The cruelest element of the human experience, as I see it, is our longing to be mastered.

To be ruled…

Our lives commanded, be it by man, or by our own fears. It’s a doubly universal misfortune. Most everyone would agree that they do not wish to be mastered, yet most everyone rejects the practice of liberation when push comes to shove. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Show me a starving man bond in chains, and I’ll show you a man who would soon eat the keys to free himself.

For all of my life, I’ve thought this knotted loop of human self-suffering was a wash. A tragedy as inevitable as Shakespeare. I had seen too many times a good thing be taken from the few who earnestly fought back.

I was in the trenches during my father’s fight. I remember the perpetual stench of concrete dust, cigar smoke, and boilermakers. I remember the DUIs while I was a child passenger and that awkward mess of finding family to live with while Dad was locked away. I remember the toolshed… our last home before he finally took up arms against himself.

He waged a righteous war while at the same time ceasing to fight with his fear. Brady Edgar came to terms with that fear and recognized its power. He respected its ability to master him. But he didn’t allow it to anymore, and it was that honesty, and that acceptance that gave him strength.

What am I afraid of?

All of these thoughts rang into pertinence as I slipped in and out of consciousness. The calming sounds of violence, the crackling embers of the fire raging through the old Victorian plantation home of Misty Waters were echoing from a not-so-far-off point of retreat.

What am I afraid of?

“Marie…”

I muttered while panting,

“...I can’t lose you again.”

I was being carried across a vast and dark field, bouncing, and slung over the strong and enduring shoulder of a man who also went to war with himself. I knew his voice, I could hear him grunting and laboring with my weight, but still, he persisted forward.

What am I afraid of?

I felt my body swing. My vision shifting from the burning home we left behind and up towards what looked like a black blanket draped over a lamp, random holes pierced through it as lights flickered before my eyes.

“It’s too early for lightning bugs” I rambled out in delirium, watching the trailing shadows of the stars dance across the sky,

The cool dew on the grass smothered the feverish sweat from my back. I inhale deeply through my nose, just being sure that I still can. The air rushed in and filled my belly just before I let out a deliberate exhale. I continue breathing the thoughts rolling still: What am I afraid of?

“Someone’s dying.”

I groaned out gently into the stars above,

The cosmos exploded into my eyes, cracking into bits of dust and glimmer. My pupils dilated, everything that I thought I knew about anything was before me, materialized and performing in the sky. The troubles twisted, as the guilts gullied and anger amassed. It all drew in together. Funneling into a black pit in the center of the sky, and emptying into one solitary mass of light, surrounded by giftless darkness. It was the downfall of man, our island, our prison... ourselves.

What am I afraid of?

I wandered into the center of the giant star, the island. My island. Marie was there, safe and happy, the children mused and were healthy. Yet I sat a crumbling mesh of dark, ashy, and burnt rock. A life of seclusion and security glowing about, while a prison of fear-indulging ignorance packed its walls at the center. A place one only goes to be mastered.

I’m afraid to have control…

I thought again of my father. He went from living a toolshed, to celebrating his tenth year of sobriety from the top of Mt. Sinai. In the years after my father stopped drinking he would always remind me: “Just do your best to do the next right thing, son.” That’s the line he walked.

But in the end, the bell still tolled at his hour. I went from living in a toolshed… to waiting for my bell.

...I’m afraid to have control of nothing.

And it’s that very slavery to self, and self-fear that must die forever.

“Everything behind us is dying, Edgar.”

Demos.

The cluster of stars scattered back into place as I turned and faced my rescuer. My ally. My brother. My comrade. Demos closed the trunk of the rental car I was abducted from and opened the back door. He stopped and gazed out at the collapsing Victorian Mansion, alone on the distant knob as the fires sacked its antique frames.

“We should say a few words.”

“Words are bound. You’re a free man now, Edgar.”

Good Friday

Marie half-chuckled as if a familiar thought occurred, and turned her head from the window that peered onto the children playing under a cool and grey Spring sky.

“You remember your father’s eulogy?”

“Mine?”

As in the one I wrote. I asked leaning up from a stool at the kitchen island.

“Yeah…”

She glows in admiration at me,

“I remember it.”

“It’s what you sound like right now. It’s inspiring, baby.”

Though I was ailing and bruised, another dance with Ned Kaye approaching, an air of forthrightness and confidence surrounded and lifted my selflessness into a state of emasculate glow. I told Marie about Demos saving my life, and how I’d made the decision not to retire away here in France. I told her I couldn’t run from this fight anymore.

I would battle myself to free the world, and lift from the XWF the wrenches of mastery, and monarchy and fight for the common man. I would build for the world an example of braving the fight for liberation.

“The man battles alone and remains mindful. He’s mindful not of HIS importance, but rather what importance is by how importance is defined…”

Marie began reciting the eulogy,

“In the man’s heart, it is not important what remains of the past, but rather the actions he takes now for what may or may never come.

While a good man may build for those we know are in need amongst him, and be showered with praise, perhaps an even better man will build for the ones we can’t see, and while no one is watching.”

She walks over and holds herself against me. “I believe you can do anything,” she said with a pleased cry. I kissed her forehead and smiled into her eyes. “Edgar Island sure would’ve been fun.” I teased, “We’re just on a beach, not an island” she laughed. We both shook off the laugh and paused without words before,

“You go show the world, that doing the right thing is the struggle in life. It’s the fight worth fighting. You go scream into the universe, baby!”

Seven days later XWF Warfare General Manager, Derrick Diamond made an announcement regarding the May, 5th Warfare...

(04-09-2021, 01:50 PM)Derrick Diamond Said: The Universal Title will be on the line Chris Page/Demos vs RL Edgar

Through the beatings and betrayal, the universe has called out to me. The truth of what's right has settled onto my heart, and here I stand, the born underdog ready to claim glory for the voiceless, the meek, and the doomed.

The battle lines in the XWF have been drawn clearly before all of us and I know on which side I stand. Demos and R.L. Edgar are coming to take away those Tag Team Championships from Them No Good Bastards, who are, exactly as advertised. No good. They're a detriment not only to the XWF, but to the world over who watch their examples of greed and mindless, bloated gluttony and see it as the way things have to be.

Demos and I are going to change that, we're going to walk into Leap of Faith victorious from this Tag Turmoil contest, one of us holding the Universal Title and show the world that you can stand up. You can be the little guy and win. You can be the one with no chance, the one who never should have made it this far, to begin with... a backup roster member. And you can be the fist that topples the tyrants.

I look at this field we're facing, some of which I know little of, some of which I know too well... none of them are going to stop us on this quest. Lycana and Marf know first hand what this freight train can feel like. The rest of you will soon find out. Any of you can gloat about the recent misfortune of my comrade and me, but the only reason it has any relevance is that each of you knows what we're capable of...

Edgar and Demos are going to pull a coup on B.o.B's monarchy over the XWF before it even begins. Our road to the common man's Leap of Faith starts now.

Former:
1x Hart Champion
1x Federweight Champion
April 2021 RP Of The Month Still Waters Run Deep