“It’s an interesting turn of events when you really think about it. We become so focused on the idea of our disillusionment, that we lie ourselves into truth. This was something I spoke about before stepping into the ring for the King for the Day match. Mark Cross, the man marked for martyrdom, took the crown. Like the man hung upon it before him, he wore it and made decisions. The decision to recognise the threat that was made upon him. To put his own slayer before me, to see if I can bury his demons. Thoughtful. Mark Cross understands the truth before him, and does not deflect from it. Like the Dragon of my own pass, he is one to stand above and dictate. The wings of the unfurled beast cast a shadow further and deeper than I could have expected. A shadow over the land of the king leading the peasant deeper and deeper to their own doom. I understand well why he conquered the kingdom of the foreign land. For I once too, met a conquering, ravaging, murderous dragon. The Black Dragon, Stygian, was the dragon of my own world. The conqueror of my own slayer. I understand the Dragons, because I have walked among them for many years.”
“Yet the more I talk, the more I realise something. Lost in my own analogy. The comparisons I make only work to further solidify the glass house that I build around my own mind. A reflective, stained glass house. Mirroring that of which I paint into it, for the world outside is decaying and dying. The end of the One True King and the emergence of the False One in his stead was not a collapse. It wasn’t a failure. Through failure came the understanding of the truth of the False Prophet. Understanding that the glass kingdom in which the One Truth stood in, was in fact, nothing but his own delusional dream. In both being the truth and lie, I was both the King surrounded by his fragmented and false reality, and the prophet that would bring about its end. The Broken Messiah was my truth, because it was not founded in this world of fancy words and lies. It wasn’t founded in the deformed reality I had created for myself. By becoming the Broken Messiah, the False Prophet, The False King, I shattered my own false facade. I became the truth I so desperately fought against. The truth is this. I am a liar beyond my own righteous belief. I am a liar because the reality of myself is not one I crave. The truth is this.”
Alexander Raven, sitting in a beer garden, cigarette hanging loosely from his lip. A pint of amber liquid settled before him. A few others gathered around the table, laughing, talking, bringing the world to life with their muted interaction. Alex had a smile stretched from ear to ear, nodding away as he indulged in the smoke and booze. The world is a twisted amalgamation of amber and red lights.
“I’m no king, I’m no martyr. I’m not the supernatural, smooth talking and manipulative creature I apply myself as. I’m simply a man. Alexander Raven. The truth of my reality is that I am everything I’ve said, and none of it. Mark Cross can see through the facade, like so many before, and so many after. The truth of it, is no matter how much we twist and manipulate our world, we are who we are. Goth, I wonder if you even truly comprehend the origins of your own chosen moniker. I spent the best years of my life working taps in dive bars and hospo derelict hotspots in Melbourne. Hats and Tatts, Loch and Key, The Croft, hell even the Royal Melbourne Hotel on a Saturday night. I spent my nightlife rubbing shoulders with the alt kids of the world. I spent my every night pouring beers for mates who would bend over backwards for me at the drop of a hat, but looked as unapproachable as you make yourself out to be. The truth is, I was nothing more than another alt kid. Another dude wearing timbs, flannels and tall tees. Tatted up and drinking nothing but Jack and Coke every night. Yet even then, the truth of the world is shrouded by the facades they wear.”
“The girl dressed head to toe, wearing makeup to slay the gods themselves, was insecure and afraid of her truth. The guy who sharked everyone at pool was the one who didn’t have any faith in his own abilities. The guys who covered themselves in ink, beards and cigarette smoke, hiding from their own insecurities. One of my best friends, so uncomfortable in themselves, that their one bit of truth was the painting of their own nails in the loveliest shade of purple. Humans. Flawed and real, and I was one of them. I was just another man walking among men, for that is the truth. We lose ourselves to the arrogance of our own delusion and self belief. We lose ourselves to these ideas that we are in any way, shape or form, superior to those who scream and shout. I took the mantle of the Broken Messiah, the False King, the False Prophet, not for myself. Not to feel like I was superior in any way, but to recognise. Recognise my own mortality. Recognise the truth of my world, and the truth is this. I am just like everyone else. I am no king, I am no superior. I am just myself. Alexander fucking Raven. A beer drinking, cigarette smoke, whiskey swilling, swearing and yelling alt kid. Friends with goths, emos and alike. A victim of my own mentality. A victim of my own distortions and delusions. I am as sick as any other, with a mind constantly scrambling for answers.”
“That’s the truth of my reality, Goth. I want you to understand that. That I am aware of who I am. I am aware of where I come from, and I am aware of my own distortions and manipulations. The grave does not scare me, for I shall return to the earth on the day of my death. I am nothing, you are nothing. I’m tired of these games, I’m tired of pretending. I’m tired of listening to my own rattling and rambling. Distortions of a truth that I no longer believe in. That is my truth Goth. I have a soul seeking to do, and I will continue to do it. Shaped by many, yet governed by one. You, Goth, are just as fractured as I. As the girl, as the boy, as my friend. As the pool shark and the drunkard sitting in the gutter. Melbourne, Victoria, Australia was my training ground for the world. The bars were my kingdom and my people, the wayward souls that would seek me for a way to escape themselves through the boozy glasses of drunken minds. A city that lives in the night and fears not death. Fears not the grave, for death is not the end. Not for all, and not for us.”
A small plot of land, several lanterns littered around a large hole in the ground. A mound of dirt and torn up grass besides, and a shovel struck deep into the dirt. A headstone sits at the top, split in two down the centre with a deep crack, yet not broken. On one side, the name Goth. The other, Alexander. A man stands, hand on top of the headstone, his bare feet hanging over the edge of the hole, his other hand wrapped around the shovel handle.
“A Buried Alive match is fitting for the death of our realities, isn’t it Goth? A loss to me, paints a painful picture for you. The man who cannot score a victory, breaks his loss streak by burying the opposition of the chosen King. If I lose this one, do I lay in the grave eternally? I’ve been wondering about that myself, Goth. I made a promise once to a woman I loved dearly. That I would no longer bleed. I would no longer hurt, and that I would leave this industry in the dirt. I made that promise, when she nursed me back to health. When she tended to the burns that covered my body. When she changed the dressing on my exposed scalp, and helped me learn to function again. Death does not scare me Goth. For nothing in that grave is any more terrifying the reality I’ve lived. To be beaten by a group in the middle of the ring, and set aflame. To watch my own father crucified as he hung from the screen. To have the man I betrayed return and exact his own vengeance upon my failure to live up to the expectations he left. He was happy to walk away, if I made due on the opportunity his destruction gave me. Yet I failed. Like I failed to keep my promise. Like I failed to help those lost souls who came seeking. I do not fear death, for death is nothing in the life I live. You, Goth, do not scare me. You do not frighten me. You do not make me quiver or shake. To me, you’re another delusional, misguided liar. Just like me. You’re just like I am Goth, and that boils my blood. It ignites that flame inside me, because it sickens me. It sickens me that the world we live in allows for our reality to be so heavily poisoned. To become the truth that we speak, rather than the reality that we live. False Kings living in our stained glass kingdoms, believe ourselves to be true.”
“So again, I question the situation we find ourselves in. Are you afraid of death, Goth? For I am not. Be it me, or be it you, the dirt will fall. I will settle in the grave if I need to, but I will take you with me."
The man starts to shovel the dirt into the hole. Grunting and heaving as he fills in the hole. The lights flickering as the wind blows.
"Are you following me, have you listened? I need you to listen."
Darkness.
Silence.
Nothing.
