Post by Cyrus Daniels on Jul 21, 2012 9:54:27 GMT -6
The scene opens with a tight focus on a photograph of Cyrus Daniels with a young brunette woman unfamiliar to nCw audiences and almost everybody else the outside world, the world that lay beyond these four walls, the world that stretched far beyond the reach of a confined man:
It may very well be true that a picture is worth a thousand words, but what happens if each of those thousand words turn out to be lies? A thousand of the sweetest whispers soured by a thousand apples? A thousand intimate memories betrayed by a thousand insincere kisses.
The world looked upon this picture and they saw in their blissful ignorance what he once saw in his own, a perfect couple, inseparable and oh so very much in love. The world looked at this photograph and instantly bought her lies, just as he once had.
It would be as hard for the world to accept this picture of innocence as anything other than what it seemed, as it had been for him to accept that their love was nothing but a painted veil under which she had hidden the truth for so long.
It is said that the camera never lies, I disagree. It is not that the camera never lies, it is that when it does, it does so damn convincingly. Don't believe me? Here...
The camera then shifts to show Cyrus look up at the camera from the photograph with a big smile on his face, presumably from whatever sweet memories that beautiful photograph in his hands had stirred up within him. Memories the rest of us would never be an audience to because our perceptions were limited by the lens of a camera.
So it seems that somebody in the nCw offices heard my rant from last week, and they finally decided to mix it up a little, to shake things up and give Stephen and I the competition I have desired ever since I got a little bored with being caught up in the Forgotten International tag team title hunt.
It is nice to be surprised every now and then, to break away from the status quo, to do something unexpected, after all a dog can only run in circles for so long before it goes back to burying bare bones in the backyard.
Like it or not, that really is all men like Andrew Jacobsen and Xavier Williams are to me - the bare bones of what once was considered great, ex Champions most notably renowned for their accomplishments in an X-Division. I don't know whose bright idea it was to make a match with four men synonomous with being labelled with an 'ex' something or other, but clearly their gifts are being wasted in the booking offices of nCw.
Andrew, a few weeks ago I saw you defeat my partner Stephen Kingsley, and doubtless you'd like to think that gives you some sort of advantage this week, but before you even try to hang that "victory"...
Cyrus deliberately makes a point of emphasising the finger quotes.
...as some sort of noose around my neck, consider the fact that I'm more than equipped to cut through that particular rope and I don't even need to bring my favourite knife. Kingsley made a mistake, you capitalised on it - nothing more, and if you insist on finding glory for yourself from somebody else's mistakes, then perhaps you should seek a job as a lawyer instead, something tells me you'd fit right in with those incompetent bastards.
Regardless, the records show that you do have a victory over my partner, and that may well be enough validation for a guy like you to get by in this business, clearly you will take glory wherever you can find it these days, and after how far you've fallen in this company, who can blame you for making the most of your victories - even the ones that were inadvertently gift-wrapped for you?
You know mate, with your attitude being what it is, I really have to wonder what that Xavier bloke makes of your victory over him. Weren't you the one who spoiled the poor bastard's return? Did you savour that victory too? Interesting isn't it? Just how does a proud man like Xavier bring himself to team with a man who took a piss over his big moment? Just how do you put a kick to the chops behind you and still have the desire to watch out for the man who delivered it?
I couldn't. I wouldn't. But then perhaps nobody would expect a man like me to, I am a criminal after all, I'm the bad guy who has never known what the right thing to do is, right? And in Xavier's shoes, I still wouldn't know what the right thing to do was. In the end I guess it'd all come down to whether my mission to restore my reputation really could take a back seat to my wounded pride for one match, for one week, for one more ultimately inconsequential victory.
As much as I'd love to be able to answer that question for you Xavier, I cannot - only you know how much your ego was shattered by that superkick and whether sending a message that you won't be oppressed any longer by a white man who thinks he is superior to you and in his mind has already proven it, really is not worth as much as standing side by side and allowing him to carry you to some sort of tainted victory.
You may not like it or even accept it Xavier, but sometimes the truth really is that black and white. Would you rather stand shoulder to shoulder with a man who had no qualms about shutting you down or will you stand alone - a proud black man in an industry already notorious with not celebrating enough of its black talent? Even if you somehow beat us on Sunday, what will it ultimately prove?
Nothing.
It'll just be paraded and promoted as another staple of nCw's policy on racial equality - the picture perfect example of black and white brothers in arms, it looks nice, it sells, but haven't you had enough of being that token black guy Xavier? Don't you wish people would hold you up as just another example of a champion rather than as the prime example of a black champion?
Don't you get as frustrated as I do by the labels people put on you, the assumptions they make, the stereotypes they expect you to play into? The ignorance of these people should frustrate you Xavier, because you and I know you're not the walking caricature of your race that Todd Williams has proven himself to be. There's so much more to you than catchphrases and cliches.
With Todd Williams heading out the door after this Pay Per View, you can be the shining example to your people Xavier, they can finally have somebody to be proud of again, somebody to look up to, to idolise and hold up as their role model without fear of ridicule or reprisal.
Whether you want to be that man as a company guy who'll stand in line when they tell him to or whether you want to be that man as a guy who stands out...
Well, that much is up to you mate.
Cyrus pauses and pulls out a gold lighter from his trouser pocket, he turned it over in his gloved hand and read the inscription.
I love you Cy. V.
A relic from a time long since passed, a life lost - a life where he indulged in the poisons as each cigarette slowly choked the years away from him. The filthy habit had impressed her so much that she had walked up to him in that bar and asked him for a light.
That was how they had met - over the flickering flame of his silver lighter, which it turned out sparked not only their first post sexual cigarette on that night but their entire affair for many months afterwards.
This lighter was not the same one, this one she had brought him for his birthday, a small, simple gift but oh so appropriate it seemed.
Now so many things had changed, so many years had passed and since coming to America he had decided to try and kick the habit, all in an effort to distance himself from a life he knew could no longer exist, to purge himself of the poisons that she represented.
Stephen Kingsley had been surprisingly instrumental in keeping him away from the cigarettes, citing the fact that they were no longer the preferred currency of their new lives.
Cyrus watched the lighter come to life in the palm of his hand, and as he fed the edge of the photograph to the hungry flame, he enjoyed the poetry of the moment. A lighter started the lies. Now a lighter would end them.
A picture perfect end to a love affair that had been anything but.
The flames quickly licked the side of her face and for all too brief a moment, Cyrus saw the ugly truth behind such a pretty face, he savoured it - allowed it to be burned into his memory...before everything else around it became ash....
And for all too brief a moment, we felt the genuine smile emerge across Cyrus' lips, and it unsettled us, it seemed somehow unnatural, we were so much happier when the camera had lied to us.
It may very well be true that a picture is worth a thousand words, but what happens if each of those thousand words turn out to be lies? A thousand of the sweetest whispers soured by a thousand apples? A thousand intimate memories betrayed by a thousand insincere kisses.
The world looked upon this picture and they saw in their blissful ignorance what he once saw in his own, a perfect couple, inseparable and oh so very much in love. The world looked at this photograph and instantly bought her lies, just as he once had.
It would be as hard for the world to accept this picture of innocence as anything other than what it seemed, as it had been for him to accept that their love was nothing but a painted veil under which she had hidden the truth for so long.
It is said that the camera never lies, I disagree. It is not that the camera never lies, it is that when it does, it does so damn convincingly. Don't believe me? Here...
The camera then shifts to show Cyrus look up at the camera from the photograph with a big smile on his face, presumably from whatever sweet memories that beautiful photograph in his hands had stirred up within him. Memories the rest of us would never be an audience to because our perceptions were limited by the lens of a camera.
So it seems that somebody in the nCw offices heard my rant from last week, and they finally decided to mix it up a little, to shake things up and give Stephen and I the competition I have desired ever since I got a little bored with being caught up in the Forgotten International tag team title hunt.
It is nice to be surprised every now and then, to break away from the status quo, to do something unexpected, after all a dog can only run in circles for so long before it goes back to burying bare bones in the backyard.
Like it or not, that really is all men like Andrew Jacobsen and Xavier Williams are to me - the bare bones of what once was considered great, ex Champions most notably renowned for their accomplishments in an X-Division. I don't know whose bright idea it was to make a match with four men synonomous with being labelled with an 'ex' something or other, but clearly their gifts are being wasted in the booking offices of nCw.
Andrew, a few weeks ago I saw you defeat my partner Stephen Kingsley, and doubtless you'd like to think that gives you some sort of advantage this week, but before you even try to hang that "victory"...
Cyrus deliberately makes a point of emphasising the finger quotes.
...as some sort of noose around my neck, consider the fact that I'm more than equipped to cut through that particular rope and I don't even need to bring my favourite knife. Kingsley made a mistake, you capitalised on it - nothing more, and if you insist on finding glory for yourself from somebody else's mistakes, then perhaps you should seek a job as a lawyer instead, something tells me you'd fit right in with those incompetent bastards.
Regardless, the records show that you do have a victory over my partner, and that may well be enough validation for a guy like you to get by in this business, clearly you will take glory wherever you can find it these days, and after how far you've fallen in this company, who can blame you for making the most of your victories - even the ones that were inadvertently gift-wrapped for you?
You know mate, with your attitude being what it is, I really have to wonder what that Xavier bloke makes of your victory over him. Weren't you the one who spoiled the poor bastard's return? Did you savour that victory too? Interesting isn't it? Just how does a proud man like Xavier bring himself to team with a man who took a piss over his big moment? Just how do you put a kick to the chops behind you and still have the desire to watch out for the man who delivered it?
I couldn't. I wouldn't. But then perhaps nobody would expect a man like me to, I am a criminal after all, I'm the bad guy who has never known what the right thing to do is, right? And in Xavier's shoes, I still wouldn't know what the right thing to do was. In the end I guess it'd all come down to whether my mission to restore my reputation really could take a back seat to my wounded pride for one match, for one week, for one more ultimately inconsequential victory.
As much as I'd love to be able to answer that question for you Xavier, I cannot - only you know how much your ego was shattered by that superkick and whether sending a message that you won't be oppressed any longer by a white man who thinks he is superior to you and in his mind has already proven it, really is not worth as much as standing side by side and allowing him to carry you to some sort of tainted victory.
You may not like it or even accept it Xavier, but sometimes the truth really is that black and white. Would you rather stand shoulder to shoulder with a man who had no qualms about shutting you down or will you stand alone - a proud black man in an industry already notorious with not celebrating enough of its black talent? Even if you somehow beat us on Sunday, what will it ultimately prove?
Nothing.
It'll just be paraded and promoted as another staple of nCw's policy on racial equality - the picture perfect example of black and white brothers in arms, it looks nice, it sells, but haven't you had enough of being that token black guy Xavier? Don't you wish people would hold you up as just another example of a champion rather than as the prime example of a black champion?
Don't you get as frustrated as I do by the labels people put on you, the assumptions they make, the stereotypes they expect you to play into? The ignorance of these people should frustrate you Xavier, because you and I know you're not the walking caricature of your race that Todd Williams has proven himself to be. There's so much more to you than catchphrases and cliches.
With Todd Williams heading out the door after this Pay Per View, you can be the shining example to your people Xavier, they can finally have somebody to be proud of again, somebody to look up to, to idolise and hold up as their role model without fear of ridicule or reprisal.
Whether you want to be that man as a company guy who'll stand in line when they tell him to or whether you want to be that man as a guy who stands out...
Well, that much is up to you mate.
Cyrus pauses and pulls out a gold lighter from his trouser pocket, he turned it over in his gloved hand and read the inscription.
I love you Cy. V.
A relic from a time long since passed, a life lost - a life where he indulged in the poisons as each cigarette slowly choked the years away from him. The filthy habit had impressed her so much that she had walked up to him in that bar and asked him for a light.
That was how they had met - over the flickering flame of his silver lighter, which it turned out sparked not only their first post sexual cigarette on that night but their entire affair for many months afterwards.
This lighter was not the same one, this one she had brought him for his birthday, a small, simple gift but oh so appropriate it seemed.
Now so many things had changed, so many years had passed and since coming to America he had decided to try and kick the habit, all in an effort to distance himself from a life he knew could no longer exist, to purge himself of the poisons that she represented.
Stephen Kingsley had been surprisingly instrumental in keeping him away from the cigarettes, citing the fact that they were no longer the preferred currency of their new lives.
Cyrus watched the lighter come to life in the palm of his hand, and as he fed the edge of the photograph to the hungry flame, he enjoyed the poetry of the moment. A lighter started the lies. Now a lighter would end them.
A picture perfect end to a love affair that had been anything but.
The flames quickly licked the side of her face and for all too brief a moment, Cyrus saw the ugly truth behind such a pretty face, he savoured it - allowed it to be burned into his memory...before everything else around it became ash....
And for all too brief a moment, we felt the genuine smile emerge across Cyrus' lips, and it unsettled us, it seemed somehow unnatural, we were so much happier when the camera had lied to us.
