Post by adm on Jun 9, 2009 14:45:55 GMT -6
The sky in Iowa is beautiful, the prettiest shade of blue I have ever seen. As rural a people they are, these fans are possibly some of the most devout that nCw may have. And Angel…the man I face on Sunday at Collision, the man who holds the Tag Championships that Nero and I were so close to capturing…he continues to insult me. When the last time we met, we tried to be civil, we tried…so very hard to be “friends”. He wants to see the old me, the creepier me…well…maybe the madness that is lurking within me is beginning to seep out, slowly, drawing me closer and closer to doing something stupid with the knowledge of technology I have. And now…I realize that though you offered before, you didn’t want to be friends…and you definitely don’t want us to have a good match. You think I am worse than before…but as I sit in the grass outside of Des Moines…I realize that you WERE right about some of it.
“Angel, you were right…my wife and family held me back. I was stupid to ignore the great and mighty Angel, the man who let his wife run off with AJ Phoenix. But that’s fine…I learned my lesson, right? You think? I mean…I am just as NORMAL now as I have ever been, right? I’ve never been a FREAK to you…right? Or am I just speaking about the thoughts I know you and everyone has in your heads. After what you saw on Collision last week, the fans hate me; they think I have gone MAD. That…I have lost my mind. And maybe…I was faking sanity for so long, it’s made me insane. Maybe…all it took was one bad day to drive me over the cliff I was desperately clinging onto, pretending things made sense and God was up in heaven watching over me, making sure everything was going to turn out fine. Maybe…you are right, Angel. Maybe God is dead. Maybe God stopped caring and threw me to the cruel hands of Fate…what if EVERYTHING YOU SAID were TRUE?”
Oh how sad would that be, Angel? For you to be right? For you to ALWAYS be right about me? To know that deep down, I was always going to be worse than you, that you will always beat me. That as my mind slowly unravels beneath the calm exterior you are sitting, laughing at me behind that sly smile of yours, kissing my WIFE in her HOSPITAL BED…yes…you’re just doing everything in your power to drive me over the edge. To push me further where Burns had put me before. I was on the edge…and now I’m sweating again. My suit is getting stiff around my body, and the tie I am wearing is just a LITTLE too TIGHT.
“Oh how sad, Angel…how sad it would be to be me right now, right? I mean…you kissed my wife while she slept in the hospital. How they even let you in…is beyond me. I know you want me to just leave…to go back to the life I had before. To go back to Apple in Sunnyvale and beg Steve Jobs for my job back. Take a pay cut, start from the bottom of the ladder again and climb my way up once more…taking another 7 years to get where I was? Hating everything I did? You want me to slowly unravel until this time I finally do go to work one day…with an Armalite AR-10 carbine gas-powered semi-automatic weapon, pumping round after round into colleagues and co-workers. You see, Angel, you want me to turn into the psychotic FREAK you always saw me as…and maybe its working. Maybe every single threatening thing I said before to you was just a farce as I slowly unwind while being taken down one peg at a time by your insults and mind games until there is nothing left but the shell of a man that is not even worthy enough to get into the ring with you on Sunday so you have nothing more to do than just push me over and pin me. Isn’t that what you want? Just another EASY WIN for the man known as Angel…you don’t give a **** about the fans, I have SEEN the way you and Burns look at them, and you don’t CARE about them.”
No, you don’t, and as I slowly loosen the tie around my neck I think of choking Angel to death with it for kissing my sleeping wife. If I was him…I’d use my tie to choke AJ to death…watching his life slowly slip away from him as his eyes grew cold and dead. And then I’d release just in time to let him catch a big breath or two before doing it again…and again…until he was so weakened by the lack of oxygen to his brain in such bursts his eyes begin to bleed and he dies from cerebral hematoma.
“I look around me, in this calm and sequestered park in the outskirts of Des Moines and I see people, people who might even recognize me from nCw. But they don’t’ come over here asking for my autograph like they used to. They remember what happened on Sunday…and the week before. They think I might hurt them, that I’d blame them for what happened to my wife. But I blame myself, Angel, I do. It was my fault for it all, right? Everything is MY FAULT. Another shove toward the cliff…another shove toward MADNESS. I never could find a way to properly punish myself for the things that I did to my wife…even before this, I was such a bastard to her, she deserves better…maybe she deserves YOU, right Angel? You lost your wife to AJ and now you want a new woman…a prettier woman…one that deserves someone great, someone like you? Or maybe she deserves AJ just like Shelly does…”
The people around me know what I am doing, they see me, and avoid me. They know my mind is working its way to insanity. Because all it takes is one bad day…and I’ve had my share. So has Angel, so has Burns and Nero. We all have had our bad days…the kind of days that will drive you mad, as the guilt from things you can’t take back eats away at you like a cancer. The coat is too hot, too hot in the midday sun, so I slowly take it off, and set it in the grass next to me. I pick up a picture of my wife…looking at it I know what I must do. I crumple the photo up, and throw it as far from me as possible. I can’t bear to look at her, I can’t bear the guilt.
“They say madness is like gravity, all it takes is a little PUSH. And Angel, you keep PUSHING and PUSHING until there are no other options left. You’ve made me realize that with my family I am weak…so maybe I need to sacrifice them. Maybe I need to throw them as far from me as possible, and stop talking to them, and just ignore them the rest of my life like you ignored yours. Perhaps your way is the ONLY way and whatever path I was trying to do, the NORMAL path…it doesn’t work. The only way is MADNESS and INSANITY and now I come to join you, Burns, and Nero on the path to Picture Perfect and the bloodbath that will come to light. See, I am coming closer and closer to this realization that in order to beat you, Angel, I must BECOME you. Right? You can’t beat them…join them. So you are mad…you are insane. Maybe in order to have a CHANCE I must be insane, too. Maybe I was ALWAYS insane…”
The twisted cackle that leaves my lips is not my own…but the thing that has been hiding within me. The thing that three people helped to unleash, my partner…and my opponents. There are no other options. And the fans of nCw and non-fans alike all see this man, in a suit, looking like an average well-to-do businessman…laughing like a madman. Because I am mad…and madness has followed me from my job at Apple…all the way to nCw. Because before I was here, I was insane. I was slowly unraveling and one bad day from showing up with an assault rifle and going POSTAL. Now…Postal only gets me disqualified. Now…Postal is just another way of saying “He just went back to what he does best.” Now…Postal is me harkening back to the matches I had with Homeless Harold for the Xtreme Championship I held for just 2 weeks shy of the record that Sexy Jason has. I begin to unbutton my shirt; unveiling the many scars I received in my “better days” when I was “more faceable”.
“You want to see the OLD Bates, Angel? You want me to be as good as or better than I was last time we faced? Physically, I am better. Physically I have no injuries as they all are healed. Physically…I’m BETTER THAN EVER! Look at these wounds that were still fresh when we last faced. Wounds you could use to your advantage to get a one-up over me. And even with all those injuries…did I NOT give you one of your best matches ever? Did you NOT have to tell Kelly Fox and your Revolution buddies to go away so you could win it FAIRLY? They thought I had you, so many times…and now I am at full health, and just as INSANE as you are. I don’t see ghosts…I don’t need to. I don’t need to HALLUCINATE…no…I just need to be me, Kristoff Liam Bates…PERFECTLY NORMAL, right? But I’ve NEVER been NORMAL to you. I’ve been a FREAK to everyone. The FREAK that has this family that had to walk around him because he had such a short fuse. The FREAK that was always just a little bit short of unleashing his fury upon unsuspecting opponents and regular people alike. What you are going to get…Angel…for badgering me to be PERFECTLY NORMAL Kristoff Liam Bates again…to be BETTER than before…is not what you want, no. You’re going to get something so much…more. I’m going to give you a fight…not because YOU want it…but because all these lovely people in Des Moines that will show up…want to see me kick your teeth down your throat and give you a REASON to stop smiling like a psychotic fool.”
Again, I laugh like a loon. I feel sanity slipping from my grasp as I fully take off my shirt. Though it is only in the sixties, I feel like it could be over ninety degrees outside. I am sweating, beads forming on my forehead and soaking through my shirt that I just had on. The tie, my coat, and my shirt all sit next to me on the grass. And I look around…people are looking at me like I am insane, yet I laugh harder. I laugh so hard my sides hurt. I laugh so hard the Devil can hear me…so hard that ANGEL can hear me as he plans some more mind games for me. But I don’t care…they can think me INSANE, but I am PERFECTLY NORMAL. Everything in MY WORLD is PERFECTLY NORMAL. And Angel…is just another FREAK for me to punish. Another FREAK to put in his place.
“You want the best I can be, Angel? You want PERFECTLY NORMAL Kristoff Liam Bates? Well don’t worry, you’re going to get him…you are going to get ALL OF HIM!”
And I will show you…once and for all…what PERFECTLY NORMAL can do. I will show you all, that I am just as INSANE as NORMAL needs to be to win. And that, like gravity…all it took to get me here was a LITTLE PUSH!
“Angel, you were right…my wife and family held me back. I was stupid to ignore the great and mighty Angel, the man who let his wife run off with AJ Phoenix. But that’s fine…I learned my lesson, right? You think? I mean…I am just as NORMAL now as I have ever been, right? I’ve never been a FREAK to you…right? Or am I just speaking about the thoughts I know you and everyone has in your heads. After what you saw on Collision last week, the fans hate me; they think I have gone MAD. That…I have lost my mind. And maybe…I was faking sanity for so long, it’s made me insane. Maybe…all it took was one bad day to drive me over the cliff I was desperately clinging onto, pretending things made sense and God was up in heaven watching over me, making sure everything was going to turn out fine. Maybe…you are right, Angel. Maybe God is dead. Maybe God stopped caring and threw me to the cruel hands of Fate…what if EVERYTHING YOU SAID were TRUE?”
Oh how sad would that be, Angel? For you to be right? For you to ALWAYS be right about me? To know that deep down, I was always going to be worse than you, that you will always beat me. That as my mind slowly unravels beneath the calm exterior you are sitting, laughing at me behind that sly smile of yours, kissing my WIFE in her HOSPITAL BED…yes…you’re just doing everything in your power to drive me over the edge. To push me further where Burns had put me before. I was on the edge…and now I’m sweating again. My suit is getting stiff around my body, and the tie I am wearing is just a LITTLE too TIGHT.
“Oh how sad, Angel…how sad it would be to be me right now, right? I mean…you kissed my wife while she slept in the hospital. How they even let you in…is beyond me. I know you want me to just leave…to go back to the life I had before. To go back to Apple in Sunnyvale and beg Steve Jobs for my job back. Take a pay cut, start from the bottom of the ladder again and climb my way up once more…taking another 7 years to get where I was? Hating everything I did? You want me to slowly unravel until this time I finally do go to work one day…with an Armalite AR-10 carbine gas-powered semi-automatic weapon, pumping round after round into colleagues and co-workers. You see, Angel, you want me to turn into the psychotic FREAK you always saw me as…and maybe its working. Maybe every single threatening thing I said before to you was just a farce as I slowly unwind while being taken down one peg at a time by your insults and mind games until there is nothing left but the shell of a man that is not even worthy enough to get into the ring with you on Sunday so you have nothing more to do than just push me over and pin me. Isn’t that what you want? Just another EASY WIN for the man known as Angel…you don’t give a **** about the fans, I have SEEN the way you and Burns look at them, and you don’t CARE about them.”
No, you don’t, and as I slowly loosen the tie around my neck I think of choking Angel to death with it for kissing my sleeping wife. If I was him…I’d use my tie to choke AJ to death…watching his life slowly slip away from him as his eyes grew cold and dead. And then I’d release just in time to let him catch a big breath or two before doing it again…and again…until he was so weakened by the lack of oxygen to his brain in such bursts his eyes begin to bleed and he dies from cerebral hematoma.
“I look around me, in this calm and sequestered park in the outskirts of Des Moines and I see people, people who might even recognize me from nCw. But they don’t’ come over here asking for my autograph like they used to. They remember what happened on Sunday…and the week before. They think I might hurt them, that I’d blame them for what happened to my wife. But I blame myself, Angel, I do. It was my fault for it all, right? Everything is MY FAULT. Another shove toward the cliff…another shove toward MADNESS. I never could find a way to properly punish myself for the things that I did to my wife…even before this, I was such a bastard to her, she deserves better…maybe she deserves YOU, right Angel? You lost your wife to AJ and now you want a new woman…a prettier woman…one that deserves someone great, someone like you? Or maybe she deserves AJ just like Shelly does…”
The people around me know what I am doing, they see me, and avoid me. They know my mind is working its way to insanity. Because all it takes is one bad day…and I’ve had my share. So has Angel, so has Burns and Nero. We all have had our bad days…the kind of days that will drive you mad, as the guilt from things you can’t take back eats away at you like a cancer. The coat is too hot, too hot in the midday sun, so I slowly take it off, and set it in the grass next to me. I pick up a picture of my wife…looking at it I know what I must do. I crumple the photo up, and throw it as far from me as possible. I can’t bear to look at her, I can’t bear the guilt.
“They say madness is like gravity, all it takes is a little PUSH. And Angel, you keep PUSHING and PUSHING until there are no other options left. You’ve made me realize that with my family I am weak…so maybe I need to sacrifice them. Maybe I need to throw them as far from me as possible, and stop talking to them, and just ignore them the rest of my life like you ignored yours. Perhaps your way is the ONLY way and whatever path I was trying to do, the NORMAL path…it doesn’t work. The only way is MADNESS and INSANITY and now I come to join you, Burns, and Nero on the path to Picture Perfect and the bloodbath that will come to light. See, I am coming closer and closer to this realization that in order to beat you, Angel, I must BECOME you. Right? You can’t beat them…join them. So you are mad…you are insane. Maybe in order to have a CHANCE I must be insane, too. Maybe I was ALWAYS insane…”
The twisted cackle that leaves my lips is not my own…but the thing that has been hiding within me. The thing that three people helped to unleash, my partner…and my opponents. There are no other options. And the fans of nCw and non-fans alike all see this man, in a suit, looking like an average well-to-do businessman…laughing like a madman. Because I am mad…and madness has followed me from my job at Apple…all the way to nCw. Because before I was here, I was insane. I was slowly unraveling and one bad day from showing up with an assault rifle and going POSTAL. Now…Postal only gets me disqualified. Now…Postal is just another way of saying “He just went back to what he does best.” Now…Postal is me harkening back to the matches I had with Homeless Harold for the Xtreme Championship I held for just 2 weeks shy of the record that Sexy Jason has. I begin to unbutton my shirt; unveiling the many scars I received in my “better days” when I was “more faceable”.
“You want to see the OLD Bates, Angel? You want me to be as good as or better than I was last time we faced? Physically, I am better. Physically I have no injuries as they all are healed. Physically…I’m BETTER THAN EVER! Look at these wounds that were still fresh when we last faced. Wounds you could use to your advantage to get a one-up over me. And even with all those injuries…did I NOT give you one of your best matches ever? Did you NOT have to tell Kelly Fox and your Revolution buddies to go away so you could win it FAIRLY? They thought I had you, so many times…and now I am at full health, and just as INSANE as you are. I don’t see ghosts…I don’t need to. I don’t need to HALLUCINATE…no…I just need to be me, Kristoff Liam Bates…PERFECTLY NORMAL, right? But I’ve NEVER been NORMAL to you. I’ve been a FREAK to everyone. The FREAK that has this family that had to walk around him because he had such a short fuse. The FREAK that was always just a little bit short of unleashing his fury upon unsuspecting opponents and regular people alike. What you are going to get…Angel…for badgering me to be PERFECTLY NORMAL Kristoff Liam Bates again…to be BETTER than before…is not what you want, no. You’re going to get something so much…more. I’m going to give you a fight…not because YOU want it…but because all these lovely people in Des Moines that will show up…want to see me kick your teeth down your throat and give you a REASON to stop smiling like a psychotic fool.”
Again, I laugh like a loon. I feel sanity slipping from my grasp as I fully take off my shirt. Though it is only in the sixties, I feel like it could be over ninety degrees outside. I am sweating, beads forming on my forehead and soaking through my shirt that I just had on. The tie, my coat, and my shirt all sit next to me on the grass. And I look around…people are looking at me like I am insane, yet I laugh harder. I laugh so hard my sides hurt. I laugh so hard the Devil can hear me…so hard that ANGEL can hear me as he plans some more mind games for me. But I don’t care…they can think me INSANE, but I am PERFECTLY NORMAL. Everything in MY WORLD is PERFECTLY NORMAL. And Angel…is just another FREAK for me to punish. Another FREAK to put in his place.
“You want the best I can be, Angel? You want PERFECTLY NORMAL Kristoff Liam Bates? Well don’t worry, you’re going to get him…you are going to get ALL OF HIM!”
And I will show you…once and for all…what PERFECTLY NORMAL can do. I will show you all, that I am just as INSANE as NORMAL needs to be to win. And that, like gravity…all it took to get me here was a LITTLE PUSH!