"Life has a funny way of reeling you back in. Everytime you think you’ve overcome your addiction to existence another shot of the good stuff comes bringing you back, begging for more. And I mean the good stuff. Shrapnel and steel. Gunpowder and malice. It brings you back to the precipice of perception, it gives you a new outlook on the rocky waves crashing the shores.

One shot.

That’s all anyone ever says they want.

That’s all I was begging for.

Then it came.

And now I demand so much more out of this thing called life."

The two nursing aides in the back of the room share an awkward glance with each other as Charlie looks longingly outside the window of his hospital room. Charlie gently places his left hand on the sun warmed window as he leans forward in his wheelchair. The pair of mixed gender nurses are about to step away when Charlie bursts into another long-winded rant.

"I demand bloodshed. I demand pain. I demand cruelty. I demand a chance to do irreparable harm, like what was done to me. Anything that happens beyond that is just a forceful request. I would never deign to demand of life the spinal cord of another man upon my mantle. It could never bring my legs back. The contusions in my bilateral precentral gyri are far too severe for such an easy fix.

The spine of the fuck machine would be nothing more than an aesthetic fixture in my crawl space….

And yet still….

I yearn to have it."

The male aide wipes a few droplets of perspiration off his forehead as he gulps silently. The woman beside him takes a single step towards Charlie before calling out tentatively to him.

“So, Charlie- did you uh….need anything else?”

“Of course.

I need the fuck machine’s spine. But I could only ever make such a forceful request on one being in this universe: myself.

My burning desire for retribution will never be sated until his vertebrates hang like ornaments from my family’s christmas tree. We will not be even until my grandchildren are snapping his dusty bones into pieces out of sheer boredom. I will not rest in peace until Dick Powers is in pieces and can never rest again.”

“Ok so if you don’t need us we’re going to go ahead and step ou-”

“I need from you what I need from all. I need you to bear witness to my retribution. I need you to be voyeurs of my vengeance.”

“Right. So until then-”

“I have never felt more alive than I do right now. I can feel the blood seeping out of my skull. I can feel the weight of my past. I can almost feel the whole world on my shoulders…..I can feel everything except my legs.”

“About that-”

“I can feel the weight of the expectations upon me. That pressure would crush a lesser man. Just a few weeks after my XWF debut I was main eventing Relentless and challenging for the universal championship. I was reaching for the stars when I was climbing that ladder last year. For the next few months I was grinding, hustling, and carrying the banner for Saturday Nights. Then I thought I had finally reached my peak. I had grown tired of reaching, reaching, reaching for the stars only to come up with a full moon in the end. My legs had grown tired of the sprint to the top.

But now, now my legs feel better than they ever have before. All it took was a loss of function for them to feel ready for that mad dash to the top. They feel ready to hold up the weight of the world. They have never been more prepared, more fit for the task at hand. They feel ready to climb that ladder and reach for the skies one, two, three dozen more times.

I feel more rejuvenated than I ever have. If Dick Powers thought he was going to pull a Noah Jackson on me, he was sorely fucking mistaken! Even if I only have use of half my body, my willpower and resolve have more than doubled!”

The two nursing aides at the back of the room slowly slink out into the hallway as Charlie Nickles continues to stare through the glass window in his room.

“You know, I think I finally figured out Dick’s power. I know I asked the question before, but after meeting him in the ring, I think I now know the answer.

Dick’s only real power seems to be looking good in defeat. Looking real solid in failure is turning out to be his thing. Of course, no one should be surprised that the sex pest’s superpower revolves around de-feet. But still, de-feet is omnipresent around Dicky Pies. Acockalypse Now is then and forever, after all. Then and forever nothing more than a 16 seed knocked off in swift fashion by true powerhouses. Sure, they looked good for a half- even got a couple scores and few nice shots. But 16 seeds look good all the time. Still, they damn near never win, and Dick Powers sure wasn’t able to break the mold. It was the Carnies over the Cocklypse in the end, and in team sports that is all that ever matters.

But now, this time, Dick doesn’t have a team to give him assists. I don’t have a team forcing me to sacrifice my body for them. Dick will have every opportunity to look real good in this defeat: to look splendid, superb, spectacular, without equal. I will make sure of it. I will make sure Dick Powers shines so bright in his next defeat that no one ever mistakes him for a fading star again.

I just know Dick Powers will look so good by the end of our match....when he’s splayed out across the speedway, reduced to nothing but bloody tire tracks. He thought he could kill me for humiliating his team at war games, but in the end, he has only made me stronger. Just a few short weeks ago I wanted nothing more in this world than a bullet in the brain....but now, now I yearn so deeply to throw Dick's bloodied carcass in the path of a speed racer. I can almost taste his soupy mixture of blood and bone flying through the air. I can almost hear his screams as two tones of metal slam into his fractured skeleton.

There will be no more late nights of lovemaking for Dick Powers. There will be no more signing autographs and titties, kissing babies and kissing kitties. From tis moment on Dick Powers will only know pain. There will only be suffering and torment for Dick Powers until the blood debt is paid. For the second straight pay per view Dick Powers will lose to Charlie Nickles. I will make sure he won't be around for a third."


The Nickleman slides his left hand down the window before laying it back in his lap. The bearded man leans back in his wheelchair as he folds his hands atop his thighs.

"Life has a funny way of reeling you back in. It feels like it was only a few short weeks ago that I thought I had no future, no path, nothing left to do in this world- but now......now all I can think about is how much I yearn to end the path of another."