. Just before he speaks, everyone in the gathering raises their impossibly tiny iPhone 36s up to begin recording for instantaneous upload to the world wide Facebookwebgrid.
Reverend Adrian Moffat: Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to unite—Oh. Wrong service.
The gaffe elicits a chuckle from everyone including the reverend. He shakes his head, wipes a well-intentioned tear from his eye, and replaces the offending liturgy with the appropriate sermon notes from a side pocket on his cassock.
Reverend Adrian Moffat: Sorry. Just took this gig.
He takes a swig from a flask hidden on his person. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Reverend Adrian Moffat: I have a wedding to attend after this service, so we’ll need to make this brief, cool?
Everyone nods their understanding. Someone checks his watch and murmurs to the person next to him about having a Tron light cycle race to attend, so he hopes this is expedited quickly. The reverend overlooks the gathering serenely.
Reverend Adrian Moffat: Friends, we have gathered to pay our final respects to the life of Thirteen Peake-Riddle-Pettis-Peake-Brooks— Yeesh, all those men and women? And it goes on like that.
Another chuckle. Some member of the crowd speaks up.
…: She was a ho.
An even wider chuckle comes from the gathering.
Reverend Adrian Moffat: Yes, of course she was.
…: Desperate to the very end!
Reverend Adrian Moffat: We’ll stick with calling her Thirteen for simplicity sake.
The revered goes back to his prepared remarks.
Reverend Adrian Moffat: As you all may know, no close friends opted to attend this ceremony—
…: There were none!
Another chuckle.
Reverend Adrian Moffat: Yes, well. Be that as it may, I’ve unsuccessfully prepared some comments of my own for her burial, because if there was one word that could be used to summarize young Thirteen’s life it would be unsuccessful. And so in life, so too in death her service must be that: entirely and wholly unsuccessful at articulating anything meaningful about the life she lived after the… incident.
Of course, as everyone knows Thirteen was born unluckily, her upbringing best described as a trip through the school of hard knocks and all that, and—know what? Yadda, yadda, yadda. This part’s all kind of boring. I’ll skip ahead as we all have to go watch the Genie of Boston cut another of her sidesplitting, completely ungeneric, promos identifying what’s wrong with everyone beside herself while she successfully defends her still undefeated streak.
Applause from those in attendance. A #1 foam finger appears out of nowhere on the hand of someone in the crowd and waves gently at attention at the reference to Genevie’s name. Along the perimeter of the service a vendor begins selling hot dogs in Soylent Green-style pill form. There are several buyers as the reverend continues.
Reverend Adrian Moffat: Okay! Where were we? Dut-da-dut-da-dut, right, she joins Boardwalk then dies from a lack of success. And cancer. Of the win-loss record. And arthritis. Which all could have been avoided if Thirteen had simply gone the easy route, which so many of her peers do nowadays and stuck to the tried, tested, and true method of success.
So many heads nod now fixed with sadness at the beginning of the train wreck.
Reverend Adrian Moffat: Thirteen could have easily remarked at how her fighting style was quite similar to Kenzie Rydell’s. Thirteen could have removed the bio information and noted the stark similarity in style and career trajectory. She should have seen and announced the Five Lakes Champion of NGW as viable competition instead of opting not to address Kenzie until they faced in the ring in what was obviously a sign of cowardice. This, undoubtedly, is what led Thirteen to her first failed marriage with Greg Peake and a nasty bout with depression.
At the mention some starts to cry. A gloom falls over the proceedings.
Reverend Adrian Moffat: Yes, Thirteen made the horrible decision not to call a spade a spade when faced with the likes of ‘supporting stars’ Kate Gillespie, and Shenirva Marcacos who really didn’t have a chance in hell from the onset. Thirteen opted not to give herself that much needed edge of listing off each competitor in that fated 8-woman battle royal like the others assuredly would, and that, friends, would spell the beginning of the end for our number-named could-have-been but never-was. Some say the grief at this missed opportunity to display her vaunted promo work led her straight into the arms of our current President Cyrus Riddle, which, of course, resulted in a marriage that nearly cost him his presidential run before it even happened.
Some veterans in the crowd salute, and still more tears emerge. It is unclear if these tears are present on account of the deceased, or how she impacted the lives of these great men so negatively after… the incident. The reverend lamented with a saddened shake of his head and increased the furor of this dirge sermon.
Reverend Adrian Moffat: Indeed, if Thirteen had pointed out that Genevie Carmody was barely as talented as some of the other woman in that Ladies Night Battle Royal in spite of her assertions stating otherwise, maybe history itself would have been irrevocably changed! Thirteen could’ve won that $100,000 and she wouldn’t have had to marry Michael Pettis and spend the rest of her life applying fresh lipstick and wearing kneepads—
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
That’s enough of a future spoiled by the past and a rotten imagination spurred on by nightmares.It is still night.
My eyes are open.
I’ve drawn my knees up under my chin. My arms are pulled around my ankles and I am annoyed at my own maudlin sense of what’s possible as I look into the darkness of my property.
Historical contingency’s a bitch.
Something about going through piles and piles of shit in your life gets you used to the struggle. It makes you come to expect shit regardless of the effort you expend to avoid it.
I said I would not look into the past and I have, I have to, but only so long as to see a way forward that doesn’t include the mistakes I have made.
I am climbing a mountain. I have done so many times before. Each of the women I will come to face have, I’m sure. Each of them coming from a different place; each with one thing on their mind come Boardwalk Live, Ladies Night:
The top of the mountain.
Some of have seen it and fallen off. Some are already at the top in their respective careers. And still others have never made it.
I do not enter this match lightly. I am not a battle royal specialist. But I am one of the toughest women any of my opponents will face in any ring, in any match type, anywhere.
Kenzie, Julliet, Kat, Genevie, Robinna, Kate and Shenirva, I don’t need to list you, do I? Do I need to prove that I’ve searched you all out and studied your bios, your movesets, and picked out what I can only perceive as your flaws, knowing full well in a match like this I may never get to exploit them. I don’t need to run down your accomplishments, your accolades, your strengths or your weaknesses, do I?
You should know what they are for yourselves.
Because, when you enter that ring and the bell sounds you better or else I’ve already won. I enter this match knowing myself better than I ever have. You face a warrior becoming complete through self-awareness and unfettered training. At the risk of sounding like, him, each of you, regardless of your stature and station will have my respect before and after this match regardless of how you approach the proverbial summit of this particular mountain.
$100,000.
A Cause for celebration.
And a momentous victory that sends shockwaves throughout Boardwalk and signals to everyone watching that the woman who stands alone in that ring by the end of it all is to be taken seriously.
I really want that.
I need that.
But we all do.
I am climbing a mountain.
We all are.
My feet pulverize the rocks beneath me and I gain a stable footing.
I can see the top of the mountain.
I can see what I want.
I can see how to get there.
I wish the rest of you luck.
You are going to need it.