7/18/2014- 2:30 PM, 5505 Blue Lagoon Drive, Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States
The only sound in the room.

The shuffling of papers on one side of the desk.

And the quiet anticipation and hope of financial agreement on the other.

The papers stop shuffling.

”Well, Mark. I’m very excited to have this meeting with you. These data points do not lie.”

“When you name drop a product in an X-Treme title defense, sales rise…”

“Stock increases…”

“Investments solidify…”

An ache in his spine… A twinge in his leg… The end of a lengthy week in sight…

Thank God It’s Friday, thinks Mark Flynn, sitting in an office chair. Scratching at the elbow of an uncomfortable suit. Unlike his traditional business attire, his clothes are not failing apart. Instead of mortician black, the suit is Wall Street gray, with plaid patchwork.

It looks like every second in this suit is slowly killing him.

He fights through the pain.

Most XWF superstars left Miami on a plane after Warfare.

One decided to stay.

”I’m glad we see it the same way, Mr. Schwartz. If you’d like to flip to the next page in the packet, we can discuss rates for kick-out length and how much you want the message to focus on your food instead of on the opponent I’m mocking.”

The page Mr. Schwartz is on stays the same.

[white]”However,” Continues Schwartz, seemingly having not heard Flynn’s offering of instruction. ”I think we’d prefer something slightly different in terms of… advertising opportunity…”

Flynn’s right… twitches…

”Are you saying you’re not interested in the service I’m providing?”

”Oh… No no no… On the contrary, Mr. Flynn.”

“I want you to be the face of our newest advertising campaign more than anything…”

“Except… I don’t want a 30 second spot on XWF programming…”

The hand gently places the packet on the table… And replaces it with a cigar…

”I was thinking something a little more…”

The shining ivory teeth in his mouth gleam as he smiles, loading the cigar into his mouth.

”Viral…”
***
Near 299 SW 8th St, Miami, FL

The red light on a flip phone fuzzily fades on.

“This thing is as old as the sphin- Oh… OH it’s rolling! Erm… ACTION!”

Flynn is standing at the top of a hill, staring down at something we cannot see. Focused. Furious.

Drunk. Stumbling, stammering drunk…

“Hi! I’m Mark Flynn with Burger King.”

Flynn wipes his mouth dry.

“Burger King offers delicious onion rings with zesty sauce, the mind-blowingly flavorful Triple Whopper, and for a limited time only the new Proud Whopper! Get it before it sobers up, crawls back into the closet and shows up next family reunion with a girl trying to play off what it told you as a big prank.”

“Now, Burger King is a growing franchise and has been since its humble beginnings as Insta-Burger King in Jacksonville, Florida and according to QSR magazine is #5 Fast-Food Restaurant Brand worldwide…”

“…”

“Of course, McDonalds is #1 on the list of Top Fast-Food Restaurant Brands… and has been… FOR FAR TOO LONG!!!!!!”

“And we here at Burger King HAVE FUCKING HAD ENOUGH OF THE TYRANT EMPEROR OF FAST FOOD LORDING OVER THE REST OF US!!!!!”

“TONIGHT!!! BY THE LIGHT OF THE FULL MOON! WE WI-“

“Actually, that’s called a Last Quarter moon. It’s half-full and from here will become a new moon in a we-“

“Hey, Jerry. Doing a thing here. Just let me do this and we can edit it factually accurate later.”

“Ahem.”

“BY THE LIGHT OF THE LAST QUARTER MOON! WE RISE UP AND DECLARE WAR ON MCDONALDS!!!!!!!”

“SPECIFICALLY THE MCDONALDS NEAREST THE BURGER KING HEADQUARTERS LOCATED IN SCENIC MIAMI FLORIDA!!!!”

Flynn leans down…. And heaves himself back up, holding something apparently very heavy.

He lifts the object with a curl of his arm…

And suddenly the image is clear. A lance. A full-length Medieval era lance in his arm… Over 12 feet in length… Struggling to hold it up…

“And of course… The best way to declare war is via downhill charge!!! Leading the troops against the oppressive McDonalds regime on horseback!!! Sieging the stronghold and taking it for our BURGER KING!!!!!!”

“…”

Flynn scratches his head.

“Unfortunately, I don’t have troops.”

“Or a horse, this has been put together pretty short notice…”

“…”

“I do however.”

“Have a 2014 Honda Odyssey at my disposal.”

“Honda. Zoom Zoom”

"I think that's the Saturn's thing..."

"I think that's, SHUT THE FUCK UP MAN."

Flynn climbs in the driver’s seat of the 2014 Honda Odyssey.

“All right… Hand me that.”

The camera points down to the lance Flynn has dropped on the ground.

“NO!”

“…”

“That.”

The camera tilts up another few degrees…

And now points toward a flask laying in the grass. A hand reaches out, grabs it and slowly, and then presses it into the driver’s side window where Flynn waits patiently, his fingers wrapping around the metal and pressing the drink down his throat…

He swallows hard, clearing his lungs of the swill… Then, exhales deeply.

“Now, give me that.”

The camera points down once again, and hands the lance over to Flynn.

“And that.”

The camera itself switches over from the hands of the chubby 19-year old Marketing Intern at Burger King to the grubby little mits of the XWF X-Treme Champion, Mark Flynn…

Flynn reaches for his dashboard as the camera points straight ahead at a bustling, full McDonalds… Clueless… Vulnerable…

The sticky pulling of duct tape is heard off-camera, as the image shifts from the McDonalds to the lance…

Flynn wraps the tape around the camera once, twice, thrice…

And then lifts the lance…

“Now. To play the song of my people.”

Flynn’s right hand, the one not wrapped around the lance, reaches out to the iPod connected to his car radio with an XLR cable…

And presses play.



Flynn shifts the car into drive.

As the car slowly begins to roll down the hill…

And the joust begins…

The McDonalds is half a mile away….
***
An incredibly bored McDonalds cashier listens as two fry cooks scream semantics from some bullshit movie series…

“I’m just saying, Travis. In the Star Wars Movies, the universe’s technology is light sabers, cruiser-based transport vessels and trade federations… Then in the Old Republic, a whole four millennia in the past, the universe’s technology is light sabers, cruiser-based transport vessels and trade federations… Of course time is cyclical in the Star Wars Universe, dependent on the long-standing conflict between the rising and falling power of the Jedi and Sith respectively…”

This is his life, he thinks angry as he fights off his closing eyes drifting him to a standing sleep…

Just as his eyes open…

And what was blurry begin to come into focus…

“Guys… That Honda…”
***
The GPS built-in to the Honda Odyssey’s dashboard blares out a message.

“In 0.3 Miles, you will reach your destination.”

“FOR THE BURGER KING!”
***
“Not necessarily, Malcolm, it depends on perhaps the small technological innovations not covered in either of these universes. For instance, perhaps the ability to process and manufacture the energy to create the possibility of interstellar travel. Perhaps the Ebon Hawk from Knights of the Old Republic 2 cost as much to produce and maintain as an Imperial Star Destroyer…”

“Now, Travis, we know that isn’t true because according to their respective Wikipedia pages, the Imperial Star Destroyer costs several thousand times the Republic Credits than that of the Ebon Hawk.”

“It’s not stopping…”
***
“The Desination is Straight Ahead.”

At the last possible second, Flynn’s right hand shoots forward for the dial…

AND THE VOLUME BLARES AS LOUD AS IT CAN!

“BA BA BOO-“
***
…






…




…

“You have arrived at your destination…”