==========================================================
>Fever dreams and the absence of denial
cast like a seascape of something
only slightly better than nothing
an epiphany of sorts
of what was there before you knew it
the single touch from the god of your yesterday
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The Flicker
OFF-Camera
It's another one of those nights where all I do is toss and turn. I thought that my return to the ring would keep the dreams at bay. I was hoping that hearing the crowds, and feeling the adrenaline would make them go away. I had been granted no such reprieve. "How long have I been asleep?" I turn over to look at the clock; it's just a little after six. I was out of distractions. Another week from now, Kris Ryans will be doing what he does best, flying around the ring and entertaining the masses. That didn’t help me in the middle of the night though. The long stretches after the Supercards were bad enough. Not being booked the first Climax Control out of the break prolonged the madness.I look out the window, and the sun hasn't come up from the horizon yet, but the light of day is already shimmering across the water. "Just another day in paradise...." I think it, but I don't mean it. No part of me wants anything to do with this day. This feeling isn't burn out. I don't find myself glued to the bed because I am tired of the job I have returned to. I thought it had been the clinic, so I signed it away. I thought that it could be the gym, so I got rid of it. I thought it was the memories, and I moved away from them all. I started a family. I survived. Every week I go out and enjoy what I do, but the dreams still won’t stop. "Get up you idiot." Sitting up is the first step towards Climax Control. That should have made it easier. The comforter feels heavier than normal. I put my feet on the floor, and it is so cold to the touch that it takes all my strength to keep them down. "It's all in your head. Stop being a bitch."
I force myself up out of the bed, and two steps later I am at the window. The blinds twist open effortlessly, but I am not sure what I am looking for. Outside, the world is still dead. The night owls have more than likely just crashed. The early risers were just getting out of their beds. The result is an otherwise boring world. Looking outside is a lot like looking inside myself. It's empty. I wipe the sleep from my eyes and drop my hands to the table in front of me. The wood is rough around the edges; a welcomed distraction. "I should really get around to refinishing this...." I couldn't begin to count the times that my anger has gotten the better of me and it has ended up turned over, or otherwise deposed. There were dark days after the shooting. There were even darker ones before those. In that moment, all that I wanted to do was cover up the blemishes. Fix it. Make everything right in the world again, but it will likely never happen. I know, at least in the back of my mind, that I will never get around to restoring it. You can’t erase the past, and you can’t go back….
I tear my eyes away from it and back up to the window, but what I see there startles me. The sand, water, and waves are still there, but the man that I catch in my reflection is one that I barely recognize. The wrinkles around my eyes have added decades to my story within mere moments. I try to scream out but the sounds that come out of my mouth are weak and foreign to my ears. I turn away from the window too quickly, and my hip cracks loudly before sending pain radiating up my side. I start to double forward, only to have my hand find a walker between myself and the bed that hadn’t been there when I got up to go to the window. "You gotta get your head in the game." But maybe getting back into the game had always been the biggest problem. Why am I forcing myself back down the same path?
I shove the walker away, and turn back to the window. This time the reflection that looks back at me is my own. The wrinkles are gone. The sunspots were cured, and my hip moves fluidly without a sound. I look back over my shoulder, and the walker is gone, but so was the bed that I got out of. Suddenly, the sound of two ear-piercing shots ring out in the empty space where all of my belongings had been. ”No! No. No. No. No. No….” I slam my hands down on the desk, and it wobbles slightly after all of the years of abuse. The fleeting thoughts of restoring it are far from my mind now, and I just want out. I collapse to my knees, with my forehead resting on the backs of my hands on the desk. I slip a little further down, feeling heavier by the moment. The knobs on the front of the table are worn, and I let my fingers feel the grooves that have been torn into them for a decade worth of abuse, causing it all to snap together in my mind. ”I don’t want this…”
I tried to look away, but the scene outside the window was changing. The sun is starting to come up over the trees on the horizon. Every second the view gets brighter. The more I focus, the more that I notice the world isn't all that asleep after all. Birds fly back and forth across the street, not knowing which of the street light posts they want to stay on. It's like they are chasing each other back and forth. I grab the knobs of the table and pull open the drawer. The only thing inside is a small box. I smile upon seeing it. ”Maybe this is exactly what I deserve... Deserve? Maybe not, but it is exactly what I need to start the day. The lid lifts easily, almost as if it was dying to be opened. I had almost forgotten that it was here, but somehow I also knew that I would never let it slip all the way away. I had been pushing myself to this very spot since I woke up.
A light kicks on overhead that is bright enough to make the rest of the room fade away. The desk was gone. Where the window used to be was an endless sea of white. Even the floor that I was standing on seemed entirely made of the blinding light that surrounded me. I never saw the contents of the box, but I didn’t need to in order to know what was there. ”No! Take me back! I had the answer! It was right there! This isn’t fair!” My voice echoes in the void, but no response comes back. Instead, the spotlight overhead flickers once, twice, and my blood pressure spikes the third time. It intensifies for only a moment before burning itself out. As suddenly as the all-encompassing light had arrived, it left me cloaked in darkness. I screamed, but there was nobody to hear it.
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>an ominous darkness creeps across the sky
an impromptu nothing that means the world
my stomach, in knots
my dreams, lost
this punctuated goodbye
false tears from a hollow-eyed out nothing
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Finally Awake
Seattle, WA
October 15th, 2024
OFF-Camera
Kris's eyes flicker open once, and then the heaviness of his sleep shuts them closed. He is awake, but the rest of his body doesn't know it yet. They open again, this time trying their best not to focus on anything. The nightmares had been relentless for weeks, but still Kris isn't ready to deal with the proverbial elephant in the room. Distracting himself had worked. He found a reason to get out of Hawaii, and take Max up to Seattle to spend some time with their brother. However, even when he was outside of his own home, every time he closed his eyes he was getting out of his own bed, and looking out the same window. It haunted him so much that he had more or less sworn off laying all the way down until he found a way to push through it.
KRIS: ...the chair was a bad idea…
He tried to reposition himself to get a little more comfortable, but he had already exhausted all of the different ways that he could drape himself over the chair in order to get even a single moment of rest.
JASON: I could have told you that….
Kris sat up with a start. He hadn't known that anyone was in the room with him. He turned to face Jay, quickly wiping the sleep out of his eyes, and already starting to feel his blood pressure rise.
KRIS: JESUS CHRIST!
Kris first turned and looked at the window in front of him. The sun was starting to rise already. He looked to the table next to him, but his phone wasn't there. He immediately started digging around the chair next to him, but didn't find it there either.
JASON: Looking for this?
Jason holds out the phone to him, and Kris quickly snatches it out of his hand. It unlocks the moment the camera catches a good look at Kris’ face, and he goes to work swiping away a dozen or so notifications.
KRIS: How long have you been down here creepily watching me?
Jason shrugs, not the Kris even bothered to look up at him.
JASON: Long enough to know that you still talk in your sleep, especially when you aren’t having a very pleasant time…
Kris finally found what he was looking for in his phone, and glared at his brother as he rose from the chair.
KRIS: You turned off my alarm?
Jason shrugged his shoulders again, still entirely unbothered by the fact that his younger brother was becoming more livid by the second. The small smirk on his face told Kris that he wasn’t going to ask about what his nightmare had been about. All Jason wanted to do was have a little fun at his expense.
JASON: I only figured it would save you from waking up from that nightmare. I felt sorry for you. Not sorry enough to wake you.... but sorry.
Kris wasn’t going to get sucked into a conversation about what was on his mind, or why he had ended up sleeping in a chair in the basement gym. As far as he was concerned, if his brother could have done anything to help him, he wouldn’t still be having the same dream at thirty-five. Instead, Kris was going to focus on something that actually mattered.
KRIS: Where’s the kid?
Jason points back over his shoulder like they were just in the other room, but in reality he was pointing much further south than Kris was prepared for.
JASON: Already gone. Holdan too. They thought that you left without them. Probably should have told them to check the basement.
Something told Kris that Jason had willfully allowed them to leave him here. He wanted to have this conversation. He wanted to turn Kris’ misery into a game for his own amusement. However, Kris wasn’t playing.
KRIS: As always, you’ve been incredibly helpful.
Kris pushed past his brother, on his way back up to his room to pack up his things. If he was lucky, he would be able to catch them before the jet took off and left him stranded a few thousand miles from everywhere that he needed to be.
JASON: I can really feel how much you don’t mean that.
Kris was already up the stairs by the time that Jason yelled back after him. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to go back to fight for the last word. He probably didn’t have the time anyways, but he definitely didn’t have the energy.
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>I see him there…
…and he's laughing at me…
He's laughing at me again today.
No more.
What was past, was pretense.
He is not me.
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Burn It Down
October 18th 2024
OFF-Camera
Kris had successfully managed to get a ride back to San Diego with both Max and Holdan. For those few hours, he had been able to push all of the other thoughts to the back of his head. It was the distraction that he needed at a time where he was running on empty. However, once the two of them were back home, there was no place for him there. He couldn’t use them anymore. Kris had his own life to return back to, even if that meant being in that same room, with that same desk, and the same taunting box. He couldn’t avoid it, but more importantly he wouldn’t avoid his kids. They had never been part of his plan, but they were the best part of his life. Maybe if he could throw himself back into that, these dreams could finally just fade to the back of his mind for a few years again.
Mikah: You okay? You’ve been pretty quiet since getting back from Seattle….
He couldn’t even remember how many days he had been back for. They had all been a blur that he hoped nobody else had noticed. He did all of the things that Mikah wanted to do. He took care of every need that the children brought to him. He wore the mask well, but he could hear from the tone of her voice that maybe it hadn’t been well enough. He could lie, but that would just make things worse in the long run. She needed to hear some version of the truth. She deserved that.
KRIS: Nothing important. I just haven’t been sleeping well.
She stared at him questioningly for a moment, but when it was clear that was all that he was going to volunteer on the subject, she decided it would be okay to change it.
Mikah: Well if it is good news that you need, our offer has been accepted in Vegas. All that is left is the paperwork.
He shrugged. It was an amazing place; the type of place that he always said that he was going to get in his early years in Sin City. He should have been excited, but from the moment she had mentioned it, he felt nothing.
KRIS: Anyway that we can handle that when I get back from Reno?
She frowned, inferring significantly more meaning from his words than he had anticipated.
Mikah: When you get back? Are you planning on making this a solo run?
He shrugged once again.
KRIS: It’s Alexander Raven. That’s not someone that I need a cheering section in order to beat.
Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t have been able to argue with him. She knew that Kris was pretty familiar with Raven. After all, he had been backstage back when Raven had shared several stages, including The Insurgency, with the Jet City originals. Although, that felt like a lifetime ago.
Mikah: ....but it’s not. You know that it is also going to be Kevin Carter, and J---
He cut her off. This wasn’t an argument that he was prepared to have, because it wasn’t a situation that he had any control over.
KRIS: Stop.
She stomps her heel on the ground, and raises her voice at him for cutting her off.
Mikah: Back to this? I can’t say his name anymore? I thought that you had moved past that.
Kris raises his voice to match hers, but there was something hollow about it.
KRIS: I don’t care what kind of backup the guy has. I don’t care who wants to come down to the ring and stick their nose into our match. The only thing that I can control is what I do down in that ring. None of the rest matters.
As far as Mikah was concerned, that couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Mikah: You saw what they did to that kid! You want that to be you just because you had too much pride to bring your entourage with you?
Kris couldn’t find any reason to compare himself to a kid that was in too far over his head and got what he deserved.
KRIS: The kid’s last name is Harris. He had it coming.
Mikah seemed taken aback given how Kris had been treating the majority of the roster since his return a couple of months ago.
Mikah: Whose side are you even on?
Kris shook his head without hesitation.
KRIS: Neither. Fuck’em all. I’d sit, eat popcorn, and watch them all wipe each other out if I had the chance. That’s why I wasn’t trying to get involved. Must have been Mark’s idea to throw me in the middle of it.
Mikah opens her mouth to argue, but slams it shut. She thinks on his words for a moment before trying once again to put a positive spin on it.
Mikah: Maybe he knows that you’re the only one that could step into the ring under those conditions and hold their own.
There was a long pause where she waited on his response, but he didn’t have one that she was going to want to hear. Luckily, he was saved by the sound of Ridley stirring in the next room over. Mikah shot a look to the baby monitor, and then held up her index finger to him before heading off to see if their child was actually going to wake up. Once he felt that she was out of earshot, he finally gave his thought on the situation.
KRIS: ....or maybe he is trying to put me out to pasture next…
He hears the footsteps in the hallway stop, and she pokes her head back around the corner, clearly not having caught the specific words that came out of his mouth.
Mikah: What was that?
He looks back at her, and forces a smile to his face.
KRIS: Nothing. It’s not important.
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>as words fall down around you
a glass house that shatters so easily
you are your own broken dreams
watching your sanity slip with every glimmer of hope
trying to reconstruct what has fallen
I am this pain
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”Ever since this card was announced, I keep hearing that I don’t just have one opponent. ”
We hear Kris’ voice before the camera feed actually fades in and shows him at the center of the frame, seated behind a desk.
”I keep hearing that the only man carrying a championship into this match, is the very same one that is going to have his back-up lurking about to make sure that he walks away from this match with a victory. This is the same guy that thinks that he is going to take the Roulette Championship to a main event level. And this is the same guy that has recently claimed to be both the Alpha and Omega of Sin City wrestling, while walking around with a losing record…”
The study, shining and clean, looks like the antithesis of the man sitting at the desk. The shelves are full. The desk appears to be a solid working space with a flat panel monitor and a fit in the center with what appears to be a giant calendar. Overhead, a newly polished chandelier. It's the piece of the puzzle that Kris always promised would come last. It would be the one thing that would signify his return to his previous success, despite whatever condition the room around him would look like. It has four arms, each holding a bright white bulb roughly the size of a softball. However, the arms also cast a shadow. From each arm hangs a championship belt. They are well above Kris's head, but the SCW World Heavyweight Championship, his old Roulette title, the first Internet Championship and one half of the tag team titles that he held with his brother Jason hang from the chandelier. Kris can literally look up and see his Grand Slam in SCW. He doesn’t have to think about the bad memories. The months of losing streaks that plagued the start of his career. The injuries. The setbacks. The time spent away from the ring. No, the only four objects in his eyeline are the four championships that took him to the top of his career. In contrast, the man himself is sitting in the chair, with a keyboard in his lap, looking as if he is slowly losing his grip on reality.
”...and I get it. If I were walking around with the bottom-tier championship in this company, I would do whatever I could do in order to make it relevant. I have been there. I have done that. Before there were Peter Vaughn and Griffin Hawkins, all of the Roulette records were set by me. I won that championship when everyone thought that I was destined to be a nobody forever, and I carried it and defended it more than any person in history. I only relinquished it when I was ready to move onto a bigger challenge, and I picked the perfect opportunity. The next championship that I went on to win was the SCW World Heavyweight Championship, and I picked up the Roulette Championship for the second time, in the very same match. That’s something that Raven couldn’t do when he won the championship years ago. And that is also something that Raven hasn’t been able to do in the years since.”
The air conditioning kicks on in the room, and the belts sway a little as the air from the top of the room is forced down on them. He backs away from the desk in his rolling chair and stands before shoving the chair out of the way. Kris turns his chair to the side. On the first shelf that is visible over the desk, enclosed in glass, is the Sin City Mixed Tag Team Championship. It was the only belt that Kris never lost. Above it was his second Roulette Championship and the SCW World Heavyweight Championship that he won from Jack Savage. The case in between the latter two was empty, and that was the case where Kris’ eyes were focused.
”....obviously I don’t need to add another Roulette Championship to my collection. I already have more than one of those. I have done everything that I set out to do with that championship. I set a bar higher than it had ever been set before, and I encouraged people to try and do better while I was off making myself a Grand Slam Champion and getting inducted into the Hall of Fame. There’s only one championship in this company that I would be willing to take a closer look at these days, but that’s not for us to talk about today. Soon though.”
A smile comes across his lips. That was a story for another time, but his message had been sent. He drops back into the chair, and positions himself back to the front of his desk. He doesn't pull forward to actually sit near it though, instead he chooses to kick back, as he is known for doing while recording his little vignettes.
”....because for all of the nasty things that Raven is going to say about me, and for all of the awful things that he intends to do to me, I have no reason to actually care. What has he actually done on his own? Sure, people might be scared of him now, but that has more to do with J2H3 and Kevin Carter. It isn’t because he is a dominating, unstoppable champion. We have seen him fail to hang onto championships in the past. We have seen him fall short more than two dozen times in that ring. He’s not special by himself, and he knows that. That is the only reason that people start surrounding themselves with people above their station. But I get it! Alexander Raven always talks a big game. He needs big stars to back it up for him. ”
Kris reaches his open hand up towards the SCW World Heavyweight Championship. Even if he was standing, he wouldn't even be able to put his fingertips on it, but the desperation on his face tells of how much that belt means to him. It was the last piece of the first Grand Slam. It was what made him break through the glass ceiling that was holding him back.
”...but he doesn’t have one of those, does he? Years in this company! No SCW World Heavyweight Championship. Not only have I done that on multiple occasions, but I managed to pin the man holding that championship right now. And I am not talking about years ago either. I am talking about Violent Conduct. I am talking about walking into a match where everyone told me that I didn’t have a chance, and putting the champion on his back in the center of the mat. I didn’t have back-up. I didn’t have distractions. I didn’t bend any rules, and I didn’t knock out any refs. All I did was show up, and put Finn’s shoulders to the mat. How many people can say that they have done that this year?”
The smile has long since disappeared, but Kris turns his attention to the tag team championships and seems legitimately sad at it's appearance. He put his faith in a man that was supposed to be a human highlight reel. Instead, that man isn't even good enough to have a spot on this roster at the moment.
”...I could have come back to a division where I had partners. In fact, it probably would have been the smarter move. I am dangerous by myself, but pair me up with a couple of like-minded individuals and we will run all over this company. Jet City did it. The Black Sheep did it. Reckless Elite did it. It doesn’t make you special. What really makes you something in this company is getting things done the right way. Taking shortcuts, and ending careers is the easy way out, and that is why that is exactly what Raven chooses to do. I have no doubt that if he had to play by the rules for even a second, he would show you that he doesn’t deserve the position that he has in this company. He is the Roulette Champion, because the Roulette division allows him to do whatever he wants to whomever he wants, and the only reason he wants to take that style to the main event is because that is the only way that he is ever going to win one.”
The only belt that he hasn't addressed was his first one. The one that he hadn’t made an indelible mark on, or broken any records with. That was the one that he would be chasing after this small order of business with Alexander Raven was over. That was where his true focus was.
”This might be the first ever time I have stepped into the ring with Alexander Raven, but I can promise all of you that he is no stranger to me. He has been a bottom feeder in this company for years, and before that he spent the first half of his career as Alexander Remington’s bitch while my brother and I laughed at him backstage at company after company. Remington, a man that could have never made it in Sin City, and a man that me, my brother and Parker Wayde embarrassed on more than one occasion. Remi plagued Raven’s entire existence the same way that losing to me on Sunday is going to haunt him for the rest of his time in this company.”
He takes his legs off the table and scoots back into position at the desk. He looks down, like reliving his past has left him defeated. When he looks up, the only thing that he looks like is tired.
”I might have just returned. I may not have walked away with the SCW World Heavyweight Championship at Violent Conduct, but I think it is obvious that I have already done everything that I will ever need to do in order to guarantee my place in this company. If Raven doesn’t think that is the way that things work around here, he should have a conversation with his buddy J2H3. The fact is, those of us that have broken our backs to make money for this place will always have a platform to compete. We fought for our place. We earned it.”
A month ago he sat and talked about his failures. He talked about how he wasn’t excited about his direction. He wasn’t ready for the main event. That wasn’t what he was back for. No big pushes. The opportunities will come, when they are supposed to come, but this opportunity seemed to be one that he was looking forward to.
”Alexander Raven hasn’t earned a goddamn thing. He has taken it by force. It’s long past time for someone to put him in his place. If that has to be me, so be it.”
The video gets fuzzy, the frame starts to bleed and twist from the sides until Kris can't be seen anymore, and then goes black without another word. The last bit of what Kris said had hit their mark.
