Post by Dean Harper on Jul 21, 2017 20:55:08 GMT
There is a house on a street that isn’t really a street with an old paint chipped mailbox tilted to the left. The street is labeled Graveyard Trail. The sign clearly newer than anything else in the stretch of road, government and green, but the street itself is neither a graveyard nor really a trail. It's dirt up kicked by years of a big old barely-more-than-an-antique red truck whose wheels have ground empty spaces in the overgrown grass. The whole yard is covered in that same overgrown grass that hasn’t been cut in weeks. The grass is flat in the space from the door to where the truck would be parked, but it isn’t parked there now.
There are trees all around the house. When he was young he was told the trees protected them. Kept things safe. There were wind chimes and random knickknacks tied to the branches of the trees. Some of them old, some of them new since the last time he’d stepped into this yard. He had wondered on the trip here if he would feel some sort of urge to not enter, like the trees would keep him away. But it didn’t. His Lady entered without bother. She stood in the grass looking.
Seeing the trailer he had grown up in. Seeing the propane tank painted purple he had spent a whole weekend on when he was in first grade. The stairs to the door warn with a broom handle for a railing. It was odd to see her, his new life standing in the area of his old life. Inside he was sure it would still smell of paperback books and stale cigarettes. He was certain the place would be just had it was when he left.
“She is not home.” Dean said in the silence of the woods.
“Are you ready to prove you are deserving of becoming? Cast aside anything that might tie you to your life before?”
“Yes. It means nothing to me.”
“Then go inside.”
Camera comes up on a parking lot, where Dean Harper is smoking as he sits leaning against a brick building as the sun sets behind him. He smiles into the camera in a way that doesn’t quite reach his eyes as he flicks the cigarette away.
“Hello, IWF. It’s been so long since we’ve spoken directly. For those of you who’ve forgotten, allow me to reintroduce myself…”
He stands and smiles earnestly into the camera. “I’m Dean Harper. Some of you probably saw me last week in my guest starring role as an ambulance driver. Before that you’ve seen me in a few videos released by my Lady, and before that in a few interviews with some of the other talent in the IWF. Usually the diamonds.”
Dean laughs in barely restrained sort of way, “I was pathetic back then. I believed that while they were weaker, that if they didn’t want to talk to me they would be too polite to really decline. Like the girls on the bus who wore headphones but would pull them off when you asked them a question. Who would weakly smile and let you push yourself into their day. I was barely better than a joke.”
“Luckily my fortunes have turned. I’ve found a new walk of life to follow – something so much more rewarding than I ever could have imagined. Have any of you ever devoted yourself to a cause, truly and wholly?”
His tone changes to a soft reverence. “I’m not talking about people who might have… you know, passed out lawn signs for a political campaign, or signed a petition online. I’m talking about real, tangible devotion, devotion that consumes every part of your spirit and hijacks your entire being. Something that just connects with you and anchors you to really mattering. Something you believe in so absolutely that your life before finding that cause seems… dim, pointless, and sad in comparison. Have any of you ever felt that? I hope that you do if you haven’t felt that already. It can and will change your life for the better, I promise you.”
“Look at me. A few months ago a small, weak-willed peon in an industry that wouldn’t ever really care about my name, and now? Now I’m a new man, strong of body and mind, about to make my debut In-Ring in the Imperial Wrestling Federation. It’s almost like a dream come true.”
The smile abruptly vanishes. “Well, nightmare for everyone who stands in my way.”
Dean’s expression and posture take a suddenly much darker note as he continues walking towards the camera. “Because that’s the thing about devotion. Devotion isn’t just about dedicating yourself to a cause – it’s about sharing that cause with the world with whatever means are necessary to spread it. Devotion to a cause is the reason that all of history’s greatest atrocities have occurred, did you know that?”
“Really think about it. The thing that gave birth to all of the suffering, death, ruin and destruction that humanity has inflicted upon itself since apes first learned how to smash one another’s skulls in with rocks and sticks? Every war, every genocide, every long, screaming torture and every crime against humanity has happened because someone was devoted to an idea. The earth shakes and the angels weep when a devoted man goes to war.”
He spreads his arms wide, grinning wickedly. “And I am very much a devoted man… and thanks to the IWF, I have my battlefield. The only thing left to make it a war is enemies to stand against… and finally, Monday Night Sacrifice has given me not one – but three.”
“You really should be thanking me, you know.”
Dean paced around the small, dimly-lit room with a scalpel in his hand. The room was oddly stifling – an aftereffect of the soundproofing that kept all noise from coming in or out. The only illumination was from a flickering lightbulb hanging from a wire from the ceiling, swaying gently from the multiple times Dean had moved it about to get better light at specific angles of his work.
“I mean, if SHE were the one doing this,” he continued, “I tell you. Man. You’d be in much more pain than you are right now. I know you probably don’t believe me, there, but… seriously, she’s much less sensitive about the bits that are… well… sensitive.”
He sat in a chair and looked at the table. “You know I’m being honest with you, right? You understand that? I know I’m probably not your favorite person in the world right now, given everything. I know that I haven’t exactly been the gentlest with your procedure. I mean, it’s not really my fault, you know? I’m trying to do what’s best for you. The others… see, that’s the thing about the way the Lady indoctrinates people. The more she has to reach in to inspire loyalty, the less capable they become. I know there’s a couple of EMTs out there who might have been much better at this in their old lives than I am, but now? Now they’d just… stare at you, all confused. I’m capable of much more… initiative, these days. Which is good for you, because I was able to get all of these textbooks on how to do this thing. I’m sure I’m making a few mistakes, but I’m learning. If you’re as tough as she thinks you are I’m sure you’ll pull through.”
He stood and began pacing around the room again as he spoke. “But back to what I was saying before. Honesty. She’s actually pretty big on honesty, you know? Why lie when the truth hurts so much more? I’m not lying to you when I say you’d be better off giving in. She likes you, you know? Thinks you could be more like me than anyone out there. Useful. More than just a thrall offering supplication. That’s why she’s given this job to ME, so that your… little psyche… stays intact. I mean, as intact as it can be. You’re not exactly the most uncracked nut in the bag, if you know what I mean, right? I wouldn’t say your shattered but… But seriously. You’d be so much happier than you ever were in your old life. Trust me on this, I know from firsthand experience.”
He dragged the scalpel gently across the exposed bones, resulting in a soft, agonized moan. “Shhhhh shh shh. It’s alright. The pain is good. The pain heals. I’d give you painkillers or knock you out if it would help… but the pain is the most important step. Pain is what burns the uncertainty away. You have to suffer… really suffer… to understand. I think that’s one of the reasons that I’m the way I am… the reason that I was willing to give myself to her wholly without her having to really reach in and twist the wires around. That’s what makes me special, unlike any of the others in her service right now… I understood pain and darkness well before I met her. Was fascinated by both. Saw the importance. It meant that I could be truly useful to her… and she thinks that you could be the same way.”
He knelt down at the head of the table, pushing the long black hair aside as he looked into the face of the woman lying face down on the operating table. “I think you could be too. I think you could be like me if you let yourself. Then we’d be almost equals, you and I. I’d like that. It would almost be like having a friend. I miss that.”
He smiled into her face. “You’d like to be my friend, wouldn’t you, Maxine?”
Maxine Valentine glared back at him, unable to speak through the jaw-locking gag, eyes full of loathing and defiance. Dean sighed and patted her on the cheek.
“Guess not yet. Ah well. We’ll work on it. Goodness knows we have a lot of time yet to spend with one another.”
He smiled, stood, and returned to his surgical efforts on Maxine’s broken spine, whistling a happy tune as he worked.
“Do you think I’m afraid of a man like Dante Saffron? A man so lost that he snaps at the idea that God isn’t ‘benevolent’ enough? A petulant child howling at the sky because daddy didn’t give him enough cuddles and mommy didn’t want him born. To a man like that, all I have to say is this: Grow Up. If you need the love of a God, a Father, a Mother to find peace in this world, then you’re too weak to stand in an IWF ring. I keep hearing about how people are afraid of you, Dante, how you’re The Heretic, The Avenging Angel, a Fallen Foe to be feared… but I have news for you, big man. I’ve looked into the face of fear. I know fear, I know darkness, and honey? You ain’t got her smile. There are things in this world far more worth fearing than an absentee heavenly father… and she’ll be standing in my corner come Sacrifice, watching me slap down your little tantrum.”
“Neither does a man like Warren Kane give me pause… if Warren Kane even proves to be the man I face in the ring. Who knows with him anymore, with everything that’s happened to that boy’s mind over the years. Brainwashed by Judas Alliah and his cult, influenced by his madman of a father, tortured to madness and darkness by Eternity… is Warren Kane even in there anymore? Or is there just a shell, filled with warring specters of brainwashing and Stockholm syndrome? I’m surprised that someone so fragmented can even walk in a straight line with all of the conflicting influences on his psyche. I pity Warren Kane. Maybe after this match I can help him find purpose… strip away all of the bullshit from his past and help him walk into a new truth under a new Lady. History shows he’d be easy enough to capture and reshape… what a pitiable creature. It’ll be like wrestling a mound of clay.”
“But after thinking about people as sad and pathetic as Warren Kane and Dante Saffron, at least there’s the walking joke James Gilmore to cheer me up after. Everything’s bigger in Texas, isn’t it Happy Jim? The state is bigger. The steaks are bigger. The egos are bigger. The failures are bigger. The disgraces are bigger. Apparently, the only things that aren’t bigger in Texas are the talent and the courage. Once again, I wonder if I’m actually going to be fighting the real James Gilmore in the ring come Sacrifice, or if he’ll just send Grawn in to fight his battles for him like he usually does these days. Even if he does fight his own battles, he’ll probably just be too busy grasping at straws to actually fight anybody as he desperately tries to find some stupid new trick to try to make people think he's not just a waste of air. But let’s say he actually does remember that he’s supposed to be a wrestler on Monday Night - he won’t be able to see the right way to fight me, because he can’t see the right of anything with that eye of his… and his back issues…” Dean whistles and shakes his head. “You saw what my Lady can do to a spine last week. She’s taught me a few tricks. But it’s okay if I leave you a paraplegic, right? We’ve had a president leading the country from a wheelchair before, so I’m sure you can do the same if you become Mayor of that shitty little backwater you’re running in. Maybe you’ll get some pity votes? Might even help the campaign, what do you think?”
“Gentlemen… this is the beginning of a new era. An era where my Lady is reshaping the Entire IWF in her image to her will. I am but a humble emissary from her to you, and I come bearing a simple message: ‘join, or fall.’ Now, I know most of you are going to resist, and that’s okay. If none of you stood against us, then there’d be nothing for me to fight and boy…” he chuckles and shakes his head, “I really want to get my fight on. Those of you who submit and embrace the Abyss will be able to enjoy a wonderful new world that we’re creating. Those who fight… well, that’s gonna be a very bloody battle. But you know what?”
He grins into the camera. “That kinda works for me.”
There are trees all around the house. When he was young he was told the trees protected them. Kept things safe. There were wind chimes and random knickknacks tied to the branches of the trees. Some of them old, some of them new since the last time he’d stepped into this yard. He had wondered on the trip here if he would feel some sort of urge to not enter, like the trees would keep him away. But it didn’t. His Lady entered without bother. She stood in the grass looking.
Seeing the trailer he had grown up in. Seeing the propane tank painted purple he had spent a whole weekend on when he was in first grade. The stairs to the door warn with a broom handle for a railing. It was odd to see her, his new life standing in the area of his old life. Inside he was sure it would still smell of paperback books and stale cigarettes. He was certain the place would be just had it was when he left.
“She is not home.” Dean said in the silence of the woods.
“Are you ready to prove you are deserving of becoming? Cast aside anything that might tie you to your life before?”
“Yes. It means nothing to me.”
“Then go inside.”
Camera comes up on a parking lot, where Dean Harper is smoking as he sits leaning against a brick building as the sun sets behind him. He smiles into the camera in a way that doesn’t quite reach his eyes as he flicks the cigarette away.
“Hello, IWF. It’s been so long since we’ve spoken directly. For those of you who’ve forgotten, allow me to reintroduce myself…”
He stands and smiles earnestly into the camera. “I’m Dean Harper. Some of you probably saw me last week in my guest starring role as an ambulance driver. Before that you’ve seen me in a few videos released by my Lady, and before that in a few interviews with some of the other talent in the IWF. Usually the diamonds.”
Dean laughs in barely restrained sort of way, “I was pathetic back then. I believed that while they were weaker, that if they didn’t want to talk to me they would be too polite to really decline. Like the girls on the bus who wore headphones but would pull them off when you asked them a question. Who would weakly smile and let you push yourself into their day. I was barely better than a joke.”
“Luckily my fortunes have turned. I’ve found a new walk of life to follow – something so much more rewarding than I ever could have imagined. Have any of you ever devoted yourself to a cause, truly and wholly?”
His tone changes to a soft reverence. “I’m not talking about people who might have… you know, passed out lawn signs for a political campaign, or signed a petition online. I’m talking about real, tangible devotion, devotion that consumes every part of your spirit and hijacks your entire being. Something that just connects with you and anchors you to really mattering. Something you believe in so absolutely that your life before finding that cause seems… dim, pointless, and sad in comparison. Have any of you ever felt that? I hope that you do if you haven’t felt that already. It can and will change your life for the better, I promise you.”
“Look at me. A few months ago a small, weak-willed peon in an industry that wouldn’t ever really care about my name, and now? Now I’m a new man, strong of body and mind, about to make my debut In-Ring in the Imperial Wrestling Federation. It’s almost like a dream come true.”
The smile abruptly vanishes. “Well, nightmare for everyone who stands in my way.”
Dean’s expression and posture take a suddenly much darker note as he continues walking towards the camera. “Because that’s the thing about devotion. Devotion isn’t just about dedicating yourself to a cause – it’s about sharing that cause with the world with whatever means are necessary to spread it. Devotion to a cause is the reason that all of history’s greatest atrocities have occurred, did you know that?”
“Really think about it. The thing that gave birth to all of the suffering, death, ruin and destruction that humanity has inflicted upon itself since apes first learned how to smash one another’s skulls in with rocks and sticks? Every war, every genocide, every long, screaming torture and every crime against humanity has happened because someone was devoted to an idea. The earth shakes and the angels weep when a devoted man goes to war.”
He spreads his arms wide, grinning wickedly. “And I am very much a devoted man… and thanks to the IWF, I have my battlefield. The only thing left to make it a war is enemies to stand against… and finally, Monday Night Sacrifice has given me not one – but three.”
“You really should be thanking me, you know.”
Dean paced around the small, dimly-lit room with a scalpel in his hand. The room was oddly stifling – an aftereffect of the soundproofing that kept all noise from coming in or out. The only illumination was from a flickering lightbulb hanging from a wire from the ceiling, swaying gently from the multiple times Dean had moved it about to get better light at specific angles of his work.
“I mean, if SHE were the one doing this,” he continued, “I tell you. Man. You’d be in much more pain than you are right now. I know you probably don’t believe me, there, but… seriously, she’s much less sensitive about the bits that are… well… sensitive.”
He sat in a chair and looked at the table. “You know I’m being honest with you, right? You understand that? I know I’m probably not your favorite person in the world right now, given everything. I know that I haven’t exactly been the gentlest with your procedure. I mean, it’s not really my fault, you know? I’m trying to do what’s best for you. The others… see, that’s the thing about the way the Lady indoctrinates people. The more she has to reach in to inspire loyalty, the less capable they become. I know there’s a couple of EMTs out there who might have been much better at this in their old lives than I am, but now? Now they’d just… stare at you, all confused. I’m capable of much more… initiative, these days. Which is good for you, because I was able to get all of these textbooks on how to do this thing. I’m sure I’m making a few mistakes, but I’m learning. If you’re as tough as she thinks you are I’m sure you’ll pull through.”
He stood and began pacing around the room again as he spoke. “But back to what I was saying before. Honesty. She’s actually pretty big on honesty, you know? Why lie when the truth hurts so much more? I’m not lying to you when I say you’d be better off giving in. She likes you, you know? Thinks you could be more like me than anyone out there. Useful. More than just a thrall offering supplication. That’s why she’s given this job to ME, so that your… little psyche… stays intact. I mean, as intact as it can be. You’re not exactly the most uncracked nut in the bag, if you know what I mean, right? I wouldn’t say your shattered but… But seriously. You’d be so much happier than you ever were in your old life. Trust me on this, I know from firsthand experience.”
He dragged the scalpel gently across the exposed bones, resulting in a soft, agonized moan. “Shhhhh shh shh. It’s alright. The pain is good. The pain heals. I’d give you painkillers or knock you out if it would help… but the pain is the most important step. Pain is what burns the uncertainty away. You have to suffer… really suffer… to understand. I think that’s one of the reasons that I’m the way I am… the reason that I was willing to give myself to her wholly without her having to really reach in and twist the wires around. That’s what makes me special, unlike any of the others in her service right now… I understood pain and darkness well before I met her. Was fascinated by both. Saw the importance. It meant that I could be truly useful to her… and she thinks that you could be the same way.”
He knelt down at the head of the table, pushing the long black hair aside as he looked into the face of the woman lying face down on the operating table. “I think you could be too. I think you could be like me if you let yourself. Then we’d be almost equals, you and I. I’d like that. It would almost be like having a friend. I miss that.”
He smiled into her face. “You’d like to be my friend, wouldn’t you, Maxine?”
Maxine Valentine glared back at him, unable to speak through the jaw-locking gag, eyes full of loathing and defiance. Dean sighed and patted her on the cheek.
“Guess not yet. Ah well. We’ll work on it. Goodness knows we have a lot of time yet to spend with one another.”
He smiled, stood, and returned to his surgical efforts on Maxine’s broken spine, whistling a happy tune as he worked.
“Do you think I’m afraid of a man like Dante Saffron? A man so lost that he snaps at the idea that God isn’t ‘benevolent’ enough? A petulant child howling at the sky because daddy didn’t give him enough cuddles and mommy didn’t want him born. To a man like that, all I have to say is this: Grow Up. If you need the love of a God, a Father, a Mother to find peace in this world, then you’re too weak to stand in an IWF ring. I keep hearing about how people are afraid of you, Dante, how you’re The Heretic, The Avenging Angel, a Fallen Foe to be feared… but I have news for you, big man. I’ve looked into the face of fear. I know fear, I know darkness, and honey? You ain’t got her smile. There are things in this world far more worth fearing than an absentee heavenly father… and she’ll be standing in my corner come Sacrifice, watching me slap down your little tantrum.”
“Neither does a man like Warren Kane give me pause… if Warren Kane even proves to be the man I face in the ring. Who knows with him anymore, with everything that’s happened to that boy’s mind over the years. Brainwashed by Judas Alliah and his cult, influenced by his madman of a father, tortured to madness and darkness by Eternity… is Warren Kane even in there anymore? Or is there just a shell, filled with warring specters of brainwashing and Stockholm syndrome? I’m surprised that someone so fragmented can even walk in a straight line with all of the conflicting influences on his psyche. I pity Warren Kane. Maybe after this match I can help him find purpose… strip away all of the bullshit from his past and help him walk into a new truth under a new Lady. History shows he’d be easy enough to capture and reshape… what a pitiable creature. It’ll be like wrestling a mound of clay.”
“But after thinking about people as sad and pathetic as Warren Kane and Dante Saffron, at least there’s the walking joke James Gilmore to cheer me up after. Everything’s bigger in Texas, isn’t it Happy Jim? The state is bigger. The steaks are bigger. The egos are bigger. The failures are bigger. The disgraces are bigger. Apparently, the only things that aren’t bigger in Texas are the talent and the courage. Once again, I wonder if I’m actually going to be fighting the real James Gilmore in the ring come Sacrifice, or if he’ll just send Grawn in to fight his battles for him like he usually does these days. Even if he does fight his own battles, he’ll probably just be too busy grasping at straws to actually fight anybody as he desperately tries to find some stupid new trick to try to make people think he's not just a waste of air. But let’s say he actually does remember that he’s supposed to be a wrestler on Monday Night - he won’t be able to see the right way to fight me, because he can’t see the right of anything with that eye of his… and his back issues…” Dean whistles and shakes his head. “You saw what my Lady can do to a spine last week. She’s taught me a few tricks. But it’s okay if I leave you a paraplegic, right? We’ve had a president leading the country from a wheelchair before, so I’m sure you can do the same if you become Mayor of that shitty little backwater you’re running in. Maybe you’ll get some pity votes? Might even help the campaign, what do you think?”
“Gentlemen… this is the beginning of a new era. An era where my Lady is reshaping the Entire IWF in her image to her will. I am but a humble emissary from her to you, and I come bearing a simple message: ‘join, or fall.’ Now, I know most of you are going to resist, and that’s okay. If none of you stood against us, then there’d be nothing for me to fight and boy…” he chuckles and shakes his head, “I really want to get my fight on. Those of you who submit and embrace the Abyss will be able to enjoy a wonderful new world that we’re creating. Those who fight… well, that’s gonna be a very bloody battle. But you know what?”
He grins into the camera. “That kinda works for me.”
Well howdy there pardner.