QUESTIONS & ANSWERS (Chapter 17: Closure) [iiw]
May 19, 2023 9:52:43 GMT -5
Post by Admin on May 19, 2023 9:52:43 GMT -5
Kenny Pryce. Out of the three unknowns in this little melee of ours, you and I seem to have the most in common. Your start in the company was quite the opposite of mine, though, wasn’t it? Devastating loss after devastating loss. It felt as though you could not gain traction until you came up against Miss Pain. I know some are calling that an upset, saying that you snatched that victory from the jaws of defeat. Others might see a little deeper, see the desperation that fuelled a man on the precipice of an unstoppable downward spiral. Ah, but now we are reversed. You, fresh off a win that you can crow from the rooftops. Me, still tender from one of the toughest losses ever. I know, my friend. I know that one loss isn’t a streak. Losing to Mac Bane, it is almost a rite of passage in this business. I am among some pretty impressive names on that list. Just like your losing to Matt Shepard was not the end of your career.
Both of these things can be avenged. Neither have to be our definitions.
I know what it feels like to have a shadow hanging over you. To feel as though you will never distance yourself from that legacy, from that thing that got your foot in the door, allowed you to skip the line when there were so many others who were just as capable. It should have been a safety net, a cocoon to allow you to develop naturally. It should have been a parachute to carry you back to solid ground after you leapt into the deep end. Instead, it got tangled around your neck, became a noose that did its best to choke the life from you. No, I am not clairvoyant; not spying on you. I recognize the look. Know intimately what that sort of desperation tastes like, bitter and sickening, like old blood in your mouth from a wound you cannot for the life of you leave alone.
I know what a strategic retreat feels like, too. You tell yourself it was necessary, a need to tend to the wounds before they grew infected. And now, look at this! You are back. Triumphant on the go-home. Handpicked for this unique opportunity. You must feel like you won the lottery.
I am sure Jayce Carver feels the same. A title shot in his debut? That must truly stick in the craw of Matt Shepard, the man who ranted and raved like a child that the red carpet wasn't rolled out at his arrival. Heaven forbid you have to prove yourself before an opportunity is granted. But then, the powers that be clearly can't agree on a single thing. Why else would they be stepping into the ring to settle their differences? In the meantime, the unworthy and untested kick off the show. No pressure, boys. Happy to teach you how to set the tone. Been doing this for a hot minute, after all.
Clarity. A hell of a thing, isn’t it? I guess being self-aware is only a scary concept when you are talking about the Skynet machine revolution or the child-like AI who is now reviewing content on social media for our profession – I digress. Eventually, if you live long enough, you will evolve. You grow and mature, throw off those childhood blinders as you take those first tentative steps in the adult world with peripheral vision for the first time. You see ahead, surely. But you see side to side for the first time. You see front and back, all around and now you begin to see things taking shape because of what you do – cause and effect.
For the first time, you realise that actions have consequences. Oh, yes. They definitely do.
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Rock Hill, NY ||| May 11, 2023
(off camera)
(off camera)
“...at the end of the day, he’s family.”
“You owe him nothing.”
The two thoughts had been at war for weeks now, tearing his mind apart. Loyalty had been programmed into him, a poor and manipulative surrogate for the love he’d craved so much as a child. He hated that every step out from under that shadow had been the cruellest illusion – the darkness had come at the worst time, blotting out his light. The so-called LIBERTY that he had celebrated, that he had latched so hard onto that championship of the same name as proof positive that his narrative had changed had gone up in smoke. The hatred was poisonous, the taint growing deep in him like a cancer. He could feel it percolating in his guts, this twitching and writhing ball of lead, growing bigger.
Sev Yurievich hadn't slept since returning from Manchester, not with his body still aching from the loss to Mac Bane – not to mention his wounded pride.
He'd been holed up in the basement gym for the last thirty-six hours, stewing in silence besides the music that flooded the room from the hidden speakers. This was and had always been his sanctuary, his salvation. Pushing his body to the limits made sense, was the one constant he had always been able to control, even when the rest of his life was utter chaos. Now even that seemed to have lost its lustre. He was forcing it now. Making his body obey even as it protested.
He was painfully aware of the time that had passed, the number of days it had been since he’d returned from the second round match to find a familiar face in an unexpected place. At this point, almost exactly seventeen days, down to the second. A little more than two weeks since he’d been informed that the man who’d gotten him into the business, the one who had paved the way for his career lay dying in a hospital bed.
The number seventeen seemed to be haunting him now, popping up everywhere and a part of him saw that as a sign from the universe – he wasn’t quite sure what it meant yet, but the feeling still burrowed its way into his head.
Nox Arcana’s Transylvania blasted through the sound-proofed room; his favourite album transformed to soothing white noise as he pushed the weights towards the ceiling, feeling the burn as his arms shook. Sweat pooled beneath his back, dripping over the sides of the bench to soak into the carpet – he didn't notice. This was the part of professional wrestling that he knew the best, the part that could never let him down: the build towards the next match. The careful plan he always enacted to a tee, driving his body onwards to the pinnacle of perfection.
In the few hours before the card for Worlds Collide had been announced, he had been willing to consider the idea that coming to IIW was a mistake. When the flight had landed and he’d learned about the Legacy Championship match, he’d almost danced for joy. Now that moment of doubt felt like a fever dream, absolutely absurd.
He forced his arms straight again, white-knuckled on the hand grips.
Sweat dripped down his furrowed brow, stinging his eyes, despite the blast of cool air coming from the vents. He was working himself hard, like he always did. Breathing like a bellows, snarling like the MONSTER he claimed to be, he forced himself to push the bar up one last time. The music reached a frenzied crescendo, accompanied by the guttural growl that burst from between his clenched teeth as he let the bar fall with a clang of finality. Silence fell heavily as the music faded away and he laid there for a moment longer with his eyes closed, trying to remember how to breathe. It took a moment for it to register, for him to realise the album hadn’t looped back to the beginning.
He was aware of her presence before she said a word. Although he'd never barred her from being in here, she usually stayed away when he was going this hard – she'd always had a sort of superstitious respect for his routine. Her timing was impeccable, as always; she had cut the music herself.
His wife Lauren-Jane stood in the doorway with a bowl in one hand. He knew without looking that it very likely contained his favourite blood orange-flavoured Greek yogurt, sprinkled with flax and chia seeds. In the other, she held a bottle of water, chilled so that the plastic was already cloudy with condensation. He could see her clearly in the reflection from the mirrored wall. In the silence, she could hear him breathing heavily, even before she saw his chest heaving when she rounded the rack of weights. Feeling her stomach clench at how exhausted, how positively haggard he looked, she forced a smile.
“Time for a break,” she announced, forcing a bright tone.
He agreed with a grunt but didn't move or turn his head in her direction. Now that he’d stopped, had let the adrenaline fade a little, he could feel the weight of the exhaustion. “You are right.”
She set the snack down on the table next to the crumpled towel and the bowl of lukewarm water that used to be full of ice. She kept her back to him, trying to keep her tone neutral and the worry off her face. “Maybe you should give it a rest for a few hours, come lay down with me? Our little mouse has been especially active today – I think she’s planning to be an acrobat at this rate. We’ll have to call Cirque du Soleil.” She laughed at her own joke then winced as she turned around, resting her hand against the small of her back.
He breathed out slowly, not really even sure he could move. “I am done,” he hesitated for a split second before adding, “I promise.” With effort, he forced himself to sit up straight, closing his eyes against the black specks that danced through his vision.
Her hand gently rested on his shoulder, fingertips tracing the tattooed veins even as she avoided the blooms of purple and green – Bane’s handiwork. He groaned when she probed at his neck, feeling the knots of tension there. He scooted forward at the gentle pressure from her hand, that nudge telling him what to do. Even though she was uncomfortably pregnant, she still eased herself behind him on the bench – she didn’t care that he was soaked in that sour sweat of defeat. Her fingers slipped under the sodden muscle tee he had on, tugging it up so that his bare back was visible. She could see more bruises there, ragged imprints from being whipped into the barrier like road rash stripes. “Oh, Sev. Here. Let me help.”
He could hear the quaver in her voice, knowing without looking that there were tears in her eyes. He bowed his head, biting his lip as her fingers found the worst of the knots, working them loose. Months earlier, she’d have been with him, would have tended to his ageing body in the moments after the match, before the worst of it could settle in. He wondered what she thought of the damage Bane had left behind. In time, it would fade. In time, they would forget.
“I had ice delivered when you were gone. The chest freezer’s full. I could draw you a bath. Have a nice soak with those epsom salts you like.”
The thought of her lifting those heavy ice bags in her condition brought the shame roaring up from the depths he’d stuffed it down into.
How could you be so selfish?
“No,” he replied quickly, “you should be resting. Not ministering to a broken fool–”
“I wouldn’t call you either of those things.” Her reply was quicker, the smile he saw on her lips almost tender as he turned his head to meet her gaze.
“No?” He couldn’t keep the bitterness in check, his eyes locked on hers as he searched her expression for further clues. One hand lifted to his jaw, scratching beneath the beard that was starting to get a little unruly – hadn’t he just shaved a few days ago? Time seemed to be rushing through his hands at breakneck speed and she clearly saw something in his expression that made her brow furrow.
“Out with it,” she said, “I know there’s something weighing on your mind.”
His mind? No. It was his soul. The very core of his being felt like it was being ripped in two directions at once. Loyalty had once been his strongest suit. The thing he was known for. How could be turn his back on the one who had made all of this possible in the first place? He was a wreck. The loss to Bane had been partly due to this preoccupation, he knew. He had not been able to dig down, to find it in himself to finish the job, despite taking the man to the absolute limit.
They won't remember you for that, dummy. They'll remember that you failed. You couldn't get it done against one man. What makes you think you can take on three, two of which are HALF your age? Just give up. Walk away.
The voice of condemnation sounded like PYRO. Even with him gone, the abuse still remained. He was doing it to himself now. At this point, probably everyone knew he was coming unglued. He could barely keep up the pretenses of a social media presence, having to resort to scheduled posts days in advance to make himself seem more active. It was only a matter of time before they would come down on him for that. For being a failure at the most basic of things.
“Big match coming up, too. Is that what all this is about?”
He shook his head. “No. Not that.”
Again, the silence fell between them, like a physical thing she wanted to choke the life out of. The look on his face though, she recognized that well enough. Knew it quite well from her own dysfunctional upbringing. “It’s about him, isn’t it?”
The man wasn’t even dead yet and his ghost was already haunting them. LJ hated him with a passion, wanted to take herself up to the hospital and give the man a piece of her mind. If she wasn’t literally days away from having their first child, she might have already done so – the feeling of righteous fury so strong thanks to those raging hormones. Every new thing she learned about Pyotr Vladimirovich, the more she loathed him. Her husband’s silence spoke volumes and she reached out to gently touch his cheek. “Talk to me. Please?”
The elephant in the room may as well have been painted neon pink and been dancing on a pedestal for how obvious it was. Nodding, Sev sighed. “You would think that after all this time, after hating him for so long, I would be able to walk away clean. I thought the ties were severed. And now...” he shook his head.
“You want closure?”
“Yes.” He considered it for a moment, “and no. The thought of that confrontation? I do not relish it. A large part of me would rather show up the moment he has taken his last breath and passed on. Bear witness to the end so that I know it is truly over. Piss on his grave for good measure.”
“You know what Dr. Shelley told me? Closure is an illusion. A scam. We think it’s something necessary, that the door has to be closed properly. Barricaded. Boarded up after so that it’ll never open again. And none of that is true. What you need to do is accept what happened, Sev. It’s part of what makes you... YOU. It’s part of the story – OUR story. You don’t need to close that door forever. You don’t need to burn the book now that the pages are full and we’re on to another volume. You can just accept it, close the book. Put it on the shelf and let it rest, collect dust while we move on into the future.”
“Dr. Shelley is a wise woman,” he replied, seeing the sheen of tears in his wife’s eyes. He knew that little speech was meant for herself just as much as for him.
“She is. But you know I’m right.”
“My head knows,” Sev murmured, “but my heart does not want to listen.”
She knew at that moment, without him saying another word, that he was going to do as requested. He was going back to the city, back to NYC to go and see his former partner before the man passed. She just hoped it didn’t do more damage than good. The last thing she wanted was for Sev to blow this championship opportunity because that venomous snake had poisoned him again. They had made such progress over the last year. To backslide now would be the worst possible thing.
If that happened, she swore she would put that asshole in the ground herself. To hell with the cancer devouring him from within. The sooner he was six feet under, the sooner her husband could finally let the past go and embrace their future.
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...and I believe in destiny. I believe there are no accidents. I believe that I am here, in this company at this moment in time, for a reason. I know that three matches with the company in a tournament that invited outsiders does not make me one of the “boys”. Letting Mac Bane smear my body fluids around the ring before exacting a pound of flesh to take into the next round doesn’t ingratiate me with any of you, I’m sure. Not when he plans to write Maverick Tatum out of the narrative altogether. Prophecy is about to be fulfilled.
Funny how that goes. Someone said that they saw me with championship gold come Worlds Collide. I thought that ship had sailed upon my elimination. Wouldn't it be wild if both myself and Mac walked away with gold, after all? The two most capable, pulled here by a common denominator in our esteemed world champion, JMont. Think about what that would look like, how dominant the Mecca could truly be.
I did not foresee this happening. Suddenly, what felt like going through the motions to keep my head above water has become something else entirely. I see a clear future full of concrete plans, full of the kind of bookings I had only dreamed of short years ago. Maps, plans, calendars full of tentative dates – I have them all now. My life, all tracked to the moment, perfectly ordered and I find this much more appealing than fear and uncertainty. Where will I be on the 21st of the month? Twickenham Stadium in London. Days pass, and the emptiness subsides. I have things to do, places to be. Until then, a holding pattern..
The fact that we are moving towards the same destination helps, the fact that a new chapter has begun fills me with wonder and the simple realization that I’m not alone anymore is still baffling to me. I always thought it was better to be alone with my thoughts, with my cold hard facts. Somehow those made me feel better. Tending my collection of random facts like a garden, waiting for a harvest that never came because I was silenced over and over again. This is why I struggle to turn the words off. This is also why I seek to find a parallel, a common ground for us to make a connection. It isn’t required for you to know me, for there to be any understanding whatsoever between any of us.
I could trot out the statistics. Talk about where Jayce Carver got his start and what this promising newcomer brings to the table. Talk about how little I know about Matt Shepard, despite the name of his mentor Bronx V being vaguely familiar. He does not seem to even be aware that I am in this match. I could sort us all into categories based on the most subjective of things. The moment that bell rings, though, none of it will matter. I could harp on and on at length, mimic those who claim they are better than me. Why? What purpose does it serve to tear down the opposition?
We have all paid our shares of dues on the independent circuit before landing a contract here in the big leagues. None of us have a unique story there. We’ve all been hammered by some form of adversity, shaped into the WORTHY contenders we have become. Yes, my friends. I believe you are precisely where you belong in this moment, even the newcomer who has yet to grace the IIW ring.
I know so many in this business wish to judge, to critique from the shadows. I always found hunger to be my best motivation, even now. Mac Bane accused me of being aware of my lowly status and unwilling to change it. He does not understand. I work better this way: being unknown, forgotten and in need has always been better to me than anything else. Starvation makes every scrap more of a meal. It makes you savour. Every. Last. Bite.
I would not expect a man with seventeen championships to understand this. Nor should I. Our paths diverge at that fork in the road, where fame burns and the darkness of obscurity beckons as a place to hide out a while, letting tougher skin grow in its place. Kenny knows the truth in this, knows how quickly a year can pass in the void with those busy limbs churning, always in motion just beneath the surface. Tread water. Keep from sinking even though there is no shore in sight. Maybe salvation is just over the horizon.
Just stay afloat a little longer.
Nothing lasts forever; his business teaches you that. All streaks break eventually. Wins. Droughts. You must be patient. Persevere. If not for the end reward, then why are we even here? There are no words to define this. Kansas said it best: all we are is dust in the wind. Nothing substantial, easily scattered. A memorial to our best intentions, cut down in their prime. No time for regrets, for resting on laurels or entertaining flights of fancy. As they say: show up and show out.
Nothing this life has to offer can really pull me from my destination now. My course is locked in. Nothing they say, nothing YOU do can change that. My eyes, indefinitely, will turn back to my true north. Soon, I will be a father. I can be a champion again, this time one that matters. I celebrated freedom with a Liberty Championship – my very first.
I shed blood for a Crimson Championship. Found the lengths I would go to for glory. The line can be crossed. I have it in me to make this happen, to seize the moment.
Three is a powerful number. Much better than seventeen. Three opponents. Three championships.
A new chapter is about to begin. I can welcome my daughter with my feet planted firmly, ready to forge a NEW LEGACY in all facets of my life. I can shape a life, I can be part of moulding something wonderful with a company that deserves it. Both prospects, as opposite as they are, fill me with equal measures of joy. Of satisfaction.
Where are we going today?
A new legacy awaits. Reach out. Take it. All this time, it’s been waiting for you – waiting for you to have the blinders drop from your eyes, to have that perspective shift. You have overcome, paid for this moment in blood, sweat and many tears. Welcome, my friends. It is time to enjoy the fruits of our labours.
It is finally time to ASCEND.
–E
