---CLICK!---


2A: The Contrarian

Quote:”Feel free to take my words, though. They’re here.

For you.

I guess, I’m kinda sick of that now.”

“Me too, buddy. Me too. Do me a favour and throw it on the ash with the rest of the old shit, eh?”

Quote:”Twist them, bend them, do what you want to my words.Twist them, bend them, do what you want to my words.”

“Weird sentiment from someone who supposedly doesn’t want an argument. Seems to be a trend too. People keep acting like they’re above all the mud-slinging, but they sure find time to take part in it, don’t they? So many words wasted on things they say that they don’t care about. It ain’t responding or not responding that makes me think you’re an idiot though, Bobby. It’s this. It’s you acting like me throat-fucking you with your own words somehow makes me look bad. Nice little back door you built yourself there. Would be a shame if someone shoved their fucking foot in it, wouldn’t it?

Is that what you meant by dictating my next promo? Should I not even mention you? Come to think of it, if all that matters is what goes on in that ring, then why even open your own mouth to begin with? I said the same thing to Lou. He started speaking a whole lot less afterwards. Not that any of that matters, of course. Can you blame him though? Forwards, backwards, left, right, round-and-round we went. Maybe he was right, and I was chasing him. The moment I pinned him down though, well… we all know what happened.

But hey, if you insist. Gimme them words, son!

Let’s start with some of the easy ones, eh?

I never said anything about trying to rid the XWF of the Brotherhood of Baddies. Check the tapes. I still maintain that you were always the same fucking joke you were last year. And The Left Hand? Oh my, who’s digging into the past now? I also never said anybody should be terrified of me either. I’m not sure if you were expecting me to, or what, but if others do that to you, well that’s just pretty silly of them, isn’t it? You’re 290 pounds for Pete’s sake! Who’s Pete? Am I Pete? HA! I digress. Terror has never been my play though. It really shouldn’t be anybody’s in a business where everyone just agrees that inflicting severe pain on each other is just part of the parcel. I’m pretty sure, whether for right or wrong, everybody in this joint is too damn stubborn to feel fear. The two of us included. So flag that. Fuck fear!

Don’t worry, fuck you too, sweet’ums.

Besides, we all know what my play is, don’t we? My play is twisting words! Ooh scary!

According to you, it seems.

You’re missing something though. Another play of mine. See, if you want to throw my will to survive into question, you really haven’t been paying attention. You want to even go as far as to suggest that you have more of that will than I do? Jesus facepalming Christ, man. You got so close to the point! You got so close to understanding what it takes to stop me!

Eat ‘em all.

That’s the other play. It doesn’t just mean to fight, it means to overcome. You picked up on that even! Bully for you! But you didn’t take it that step further. You didn’t translate it into my language.

Bobby… it means to survive.

At any cost.

Yeah, I said it. There’s a very logical question that follows on from that, and Bobby, for the first time in a fucking year, somebody - that’d be you, pal - actually asked it! I told you that you got close!

That question, is how do I eliminate those I shouldn’t?

Yes! Now this is the good stuff! I could turn this into a full on debate about the very notion of ‘deserving’, but what would be the point, right? Especially when we finally have someone getting to the crux of who I fucking am as a person! Without that understanding, ain’t no fucking chance of anyone stopping me.

Ready for the answer, though?

How about by uh… maybe not including them as part of the ‘em I’m talking about?

What, were you expecting something more insightful than that? You know what? After several recent swings and misses, I feel I need to address this to the entire bloody XWF: not everything is a fucking metaphor! Some things are just as they appear. And some people are just as indomitable as they say they are.

That’s me, Bobby. I came back to the XWF because something told me that the more I fought, the more I would understand about myself. I was right. But if you pay enough attention, you’ll notice that I tend to just be over here, minding my own business, squaring up whenever challenged but not really sticking my nose into anyone else’s business. I’m not out there attacking people willy nilly; I’m not laying down challenges to show everyone how big my fucking dick is. It’s others, like you, that come to me. They come with their puffed out chests and act like they’re going to be the one to finally stop me. Again, just like you. If it makes me a contrarian to tell them why they’re mistaken, then so be it. Kind of seems like a fucking cop-out on your end though. Laying the groundwork so if I disagree with you on anything, I’m doing it just to be difficult. Nah, man. Miss me with that. I’m doing it because I’m going to kick your fucking ass, and I want you to know it before it happens.

That’s what all this is about, Bobby - this back and forth we do. It’s as much about establishing our own motivations as it is trying to cut the others’ wheels off before we even make contact. Some people do well to not let it affect them. In general, I mean, not just as it relates to me. Others fall flat on their face. Either way, I still kick their fucking ass. Doesn’t matter who it is. Give me that supposedly over-the-hill Lou who had only won a little thing called March Madness in literally the last match he had before we met the first time, I’ll still romp ’em. Or give me that supposedly over-the-hill Lou who you and TK were so invested in you took time to make a fucking commercial just last month about how I’m just a lite version of him. I’ll still romp ’em. I guess they only become over-the-hill when I throw them off the fucking mountain. Side note: Yes, Lou, that actually is me giving you props in there. I don’t disagree - GASP! - that you’re the feather in my cap. Still will be after Savage too. Better prep yourself for the same adjective, Bobby. I’ll still romp ’em.

Do you get it yet? The ‘em in question, man, it tends to just be whoever is put across from me. Whoever is trying to take from me, what is mine. This week, that’s you. If on another week it’s a friend, however few of them I have… well, the statement still stands. And they’d rightly think less of me if I treated it any other way. Eat ‘em all. Ate ‘em all. Don’t believe me? Go ask Dolly how hard I knocked her silly at War Games. Or like… literally just check out Corey Smith’s latest to hear him say a pretty fucking close approximation to the same fucking thing. Oh, but I’m scared of Corey, right? That’s how I’m avoiding having to even deal with it! Yep, so scared of the guy who straight up had a shot at me and chose not to take it. That’s me!

You tried so hard not to get into the weeds, didn’t you? You soooo didn’t want an argument. LOL. Thanks for the food. The fuel. It’s easy for a fire to keep burning when bozos like you keep feeding it. All I had to do was poke the Pooh bear and there he goes again still bitching about a four-on-one at War Games, while at the same time somehow claiming that the winner of that match… didn’t beat you? Shit, if the four-on-one is the excuse, was someone else there that I didn’t see? Was I not even one of the four? I have a hell of an imagination, but even I can’t piece that puzzle together. Oh bother! There I go again! Something you said is stupid and because I point it out that makes me a contrarion!

Fuck outta here with that nonsense.

Way to intentionally ignore the part where I explained just why I was pointing out your failings, Bobby. Not to mock your losses - we’ve all had them, and yes one of mine was to Lycana. I wasn’t highlighting how you’ve lost before. I was pointing out just how many times you’ve walked into a fight deathly confident in yourself, and fallen short. And that… that’s something that I can’t relate to. See, with Lycana, I lost sight of what I was trying to do. It wasn’t about eating anymore, it was about vengeance. That ain’t the case with you, though. That was… that was a necessary learning for me. But Bobby, you’ve done sweet fuck all to show any reason as to why you’re not making the same mistake you’ve done oh so many times before. To show that you’re anything other than just another piece of meat for me to chew on. Inconsistent Bobby. Full-of-shit Bobby. Dinner’s-ready Bobby. Hey, since we’re sharing, what’s it like to lose to The Thugs? I jest. Kind of.

You said my mission was to eat ‘em all, right? Sure, close enough. Oh my, I didn’t disagree with you! That’s twice now! We’re getting super meta here folks, now I’m being a contrarian about being a contrarian! Whatevs. We’ve established what that little adage of mine entails now. So ask yourself, what does that mean for you? When I survive again? That’s what you’ve got to understand, Bobby. You said I like being clever for clever’s sake. Or weird for weird’s. I suppose those aren’t contradictory terms, so why not both, right? Still, is it really just for the sake of it when it works for me? Clever for winning’s sake. Weird for surviving’s sake. That’s the reality of what I do; of who I am.

I am Alias.

Or George. Whatever floats your boat. I kind of expected this, but honestly I was looking forward to something a little bit heavier on the seminal discharge front. I guess getting halfway through changing your entire personality in order to try and throw me off kind of threw you off too. You really did decide to rip a big ol’ page out of Lou’s book after all, eh? At least you’ve had the wherewithal to not fully throw away your usual song and dance routine, even if just for a moment. Rhyme for me, baby. Look, I won’t go as far as to claim dibs on a fucking rhyme scheme, BUT, throwing that name out there like that… ‘George’… man, it’s like you’re trying to take a page out of my book too. I’m flattered, boo. And I love your fucking moxy. Interesting choice with George, though. If the glove fits, let me slide my mangled mitt into it and run with it. Bobby… Robbie… whatever fucking name you choose for yourself (those in glass houses, I swear)…

You called yourself the creator.

But the creator’s name was George.

Nary a George in the XWF, indeed! If that ain’t some gold class irony, I don’t know what is.

Fuck it, ain’t nobody heard from that bitch in like twenty years. You can have the role! You can be the creator. Me? I’ll be the destroyer. While I’m at it, I’ll be everything in between too. We’re going to quite literally dance across space and time, buddy, just like I did at Relentless - I hope you were watching the main event of Night Three. If you were, you’d know…

You’re stepping into my world. (In more ways than one, no?)

And you’re dropping the fucking ball.”


---CLICK!---

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2B: Channel Surfing





---CLICK!---


“Now let’s see here what B-rated nonsense the magic box has for us tonight…”

“But Daaaaaad, there’s never anything good on TV!”

“With five bazillion channels, including all the streaming services, I’m sure we’ll be able to find something good.”


---CLICK!---





“What in the blue-balled fuck is this?”

“DAD! You swore!”

“You’re getting older, son, it’s time you learned. Some shitfuckery deserves to be called as it is.”


---CLICK!---





“Dad, no! I’m scared!”

“What? Aren’t you like fourteen by now? You’re still scared of vampires?”

“I’m eight.”

“Err… yeah. I knew that. Still…”

“It’s not the vampires that scare me. It’s the lack of character development.”

“Oh, right. Because that’s a totally logical thing for an eight year old to comment on.”

“What?”

“Nevermind. Just shut the fuck up and get me a beer, will you?”

“K…”


---CLICK!---





“Uh… let’s just conveniently ignore that one.”


---CLICK!---





“And that one. Don’t wanna affect the ‘narrative’, ya know?”

From afar: “Dad, did you say something?”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP AND HURRY UP WITH MY BEER!”


---CLICK!---

http://xwf99.com/showthread.php?tid=42066 http://xwf99.com/showthread.php?tid=4208

“Dad, no! I’m scared!”

“What? Again? Thanks for the beer. That ‘scared’ you?”

“Yeah. I think that was supposed to be the ‘character growth’ that was missing, and it was terrifying!”

“In what way?”

“In the way that it seems super mismatched and out of character. Like cramming Daenerys’s heel turn into like… two episodes. Or a ‘rassler losing his mask and acting like it was no biggie and that there was no reason to have it to begin with. Kind of undermines everything that came before it, you know?”

“You’re a weird eight year old.”

“Could be worse though. Could be replacing one actor with another and expecting us to think it’s the same character despite them looking completely different. I hate it when that happens.”

“Fuckin’ aye. All of this seems real on the nose though. Should we see what else is on?”


---CLICK!---





2C: The House Of Alias

At the end of a road at the edge of a city in the middle of a country on the face of a planet on the rim of a galaxy in the excretion cavity of the universe was a house. It was built with dead carcasses of the oldest living things (up until their untimely demise at the blade of an axe, of course) on that mostly-wet rock, and the little critters that to-d and fro-d in and out of its porous doors thought that to be a pretty decent arrangement. But this house was not like all the others. Some were made of bricks. Some were made of timber. None were made of straw - at least not anymore, though apparently that would remain in some sort of children’s tale for these dumb-dumbs until they eventually discover nundyduns. There were a fair amount of these so-called houses that were made up of a fertilizer coated in paper, but even that didn’t account for the structure in question here, nor its residents. This house was made of dreams. And its inhabitants? The dreamers.

“Okay… this seems like something I could get into!”

”Still seems kind of lame…”

”I wish your mother took you with her when she left us.”


~~~~~


The sun peeked its way through a tiny gap in the not-fully-drawn blackout curtains touched with navy blue. The man stirred as the light brushed his face. He groaned and rolled over, turning his back on the morning’s glow. For a moment he thought he could sleep some more - it had been a long walk the prior night, and he had got in late. The euphoric giggle of a young child called to him from another room and convinced him otherwise. That joy hung in the air, drawing him from his bed. Feet on ground, he plodded towards the door while rubbing sleep from his eyes. Pushing the door open, the smell of bacon, eggs, and crisping toast fully awoke him.

“Morning, sunshine!” his wife greeted him. She beamed from a face that was utterly devoid of features. Vague outlines hinted at humanity, but there were no eyes, lips, nose, nor brows. This was a featureless face, able to be easily replaced by any other. A face that could be loved on command. Or hated.

“Breakfast smells good,” he mumbles underneath his breath. Golden rays flooded through a pair of bay windows, stroking the pine wainscotting running around the open living and dining area. Even with the beauty and warmth of the picturesque lawn outside the windows rendering it unnecessary - a stark contrast to the desert he remembered walking through last night - the fireplace still crackled away in the corner of the room, puffing smoke up the chimney and out into the world. The kitchen itself was elevated two steps up from the rest of the floor, and the dark brown continued throughout its cupboards and shelves. His wife carried plate loads of food down the steps towards the exquisitely carved dining table that stretches along one wall.

The girl pawed merrily at generic toys equipped with bells and chimes that jingled under her hands from within her playpen next to the table.

“You came in so late last night,” his wife says, settling a jug of juice on a large cork coaster in the middle of the spread. “I thought I’d take the time to do something nice for you.”

“Much appreciated,” he replies, falling into a chair next to where the girl plays. He coochie-coos down towards her, and she laughs, making eye contact with him in the process. In her eyes, all other cares fall away.

He grasps a piece of toast and begins to scrape butter over it, his wife delicately lowers herself into a chair opposite him and… something about the way she holds her head suggests she’s smiling, despite the lack of a mouth.

Just as soon as she had taken her seat, the doorbell rings, sending a gentle melody throughout the home.

“I’ll get it!” his wife exclaims. Before he can even understand what’s happening, she’s gone in a blur of yellow and orange - her sundress flapping behind her. Placing some eggs, bacon, and even some beans on his toast, he begins carving it up and shovelling the food into his mouth. Somewhere in the depths of the house, he hears his wife chatting away to another voice. They draw closer and closer until they feel like they’re right on top of him.

“Looks like I got here just in time!” adds that new voice. This one… unfamiliar. With a strip of meat hanging from the corner of his mouth, he whips around to greet it.

Another figure stands there, just as expressionless. Female, he thinks. And based on the clothing choice, he surmises older than his wife, who slips up beside this newer figure.

“What, are you just going to sit there Ali S?” she asks of him, a near-accusation somehow framed within it. And a name. A name!

That’s not his name. He knows his name!

“Aren’t you going to give your mother a hug?” ‘Mother?’ he thinks to himself, keeping quiet. ‘Fuck.’

He slides the chair back, and rises to greet her. They embrace, but it’s short and brief. It should feel familiar, but it doesn’t. She brushes past him, leaving him standing, puzzled, next to his faceless wife.

“And is that my darling granddaughter?” she caws, as she crouches down to meet the young Korean girl, with all her intact features.

The girl cries. Loud and horrific. It pierces the visage, tearing it apart.

Everything shatters.

“You’re not my mother…” he says. His not-mother turns to face him. “And you’re not my wife.”

His not-wife slides across the floor, taking up a space side-by-side with the other ‘thing’. Their heads would be staring, had they eyes. Those eyes would be crying, had they had ears. Ears to hear the girl.


~~~~~


“Well that was weird…”

“Weird for weird’s sake, right? Or clever for clever’s.”

“Allegedly.”


---CLICK!---


It was the thunder that awoke him. The blackout curtains were drawn tight over the windows, nary a speck of light making its way through. Though it was loud, the storm hadn’t frightened him. He had spent his fair share of time sleeping rough under worse weather than this. As a result, he didn’t lurch forward upon the storm’s crash. Instead, he greeted the day much as he ever did: with a groan, and a creak, and a steadfast determination to take on whatever the day would throw at him. Or… whomever even. His feet reached over the side of the bed, and a soft bed of carpet welcomed them. It was new, and each of the bedrooms now had it, with it only having been laid a couple of weeks before. On a chilly day like today, it was a welcome feeling.

“Morning, sunshine!” his wife greeted him, her attention caught by the squeak the aging door made as he opened it. With total love and adoration, her featureless face welcomed him. Over the years her body had grown a little. He wasn’t put off by it. To be fair, he had started packing on the pounds himself. With the sweet aroma of the stack of pancakes piling up next to her, it was easy to see why.

“I’m famished,” he says, glancing out those massive bay windows at the torrential rain pounding away into the swimming pool - another new addition. The shrubbery around it had started to overgrow as of late. He had been so caught up with the day-to-day grind that he hadn’t had the time to trim it back. Fat chance of it happening on a day like today. In this rain, it’s better to stay inside, with the protection of that still roaring fireplace.

“Watch out! Coming through!” shouts the girl, as she sprints by him chasing fairies and fantasies. She’s older now. What was a short bob of black hair is now wrapped in long pigtails that fall below her shoulderline. At the last minute, the man sidesteps, getting out of the way, and she careens into the depths of the house.

“No running inside!” his wife calls after, without a response. She shakes her head as she delicately hops down the two-steps, balancing the plate of pancakes as she carries it over to the table. “She gets that from you.”

“Uh… yeah…” he stammers.

“What’s wrong?” the wife asks, furrowing her non-existent brow.

“Nothing, I just…” he struggles again, unable to find the words to describe that feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Does anything seem weird to you?”

“You’re probably just tired,” she dismisses. “You came in so late last night, I was starting to get worried. But if I know anything about you, it’s how gosh darn hungry you get. Take a seat and get some food in you. I’ll bring over the syrup.”

“Yeah… you’re probably right,” he nods, floating towards the table on autopilot. Before he even gets the first pancake on his plate, the doorbell rings. It takes him a second to register it, and before he can turn, his wife is already sweeping past - her long blue skirt sweeping the ground behind her. Her voice greets another, this one coarse and masculine. The sound of footsteps draw near.

“Pancakes!” the new man exclaims. “My favourite!”

The man of the house hasn’t moved. He feels stuck in place, like he’s bleeding into the floor.

“What, are you just going to stand there, George? Or are you going to give your old man a hug?” A name. Another name, said from a mouth without lips on a face looking expectantly at him, without the capacity to do so. A name. He knows his name, and that’s not -

His thought is interrupted as he is wrapped in the arms of his… father?

It doesn’t feel right.

“Now,” the supposed-father begins again as he breaks the hug. “Where’s that granddaughter of mine?”

“Hey!” his wife shouts out into the depths. “Quit being rude and come say hi to Granddad!”

He doesn’t hear her approach, but somehow he knows she’s there. She stands, ghostly, in another doorway that branches off the main living space.

“There you are!” the grandfather says. With open arms, he walks towards the young girl.

And she cries. Shrill and terrible. It works its way deep into his soul and shakes loose the cobwebs from a memory that had clouded over.

The penny drops.

“Get away from her!” the man shouts. His not-father stops in his tracks, turning towards him with his blank face. His not-wife slides in place, and everything comes rushing back. “You’re not who you say… neither of you are.

What… what is this?”


~~~~~


“There better be a point to this.”

“We could always watch that show about Beavis and Butthead going to the cancer ward, but there isn’t a point to that either.

“Ugh… fine.”


---CLICK!---


The wind rattled against the trees' more flimsy branches, and those same branche rattled against the window. Even from behind the blackout curtains, nondescript shapes of different shades of black shift throughout the room. The scratching awakes him. It’s early, but getting out of bed at this time was becoming the norm. He didn’t sleep as well as he used to. He wasn’t the only one either. His bed was already empty, and the dent from the body that had previously occupied it was already cold. A whistling kettle alerted him to what lay beyond the room, and his back cracked awfully loud as he staggered to the door to discover it for himself.

“Morning, sunshine!” came the familiar, faceless greeting. She doddered about amongst the original pine in the kitchen, grey hair tied in a messy bun above her head. Her unsteady hands poured two cups of tea, and she hand delivered one straight to the man, gingerly traversing the two treacherous steps at the edge of the kitchen. He takes it from her, and she looks at him with affection in her eyes that don’t exist.

“Thank you,” he says, taking a teeny sip, unable to swallow any more of the near-boiling beverage. He was old now, and didn’t handle the heat as well as he once did.

“The porridge should be ready soon,” she says, pottering back towards the kitchen. “I’m sorry that I didn’t prepare anything more substantial.”

“Please,” he reassures her. “If you so much as gave me an apple, I’d think it the greatest meal I’ve ever had.”

“Now you tell me!” she bemoans, chuckling to herself.

The curtains over the two massive bay windows were still drawn, so he quickly set to remedying that. Tugging on the pull cord of each, they open up, revealing the empty pool, littered with leaves and branches blown down by the gusting winds. He had been meaning to fix things up for a while now, but his hands didn’t quite have the same strength in them. Still, at least they had enough in them to keep the fireplace crackling.

“Sit down,” his wife urges him, catching him in his trance-like gaze out the window. “You came in so late last night, you must still be exhausted.”

“Yeah…” he acknowledges. “Yeah, I am.”

Though he did as he was told, he still couldn’t shake the feeling that something strange was afoot.

“Hey… where’s our little girl?” he asks, recognising a piece that was missing.

“Oh, she’ll be here any moment,” his wife replies.

“What?” He doesn’t understand. Why would their child not be here with them? The sound of the bell ringing - the same sound he had been hearing for years - stops his train of thought in its tracks.

“That must be her now!” his wife says, dropping a tea towel onto the kitchen benchtop. The man prepares to go and get the door, but his wife is already bushing past him, doing her best not to trip over her purple cotton billows that fall from where they were fastened. A murmuring of voices echoes down the corridor, and soon enough, his wife returns to the living space.

Behind her, another figure. Small and youthful.

“Dad…?” she asks, giving him a name that makes him squirm, but at the same time, doesn’t carry that same sense of wrongness as the others had. But there is something even more wrong with this picture than a name.

“Oh no…” Despair grips him.

His daughter cries, shedding tears from eyes that are not there.

She is faceless too.


---CLICK!---


“Are you fucking kidding me? That’s it?!”

“Still better than anything on the other channels.”

“What? Like it’s hard?”