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X-treme Wrestling Federation » Warfare Boards » Warfare RP Board
Clouds as Witnesses
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Tony Santos Offline
Santos Glares at You



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#1
05-03-2019, 10:52 PM

The scene opens...

...in pitch black. A faint whirring sound can be heard overhead.



This continues for a solid minute and a half. No wistful wrestler peering over a bridge, the bridge sitting as a metaphor for two chapters of his life, and the man his own metaphor for a page that he can't quite seem to turn. There is no man yelling "cunt" into the wind, calling for abortions.

The air is still, and it feels like we're gliding in space. Watching through your TV, you can almost feel yourself being swallowed up into your empty screen, as if it's your own personal black hole.

Can you hear it?

Your thoughts? Missed chances. Lovers you let pass you by? Tragedies that sit so damn deep within your brain that you can almost taste the iron in the blood of a loved one who's been hit by a train.

Do you even know where you are right now? Are your feet planted firmly on the ground? Are you doing everything you possibly can to ensure that, if today is your last day on earth, you'll look back and think...

I did my damnedest to live my best possible god damn life, and fuck it if I'm going down like this. I've told those I love how much they matter, let those close to me know how appreciated they really are, and have met every stranger with the respect they deserve (until they didn't).

THREE MINUTES

You're starting to wonder if someone is going to pop out and scare the living daylights out of you. Bring you back to reality. You're alive, you're conscious, and you can go back to living that cartoon existence you've taken for granted for so fucking long. It's fine, after all... feeling that death is just a figment of your imagination.

Right?

Say you live, what, 80 years? That sounds about right if you live in a developed country, sure. Okay, cool, then answer this for me: How old are you now?

20? 30? 40?

The average person experiencing this very moment, right now, is likely in the 20 - 30 range. If you're 40, well, then you're Peter Gilmour...

...and no one wants to be Peter Gilmour.

But back to the point!

FIVE MINUTES

Okay, okay, so you're 20 - 30 years old. Good for you. You've barely stubbed your toe, let alone felt the true indicators of old age. It's start with your back getting a little sore here and there, then your knees start to give out when you climb stairs, then your knuckles fall deep into the realm of the arthritic, then your heart hurts...

...more and more, your heart feels like it's pumping molasses, not blood.

Then your eyes go. Your kidneys start to fail. You can barely wake up in the morning, let alone get the newspaper, or play with your children... or grandchildren. Thing you're overtaken by pneumonia. You're bedridden, your family is by your side... if you're lucky. And then...

Darkness. Like this.

But do you feel it, like you can feel it now? If you believe in god, maybe, but, let's be real, you're not that confident there's a god. You might believe in a Christian god, a Jewish god, a Muslim god, a Hindu god... etc., etc., etc. See? We've only thought of four and there are dozens, if not hundreds of possibilities. You like odds?

The odds of your god being the right god are pretty slim. Now think about that. Think about how many gods were made up by human beings... for means of control, power, or simply out of fear of the unknown. And only one of them can be right? Well no one says it could only be one, but still, that doesn't exactly make your odds too freaking good.

SEVEN MINUTES

Uh! It's scary, huh? Death. But that's like 50 or 60 years away! Nothing to worry about now! I'll take that on when the time...

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Comes. Too late! You went out on a quick ride to grab some groceries, your kid in the back (if you have one... lucky you), and you got stuck in the middle of the tracks! The engine just... stopped. In that moment, you had just seconds to, oh who knows. Your odds of escaping your car when you have your seatbelt on (thanks, safety laws!), from a train going 100 milers per hour is pretty. freaking. low..

That's it. Your brain has shut off, and it's lost consciousness, and so have you. Remember those dreams of yours? Your past loves, your accomplishments, and your entire existence?

Well, it means nothing to you, anymore. Sure, you're remembered by others, but that's probably just a handful of people, and once they die? You die again...

...and again...

...and again.

Until there's no piece of you left in this world, except the .00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of the earth your ashes take up. And then the earth goes, swallowed up into the sun.

Fun!

EIGHT MINUTES

So, you gotta wonder, is it all worth it? Then... a sound!



Just then, you come to. A bright light appears overhead.

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Oh... thank god! You're not dead after all! You're alive! Stop sweating, everything is going to be fine, I promise! Really, everything will.

Or... is this actually the... no no, it can't be. You're not dead. You see a light, for god's sake! But, what if it's... Jesus?

Hahaha, no no, don't be silly. We debunked that just like four minutes ago! Don't worry, you're alive. You can feel that heart pumping, sweat dripping down your face thanks to the fear you put in your little scared self, and man... your heart is really pounding! How much have you had to drink?

Sir, sir? Sir! Can you hear me? How much have you had to dri... and how much is stashed in here?? This looks like two whole bottles of wine! Good lord, Jim? Jim?!

A flight attendant in her early-to-mid 30s sprints to the back of the plane. Yup, you're on a plane. We're roughly three hours into our flight from Toronto to New Orleans, the first leg of a trip that will take some of these people to Faleolo International Airport in Samoa. The flight had been cruising along fairly seamlessly. It's only 5 hours and 30 minutes, after all. Just long enough for kids to get a bit restless, but just long enough for parents to get drunk enough to not care.

Ah, gotta love a good cross-country flight.

We're in a Boeing 737. The interior is surprisingly sleek, with cool, black leather seats, TVs in the backs of every seat, and enough leg room to keep a man over 6 feet tall from kicking through the plastic frame of the seat in front of him in a fit of rage.

We've been cruising for three hours with little fanfare. Sure, a drunk lady got kicked off of the plane before takeoff for throwing her bag at a flight attendant, after said flight attendant told her there was no space left on the aircraft, but... small potatoes. Now?

Tony Santos comes to. The camera pans in on a disheveled Tony. His black hair is wet to the touch, droplets falling to his stomach. His eyes flicker quickly, left and right, left and right, leftandright, lef&rig, LEFT&RIGHT

Flight Attendant: Sir?? Are you okay? Jim, I think we're going to need to...

The female flight attendant, named Paula, quickly turns back to her partner, her dirty blonde, long hair flying from Tony's to Jim's, as she grabs for a smelling salt. Jim, an overweight, yet young, first class flight attendant, quickly pulls a smelling salt from the in-flight first aid kit, crushes the strip, and flicks it to his female partner.

Paula catches the smelling salt and places it under Tony's nose. At first, Tony sits there, having lost consciousness once again, and doesn't immediately come back. His stomach lifts upward, then drops with a thud into his waist, so he's alive, but it's not looking great. Contrary to Paula's assertion, Tony hadn't managed to sneak in any bottles of wine at all. Nope, he'd just simply stolen booze from the cart, while charming the same crew into giving him large pours all flight.

In turn, Tony found himself practically chugging cups of wine, funneling wine from the bottles into said cups, and chugging again. All in all, Tony had consumed roughly three bottles of Pinot Noir in two-and-a-half hours.

He still wasn't coming to.

31 YEARS

Just then, a gorgeous woman appears in front of Tony. Her short, purple hair shines beneath the seat light. She looks at Tony with fear in her eyes.

"This is it," she thought. "This is how he finds me."

It's Shannon, Tony's former partner and mother to his only child. Killed in a car crash in Brighton, Massachusetts. And here she stood now, watching Tony meet the untimely fate she so sadly feared he would. Alcoholism had been his weakness as long as she had known him. Their first date, it was a drunken evening of dinner and drinks, then more drinks.

It must've been to simply celebrate the night! It was fun, after all...

...and exciting!

Then they would spend most of their next ten or fifteen dates out at bars or restaurants. When at bars, Tony would find himself cutting back on food in order to keep the weight he needed to be a wrestler, but not the booze. Or he'd find himself making excuses for "just one more drink."

Always just one more.

And here we were.

It only took a few years and a child to realize that the bottle had won. Tony craved the smooth, cold feel of the bottle. There was nothing quite like a beer on hot afternoon.

Or a thick stout on a winter evening.

Or a light Corona on a summer afternoon.

Or a cold, crisp, white wine when beer was out and it was just time to unwind.

Or a thick red with a nice piece of steak.

Or an IPA when wrestling was just too hard.

Or just a quick release...

Shannon: Tony, oh Tony. When I see you now, I'm... not shocked. I'm not even hurt. This feels like I'm looking at a replay of almost every evening in the short saga that was our life together. It's almost like I'm rewatching your past, rather than seeing you in the present.

Oh, Tony.


Shannon's eyes slump downward, her mascara firmly in place. There are no tears to be shed today. Partially because she's simply dead, but also? Because she'd built up this brick facade for months and years. She'd prepared for this moment, because Tony made damn sure she'd be prepared. Every night making excuses for why he needed a six-pack. Every few minutes before bed where he just "wanted one more."

Every hour after that where one more turned into another, and another, and another. And when none were left? Raid Shannon's wine in the fridge. Then the whiskey. Then the god damn liquor that was used for cooking.

It all led to this. 31 years old. He'd lived an... OK life. He'd met some great people, made others care for him, and made yet more see the potential he had inside. That was enough, I guess. He would look back and think:

I did my damnedest to live my best possible god damn life, and fuck it if I'm going down like this. I've told those I love how much they matter, let those close to me know how appreciated they really are, and have met every stranger with the respect they deserve (until they didn't).

Shannon's gaze locks on Tony, her disappointment cutting deeper and deeper into the camera.

Shannon: That's simply not true. That's not true at...

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...all.

Tony opens his eyes, choking on his own spit and vomit. The flight attendants exhibit signs of both adulation and panic as they see a not-yet-dead Tony continue to go pale. He's not yet dead.

Even if others are.

TODAY

The scene fades to black.

September 2013 and May 2019 Star of the Month
1x Hart Champion
1x Television Champion
1x Xtreme Champion

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