Post by Eternity on Aug 22, 2021 16:55:11 GMT
She opens her eyes, a most safe distance from the sirens and the maddening crowd now, watching smoke and flame billow up from somewhere inside the purgatory that they had all called her home for four years too long. Fire had taken one life from her already. There was a certain beautiful poetry that fire should rise again to claim another.
Her life was nothing if not a perfectly imperfect circle.
There was no beginning. There was no end. Death was transitory. The greatest transition she had made or would ever make. It existed only to give her life meaning, purpose, significance. Without it to structure her life, define her being, claim her soul, she was and forever would be nothing.
She understood that now.
She embraced the greatest lesson her own death would ever teach her.
Though she thought she’d lost everything in there, nothing of any real value was ever lost at St Michael’s. It was a lesson the world needed so desperately to learn, and in time, the world would learn all it needed from her death.
“Ashes to ashes, may we be counted among them, my love,” she said.
"Told you I'd get you out, didn't I?" said the raven haired young man by her side.
"What now?" she asked.
"Now we live, now we love, now we grow," he answered.
He reached out for her hand, and pulled her in close, taking her breath away in that one timeless moment.
"Together?" she whispered, holding his gaze as the unseasonably warm late afternoon wind lashed her blonde locks across her cheek.
He softly tucked her unruly hair behind her ear as he caressed her cheek.
"Together," he answered, smiling, leaning in close to her.
She closed her eyes and kissed him first, unapologetic in her passion. She had waited far too long to do it already. She would not wait any more. It was even sweeter than she'd always imagined. Slowly she pulled away, the smile never leaving her face.
~~~~~~
For reasons unknown to any of you, you are drawn on this late August afternoon to take your life and live it outside every comfort you have ever truly known or will ever come to know again.
It has been a long journey. A journey you began, a trial you blazed over thirteen years ago now. A lot has changed over all the years that have inevitably passed since I last saw you then. You were a different person, almost entirely in fact.
I saw you then. I see you now. I have always seen you, my love.
I was always here. I was always there. I was always everywhere and nowhere.
I was always dead. I was always alive. Sometimes, many times in fact, I may well have been both at the same time, and you never knew, never saw, never felt anything for me. About me.
Oh what does it matter now anyway?
It doesn’t, perhaps it never did. Perhaps it’s true what they say.
Nothing ever really matters in the end, does it?
Lives, even secret ones such as yours are much too short for regret, and even as we stand here today, reunited beyond every dream and nightmare, you find me under the most familiar banner of a long forgotten life. A life few left watching remember as well or as fondly as we do, my love. A bloody Diamond absolute.
Something we thought would truly, last forever. Truly stand the test of time.
It was in the name, well your new name at least. A reflection of everything most precious forged under ever increasing pressure, hardened against the world. Forced to shine. Forced out of the shadows. Resurrected as a memory one more time.
One last time.
What once was New is once again Renewed. Brought briefly back to life before our very eyes, larger than all our lives combined and there have been many, oh so many my love. Many more than I could recount here today, for our time in this most sacred place is brief. Most brief. Much too brief to matter to anybody else.
On the wall behind me, the banner of the long dead adorned the crypt in which we stood. There it was once again, above me, the logo that set a new standard in all of professional wrestling for a half dozen years, every bit as iconic in its premature death as it had been in its life.
Akin to one real women’s wrestling pioneer formerly known as Shelly Taylor, then known as Shelly Taylor-Blake, and finally known as Shelly Taylor-Jones.
A ring bell tolls slowly, solemnly. Struck first by one of my four crimson hooded Angels here, and repeated by the other three in quick precession. The echoes of Eternity celebrating the life and rebirth of the nearly, dearly departed. Sister, wife, wife, sister.
Each of them, ride or die. Reflections of us.
What goes around comes back around. An imperfectly perfect circle, such is the beauty of our mutual new life together and it is upon this we reflect with each sombre reverberation which christens the new name, faintly recalled and ringing like forty harmonious wedding bells. Echoing in the dim light of the burning tapers all around us. Much dimmer than we remember.
Still they were the only source of light here. Small, burning candles, precious like love itself.
I hoped they wouldn’t be so easily extinguished…this time.
I stand not among the shadows, but as the greatest shadow of them all in this chamber. A sombre reflection of the life that could have been, should have been. A life thought lost so long ago. A life we never expected to know again, and maybe we still won’t. Time will tell. It always does.
You see me, right angel wing dipped in blood, at the head of a perfect mahogany casket in my mother’s beautiful wedding dress. The colours of Ireland draped over it, a white, orange and green flag lain to signify emotional surrender. The Women’s World Championship was still wrapped around my waist, but my wrists were taped together in a cross symbol held above my head. Eyes closed and head bowed in everlasting reflection of why she had bothered to return at all. She was still hurt, deeply.
The veil was lifted, my face was painted. The heart under one eye housed another arrow. The other eye wept a bloody teardrop.
Both sides of my neck were also taped as if to keep my head when all around her, everyone else was losing theirs over Goddesses and Demons, I’d been wounded by them all in time, yet I remained in spite of myself.
Injured forever.
Some wounds never heal.
She could take no more of this, she had to do something. She had to fight back.
She couldn’t just let sleeping dogs lie, so she lied to herself and to everyone else. Tarnishing so much more than her own legacy, and her most precious memories, but whatever. We were never here to judge, were we my love?
Poor Shelly Taylor-Taylor-Blake-Taylor-Jones-Diamond.
How people wasted each and every one of their lives was of little consequence, we were just here for each and every funeral, and we always would be. That was always the universal guarantee.
On the tenth strike and fourth echo, I raised my head, opened my eyes and saw him in front of me dressed for a wedding, in the distant right corner of the crypt, no older than the last time I had seen him. I touched my lips with my fingers, savouring the memory of the kiss he had left on my lips all those years ago. His smile was soft, beautiful, unforgettable even now, even as he spoke like a blessed husband could have been.
Jack…
His name left my lips a whisper. I tried to shut him out. Eyes tight, deep breath, just like Dr Worthy always said. Tears bubble behind sealed caskets, seeping like rivers of blood down the mask I wore.
I count to ten slowly under my breath.
Usually that was enough to drive his ghost away. But not this time.
This time, he was not only left behind, he was joined by older ghosts. Ghosts only I knew existed. A sweeter mother on my right. A loving father on my left, and little old me in the middle. Caught between Heaven and Hell, always one step away from either here on Earth.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
A mournful wail echoes off the walls of this usually peaceful burial chamber. The flames of the burning tapers flirt with the idea of finally going out. But they hold firm in their choreographed dance all around us, only flickering momentarily to my sorrowful howl.
A high pitched squeal that tore the veil that separated the three worlds and the four elements from one another and disturbed the dead from their eternal slumber. Joined by their disturbed souls, two minutes later everything falls back to an eerie, deathly silence.
Another two minutes pass before I’m able to speak again, whisper softly.
What do you want from me?
Daddy: We never wanted this for you, Angel…
Mommy: You deserve so much more than you know, Sweetheart…
Jack: You should be better than this, Baby…
I know. I’m trying. It’s just so hard. I’m trying to be better, I’m trying to be the best. But I’m afraid. I’m afraid that nothing I do will ever be enough. Never good enough. I don’t want to let anybody down. I don’t want your names to be forgotten. If they forget you, they forget me. And if I’m forgotten…
Well, then, I may as well be dead and buried, right here and now
Just like she’s supposed to be. Just like you’re supposed to be, Shelly. Just like they all wish I were, we were. But why? What have I done to deserve a life trapped in purgatory. Judged, hounded, mocked. What unpardonable sin have I committed to be kept here?
Condemned to this miserable little long life?
Why, oh why God have you forsaken me?
How many more of these trials of the flesh must I endure before I am permitted to come home again? What more must I put my body through to earn your divine love and mercy, Lord? My just reward, where is it?
A sharp snap of my neck to the left.
My place at your side, where is it Father?
He looked disappointed in me. A softer, slower turn to my right.
Mother?
She just looked sad.
Dead ahead, Jack smiles at me.
Jack?
Do you know? Do you know, Shelly? Do you?
You sure talk like you do. You talk as if you’ve always known. Everything. But what do you really know? Nothing. Not a Goddamned thing about him. About us. About her. About our history. All about our love. About all our lifetimes spent together. Two of a kind.
It’s heartbreaking, it really is.
You were here before all of them, Shelly. If there was anybody else left in this world who I thought would understand the burden of constantly setting and resetting the bar, I thought it would be you. Thirteen years ago you were an experiment for them, a scapegoat as they tested the viability of opening the world of wrestling to the likes of us.
The newest, oldest of New Championship Wrestling.
Best of both worlds, but not yet mine for there are still eight above her and there always will be. Some deaths are not so easily avoided, after all.
A brand new lifetime special. One in which we could have been sisters, Shelly Taylor. Pioneers. Friends. Equals. Whatever. The World was yours back then, if only you could have appreciated it. But you don’t appreciate anything beyond your own insignificant, limited life do you, Shelly?
He gave you back your life, bestowed upon you chance after chance. Gifted you a resurrection, spared your soul, and what do you decide to do with the present he gave you, for her, for your daughter?
Go home, kiss and cuddle her? Respect her as an irreplaceable part of your legacy? Cherish her as your own flesh and blood? Raise her to appreciate all the little things in life that you never did on your first go around?
A firm shake of the head, soft tutting. Arms still crossed above.
Nobody was coming to check on me, yet.
No, of course not. That would be the sensible, mature, adult thing to do.
Small virtues, each perpetually beyond your grasp, as they have always been in your family, haven’t they Shelly?
Congratulations on finally embracing who you are, Shell. A Diamond through and through. Painfully transparent, beautiful but dreadfully cliche and thoroughly unoriginal, a family trait, dyed in the wool as I understand. First black, then yellow, then black again. Husband after husband, broken commitment after broken commitment. Spitting in the face of Holy Matrimony then, just as surely as you spit in mine now.
For that, I cannot, I must not let our Legacy be squandered.
I cannot allow you to reset the circle a fifth time. What happened the first time must not, cannot happen a fifth. Not yet, that we have learned. That we must learn from our past mistakes, but I know you never will, Shell.
Even for as long as you’ve been alive, for as much as you have evaded Death, you do not understand it. You do not love. You do not cherish. Your baby or mine. Her or me.
We do not see value in the pontification of a hollow and broken Shell. A fragment. A shard of the past, a far cry from who she used to be. Somebody worthy of her life and her station, somebody appreciative of not only her own stature but the stardom of those around her.
Don’t you dare lecture us about love, commitment and staying true to a cause.
You know not of these things. Have done none of those things and I know why, even if you won’t see Shell, you will hear. Placed next to your ear, listen for the waves for they are coming to drown you, Shell. Thick and fast, they will extinguish your flame, put out your fire.
As only I can.
For you are no longer the trailblazer. For you are no longer the leader. For you are no longer unique, in this life or even your own. That is the real tragedy of you Shell. It is obvious whatever filled you, fulfilled you, fills you no longer, and so here you are.
What’s left of you anyway?
Not much by every account. Everything that made you special, everything that made you unique has been eroded by time. Replaced by better. Stronger. Truly committed. We all have a part to play in this world, Shell and since you left the show a damned long time ago. Longer now than it seems, any and all parts you could play. Everything you were once good for has been recast. You have no place left in this world. No part left to play on my stage.
You will not be my curtain call.
You will not be my way home.
A relic will not define the end of my legacy. Just because you could not respect your career enough to leave the memories alone doesn’t mean you deserve to erase mine.
We will not take counsel from somebody who speaks as if she knows the joys of love and commitment yet honours none of what she has been blessed with. Choosing instead to waste her precious remaining days lingering in the shadows of her betters. Scrambling for purpose and finding none.
You poor, poor thing.
Don’t you know we’ve lived your life, heard your tale told so much better already.
Ex wife and bonafide former pioneer woman with an axe to grind? Tara already beat you to it.
Somebody seeking to capture enough gold to be granted an audience with the Demon she yearns to conquer and prove a point not only to herself but to the entire Imperial Wrestling Federation? Cals already did it better.
Devout mother just looking to see if she can still make it in our world? Samira.
Staying dead? Maxine.
Do you see yet Shell, how much of a disappointment you are to us all, girl? Does it depress you? If not yet, believe me it will soon, because we know how this story ends. Hell, I’ve even contributed a few original chapters myself on occasion. Everything you try to do, everything you try to commit to has been done better.
You have nothing new to offer us, and that is most disappointing.
In another life, at another time, we could have entertained my Children, put on a real showcase, instead of the New Premier Starlet looking to test herself against the very best, I am forced and bound by the red tape of sombre duty not to face a strong independent woman, but a woman whose decided that justifying the value of a man to another woman is so much more important than doing the right thing and raise her child without him.
I will not be a statistic or an afterthought. I am every check and balance in this world, worth five times more than gold. My Legacy will not yet turn to ash, I will not yet be condemned to dust. My World needs me, and I need My World.
After Sunday, we will celebrate another old life as it passes.
Like every pleasant memory before it outstayed its welcome.
You mustn’t be allowed to linger and we mustn’t be allowed to dwell.
To allow such things too soon is to break.
I must not break.
Not yet.
Not whilst Abby still needs me.
And she will always need me.
Won’t she, Jack?
Until Death do us part, I must do mine to keep us alive.
I know…