(The camera zooms in on Eron the Relentless, the next challenger for the UNIFIED World Championship held by Dan Ryan.)

“I’m tired of walking around here…”

Liar.

“…with my hand on my gun…”

Shut up.

“...tired of watching them wind you up to see if you’ll run…”

You live for it. **** off.

If it was true; if I was tired… why can I not stop shaking?

Here I stand… no, here I lean against a sink in an airport washroom. Looking at myself. Looking at my eyes. Looking at the blues that can still shake any woman to her knees. The blues that freeze anyone dead in their tracks to look inside my soul and see if they can find themselves. See if they can see them do what I do each and every night. Usually they find it. They find the mark. That is why they hate me.

Credit card burns in my pocket, expected to get used up like a plastic whore. There is a one-way ticket to Carolina on its mind, and it’s why I’ve driven here to the airport. My body likes to do things that force my mind to catch up with it. It comes with the wrestling business. Now I lean on a bathroom sink, doing my best not to make a Larry Craig joke, trying to figure out why I shut my brain off all the way up to this point.

One-way ticket. Carolina. CSWA.

“Tonight I'm going to go out and have me some fun”

Fun is over.

Time to rest.

Time to rest these aching bones and put this brain to sleep for a while. I got the money. I’m not some desperate whore for a paycheque, and I’m certainly not a stupid obsessive drone who needs to hear a mob surround me and cheer to make myself feel better. I’m better than that. At least I think I am.

“Are you?”

Wonderful, the mirror is talking back to me like a silly movie with a psychopath. I wonder when my Tyler Durden is going to show up.

“Tomorrow.”

Thanks.

“If you’re so tired, why has your body moved you all the way here, all the way to the airport. Ready to fly out to CSWA and get back into a ring worthy of competition? No more Europe beating up on half trained nitwits. No more upstart promotions designed by fossils of the past trying to re-capture magic they never created in the first place. This is the CSWA. This is the last old, remaining legs. You walked in and turned some heads. It’s what you do best. You are a focused explosion. You have prospered and self destructed every promotion you’ve come across, and now, you got the CSWA, the grand daddy dinosaur to extinct. You felt the rush of people who never learned how to hate you. Now it pulses through your body and you can’t ignore it.

“I'm tired…”

“Stop lying to yourself. You were tired. You were tired of walking around with your hand on your gun… and no battles to fight. No more wars to wage. You now have your war. You found it. Windham. Ryan. Flair. Nova. Watson. Fresh bodies. Hell, even an old corpse to abuse in Flair.”

And even that crusted skeleton he used to let wander behind him in Ivy.

“See? Do you remember how angry you were seeing Dan Ryan walk in and ruin Troy Windham’s moment? You were furious! You were furious because you were envious. Ruining Eli Flair’s great moment was jellybeans shat out of Ronald Reagan’s dead ass compared to what Dan Ryan did. You were angry because you wanted to be him.”

Truth hurts.

“It was beautiful, wasn’t it? He stole the show… he stole a show you helped create. However, he stole it like a hero. It’s not what you would have done. You want to piss on everything this great company has created for itself. Can you accept just being a footnote in its greatest show?”

I’m talking to myself in a mirror and the mirror is responding. I don’t know what to accept.

“For **** sakes. Use that credit card and buy a ticket to Carolina. Don’t be late, jackass. Head over there, find Dan Ryan and ruin his moment. Snuff out his candle.”

Only if you leave. I got a reputation with myself to uphold and talking to myself just doesn’t cut it for me.

“Deal.”

Deal.

“baby, no pain, no gain.”

The pain hasn’t even started. There are kisses of death to deliver, and I haven’t even put on the lipstick. I hope Dan Ryan realizes just what it means to ruin an occasion.