Post by Harlow Kinsley on Nov 18, 2020 0:41:21 GMT -5
"I haven't cut a promo in... three years?"
The flicker of an ancient screen.
The telltale stuttering of a VHS recording.
An old camera.
An old storage locker
drenched in cobwebs,
choked with dried blood,
half-empty with tattered, ratty nurse costumes.
Lips that have never before been seen on television wrap around a cigarette, taking the longest drag the weary redhead can muster.
The smoke punctuates each syllable. "Or entered a ring," she adds. "Or so much as strapped up the ol' boots. It's been three years since I had any incentive to destroy a human being, three years since I bled for the amusement of maybe a couple thousand people, three years since I had a nervous breakdown and disappeared from what I still sarcastically call a sport.
It's been three years.
Three... three god damn years, I think."
Another deep, ferocious drag of that limp cigarette.
"Three weeks ago I was told to stop.
Told... told I should never enter a ring again. Had two kinds of doctors and one priest tell me that. Mentally, physically, spiritually... shouldn't be here. Should not, frankly, be wrestling. Maybe never SHOULD have wrestled, but here I am. Yeehaw, assholes--turns out it takes more than a panel of industry professionals and decades of absolute self-destructive failure to keep me out of the game. Yeah! Whoo. Suck it, people that know what they're talking about."
Loud sniff.
Short drag.
Long sigh.
Without a mask she seems far less interested in staring at the camera.
She paces.
"I don't accept it," she continues. "I don't accept that this was never me. I don't accept that this could never be me. I don't accept that wrestling isn't what I'm here to do, because during three years of every kind of rehab imaginable I came to a realization--"
She pauses.
"--I realized that... this? This is the thing I'm best at doing. I was a poor student, a shitty nurse and a garbage human being but I was... I was decent at wrestling. I was pretty god damn GOOD at wrestling, as a matter of fact. I may not have a Google doc full of accolades--JBC, you old bastard--but what I have is quality. I've never held a world championship belt, but I've beaten more world champions than most companies have wrestlers. I've never been a hall of famer, but I've cleaned through hall of fames at speeds that make promoters SHIT THEY DRAWLS. I have ALWAYS, always been the last person anybody wants on their wrestling poster, but I have always, ALWAYS been the first person that should be there, front and center."
The former nurse practically inhales the rest of her cigarette before thumping it against the nearest wall.
"I wasn't appreciated, and if we're being honest
that's fair.
I didn't appreciate myself.
I didn't know what I was capable of, I didn't know what potential I really had until I was staring it all down in the rearview mirror. I didn't know who I was until I woke up one day and realized--
this is it.
This is the thing I'm best at.
It doesn't go up from here. There is no career to take, no role I can fill that will EVER see me reaching the heights I did in this one, there is NO other world in which I can be satisfied in even the most outrageous of accomplishments--
No."
She runs thin fingers through her scarlet locks.
She swallows dryly,
and finally forces herself to lock eyes with the viewer.
"If I'm anywhere else, doing anything else, then I'm wasting what little of me remains. This is what I built my life toward, what I was born for... and if I'm not in that ring, if I'm not doing this week in, week out until it FUCKING KILLS ME--
then I might as well be dead already.
Anything less... and I'm just taking up space."
The flicker of an ancient screen.
The telltale stuttering of a VHS recording.
An old camera.
An old storage locker
drenched in cobwebs,
choked with dried blood,
half-empty with tattered, ratty nurse costumes.
Lips that have never before been seen on television wrap around a cigarette, taking the longest drag the weary redhead can muster.
The smoke punctuates each syllable. "Or entered a ring," she adds. "Or so much as strapped up the ol' boots. It's been three years since I had any incentive to destroy a human being, three years since I bled for the amusement of maybe a couple thousand people, three years since I had a nervous breakdown and disappeared from what I still sarcastically call a sport.
It's been three years.
Three... three god damn years, I think."
Another deep, ferocious drag of that limp cigarette.
"Three weeks ago I was told to stop.
Told... told I should never enter a ring again. Had two kinds of doctors and one priest tell me that. Mentally, physically, spiritually... shouldn't be here. Should not, frankly, be wrestling. Maybe never SHOULD have wrestled, but here I am. Yeehaw, assholes--turns out it takes more than a panel of industry professionals and decades of absolute self-destructive failure to keep me out of the game. Yeah! Whoo. Suck it, people that know what they're talking about."
Loud sniff.
Short drag.
Long sigh.
Without a mask she seems far less interested in staring at the camera.
She paces.
"I don't accept it," she continues. "I don't accept that this was never me. I don't accept that this could never be me. I don't accept that wrestling isn't what I'm here to do, because during three years of every kind of rehab imaginable I came to a realization--"
She pauses.
"--I realized that... this? This is the thing I'm best at doing. I was a poor student, a shitty nurse and a garbage human being but I was... I was decent at wrestling. I was pretty god damn GOOD at wrestling, as a matter of fact. I may not have a Google doc full of accolades--JBC, you old bastard--but what I have is quality. I've never held a world championship belt, but I've beaten more world champions than most companies have wrestlers. I've never been a hall of famer, but I've cleaned through hall of fames at speeds that make promoters SHIT THEY DRAWLS. I have ALWAYS, always been the last person anybody wants on their wrestling poster, but I have always, ALWAYS been the first person that should be there, front and center."
The former nurse practically inhales the rest of her cigarette before thumping it against the nearest wall.
"I wasn't appreciated, and if we're being honest
that's fair.
I didn't appreciate myself.
I didn't know what I was capable of, I didn't know what potential I really had until I was staring it all down in the rearview mirror. I didn't know who I was until I woke up one day and realized--
this is it.
This is the thing I'm best at.
It doesn't go up from here. There is no career to take, no role I can fill that will EVER see me reaching the heights I did in this one, there is NO other world in which I can be satisfied in even the most outrageous of accomplishments--
No."
She runs thin fingers through her scarlet locks.
She swallows dryly,
and finally forces herself to lock eyes with the viewer.
"If I'm anywhere else, doing anything else, then I'm wasting what little of me remains. This is what I built my life toward, what I was born for... and if I'm not in that ring, if I'm not doing this week in, week out until it FUCKING KILLS ME--
then I might as well be dead already.
Anything less... and I'm just taking up space."