Post by provocateur on Oct 2, 2019 0:51:03 GMT -5
Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
Tick.... tock.
Tick………………. tock.
Time seemingly crawled to a stop as the golden pendulum of a wall clock with exquisite workmanship swung back and forth. The hypnotizing nature of this brought a sense of calm over Arthur Pleasant when not much else did. Not even prescription medication. Not even… self-medicating. In fact, anything with a harmonic oscillator present in its basic mechanics did the trick fairly easily, one could say.
But this clock? There was something special about the way this clock worked. It transcended the inherent functionality of telling time and put Arthur’s ever-racing mind at an infinite ease.
“Arthur?”, called a man sitting adjacent in a ridiculous looking orange “S-Chair” in what looked like a psychiatrist's office. Those Danish really had bizarre taste in interior design, don’t they?
The aforementioned man sat with his legs crossed, and a pen held firmly in his right hand mere nanometers from a notepad. The back of the notepad? Blurred out. The man’s face? Blurred out.
“Yes, Doc?”, Arthur calmly answered without breaking his concentration from the wall clock. Eyes heavy. A warm smile remained on his face.
The Doctor, whose face and backing of his notepad remained blurred, said nothing in return. The oddness of this Doctor’s censoring remained at the forefront of our internal conversations. Since no name was apparent and the fact that I have just been instructed, as your narrator, by our promotional video director to name this guy? His name, now until the end of time, shall be Dr. Longshiv. Sound good? Fantastic! Moving on, now.
“You still with me, Arthur? I… thought I lost you for a second.”, Dr. Longshiv continued.
“No, no. I’m here, Doc. Never been more “here” than right now. Don’t you worry a single solitary silly second about me, Doc!”, he said with a boyish chuckle at the end.
“Well, I would be committing malpractice if I did not tell you that I am concerned, Arthur.”
“Concerned?”
“Yes.”
“About?”
Dr. Longshiv paused. A hand reached up into the circular distortion and removed what could now be seen as a pair of bi-focals. Sighing, he continued.
“Well for starters, you’ve been missing appointments. Secondly, you’re telling me that you’ve stopped taking your medications.”
“That’s right.”
“But WHY, is the obvious question? We’ve been through this. You need to regulate your meds for your [censored due to HIPPA guidelines] disorder. Not to mention the [censored due to HIPPA guidelines] for the [censored due to HIPPA guidelines] and the [censored due to HIPPA guidelines] inhibitors for… you know.”
“I’m okay, Doc. Trust me.”
“I don’t believe you ARE okay, though. That’s the point! That’s why we’re sitting here RIGHT now. That’s why I’ve been admonishing you on your lack of focus on attending our appointments and taking your meds.”
Through the censored bubble attached to Dr. Longshiv’s facade like a facehugger to an expendable space marine, it was easy to tell that he just facepalmed.
“I’m… concerned.”
“Right, Doc.”
He giggled.
“Do you ever get tired of patients calling you Doc, Doc? Oh shit, that was a double whammy!!”
He continued to giggle. The frustration that appeared on Dr. Longshiv’s face had never been more apparent.
“Don’t change the-”
Arthur snapped out of his daydream-like reverie and sat up. Cold. Unblinking. Eyes bloodshot. A smile as empty and wide as a black hole. You could practically see the red outlines of the synapses in his brain that were firing magnificently in all directions. This took Dr. Longshiv aback, needless to say.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound aggressive.”
“Then why are you?”
Before another word could be uttered from either party, the broadcast went to static.
Sitting “criss-cross tomato sauce” on hardwood flooring was once again Arthur Pleasant. This time, he looked rather… incomplete? Maybe that’s the word? He rocked back and forth to the thumping sounds of acid jazz coming from a dusty old tape recorder in the corner of a, shall we say, very peculiar room? Yes… yes a VERY peculiar room, indeed. The confined space was made up of a mere 8 by 8 square space with dirty, spotted mirrors surrounding him from floor to ceiling. Shirtless and with his back exposed to our view, tattoos of an unknown etymology could pierce the attention of even the most hardened one’s gaze.
It was then that Arthur, this time revealing an emaciated figure as opposed to being fully clothed on the couch with Dr. Longshiv, pressed a single button on the recorder.
The music stopped surreptitiously before his voice called out.
“Hi!”, erupted from his lips. After a long pause, he continued with, “My name is Arthur! And I’m so… pleased… so VERY pleased to meet you!”
Arthur hit the eject button and removed the cassette tape. Cassettes? In 2019?! The sheer insanity of it all! Blowing into the bottom of said tape as if it were an NES cartridge that had stopped working some time ago, he turned it around and reinserted it back into the player. Wiping off some dust bunnies that had collected on top of miniature holes from the inevitable surface cracks all along the built-in speaker, he pushed play.
A loud “HI!” bellowed back from the tape recorder, followed by canned laughter from what could only be described as an old recording of a live studio audience.
With a sparse amount of body fat adding to an already disagreeable physique that been long bereft of any definition, his ashen skin coiled and stretched with each back and forth movement of his rocking. This gave the uneven, amateurishly drawn tattoos across his body an almost lifelike countenance to them - especially the ones with crudely crafted faces to them. Amidst the dimly lit ambience created by the trifecta of exposed hanging bulbs that hung directly over Arthur, he continued on with a soft-spoken demeanor.
“It’s moments like these that become engraved in our minds forever. Hehe..heh.”
Snapping his fingers in conjunction to the beat of “Nite and Day” by Ronny Jordan, (Ah! THAT’s the song we heard before he switched it to the B-Side!), Arthur soulfully continued rocking back and forth to the preserved audio coming from the audience on tape.
Eyes shut. Nostrils flaring. Arthur was “in the moment”, for sure.
“I’m not just talking about first impressions, either. No, no, noooo. While they are equally important, surely, what I mean, specifically, is the sound of something new. In particular, my… voice. This voice!! Just listen!!”
He raised his arms suggestively. As if to imply that he was not speaking directly about the words coming from his vocal cords, but rather the provocative environment he had thus created with his mannerisms.
“Hi!! My name is Arthur Pleasant!! I know… I know I said this already, but I wanted to make sure you really, REALLY heard me!! Just in case you were distracted by my appearance or… whatever else may be on your mind right about now.
Look, I get it. I DON’T look like your cookie cutter, prototypical athlete! I’m... actually kinda gross, or I’ve been told. But that’s a-okay with me. I don’t mind being judged. Besides, it’s kind of refreshing, ain’t it? All these chest puffing, performance enhanced, washboard abs walking around in Alpha Pro-Wrestling, you might forget what a REAL person actually looks like!”
He sucked back some phlegm that had built up in the back of his throat and made it look like he was going to spit it at the camera just before swallowing it. Giggling, he wiped the tears in his eyes that had formed involuntarily from his gag reflex.
"But I digress. I’m new here, folks. And soon you will discover that things like being judged for my shoddy appearance and lack of decorum do not matter to me. Because at the end of the day… DON’T YOU JUST LOVE MEETING NEW PEOPLE!? But… relax. I won’t bore you with the miserable details and empty minutiae of what could and would only be perceived as a pathetic origin story.”
The eloquence of his words flowed like wine.
“Because, well, let’s be honest with each other: nobody gives a fuck about that stuff. People care about the here and now. People care about the, “What are you going to do for us?”’s, and “What do you think you can do for me?”s. No matter where you go in life. Work. Home. Sporting events. School. Or even... your local O-B-G-Y-N! Right, Jaice!? Oh shit, sorry. I forgot. That doesn’t even pertain to you anymore. Moving on from that awkwardness!!”
He pressed another button on the tape recorder, which brought about the zippity-zip-zip-zipperoo sounds of a tape fast forwarding. As if he had it down to a science, Arthur pushed another button and the sounds of… crickets!? Yes, crickets, began emanating from the tape recorder. What in the actual fuck.
“If the BATMAN franchise couldn’t draw enough interest from the audience to inspire Warner Bros. to give the greenlight on yet ANOTHER origin story, then why would little ole ME even bother entertaining the same idea!? Look… I am many things. A man… obviously. Curiously though, I am a man looking to find his sure footing in life after enduring enough unfortunate events that would make even Lemony Snicket feel uncomfortable.”
He laughed… which, to be honest, sounded more like a snarl than anything.
“Stay with me, now. I pwomise I’m not wambling without a point to dwive home!”
He cracked his neck in one complete, fluid motion without even having to use his hands like most mere mortals.
“See, I’m not a God. I’m not a legend, either. Hell, I’m not even an icon! I’m not… any of those… awful… inhibitive things… and nor do I EVER want to be. I am a man, plain and simple.. But…
… I am also, as chance would have it, a provocateur.
Do you know what that is? In its simplest of meanings, it’s basically someone who thrives in the bad shit. And wouldn’t you know it, the bad shit just seems to follow me no matter where I go! But, that’s okay. It’s my own fault. I am my own can opener of worms. I just… haha… I thrive on all that bad shit!!
That’s why my next stop… my next stop is a fucking wrestling ring. Of all places, golly gee fuck nips! Where I can take on the “bad shit” mono-y-mono. Where the “bad shit” can explode after I dropkick it into the front row and introduce the masses to my unmitigated brand of absurdity and chaos.
And…. Jaaaaaaaice… that’s why you’ve been brought to me!
Mm. Deeeeeelicious.”
Arthur began ascending from his Indian style position on the floor and swatted one of the light bulbs hanging with just enough force that it flickered erratically for a few seconds.
“In short, Mr. I-Lost-My-Last-Five-Matches-In-A-Row-But-I-Still-Call-Myself-A-Fucking-Legend, I’ll start off by saying this:
You.
Are.
FUCKED.
And not only are you FUCKED, but you’re DOUBLE fucked. Hard. In Latin, that means “la-fucked-us, el-fucked-un”. No need to look it up for factual accuracies. You can trust me on that one. Pinky swear!
And you’re not just fucking fucked for the sake of being fucking fucked. No, Mr. Icon. Not at all. You’re fucking fucked because, well, to put it plainly? You drew the short straw from the broom-of-doom that old lady Fate is holding and now you find yourself battling against someone that’s quite possibly unlike anything you’ve EVER battled before. Yes, in your WHOOOOOLE self-documented and self-aggrandized career. Period. Or would that be a hashtag these days? Eye, Dee, Kay!?”
Arthur brought his hands together while silently mouthing “real talk” for the Millenials. Wait, wasn't he a Millenial!? Does he even KNOW what a Millenial is!? Regardless of our pondering, he raised his hand upwards again and this time it swatted at the middle bulb. Shit. This one instantly smashed to pieces. From the bowling split-esque effect of the two outside lights shining down on his hand, a crimson effulgence began trickling down his hand. Arthur stared at the wound for a moment in an almost trance-like stupor. After coughing from the residue that made its way from the bulb interior down into his esophagus, he continued.
Not without a glint of physical pain glistening in his eyes, though. The pain of being human was a SUPER bummer.
“Oof. Sorry about that. Got a little overzealous there. And no, that’s not me pumping myself up to look good for my MOST AWESOMEST DEBUT EVAAAAR! I don’t care what they think. Let ‘em believe that I’m just some shmuck with aspirations to be somebody special. Because what I profess? And how I put it into action? That’s the holiest of all cause and effect-laden truths you will EVER hear in your whole damn phantom-ass “career”.
Because… aw Geez Louise, Mr. Xtreme Guy. Damn. I can… I can already see it in your eyes. You’re shook. Like a fuckin’ crack baby who had the audacity to get in the way of its junkie Mother after shitting its diaper. Sorry for the metaphor. I know THAT one hits a little close to home! Or does it now?
But… seriously, though. Here’s the part where you have to be honest with yourself. You were hoping for a sprig of normalcy and got… me. Heh.
RAW. FUCKING. DEAL. BROH.
After losing so much and dealing with what I like to call coat hanger conspiracies, you were praying for an easy match so that you could continue spewing off at the mouth about your idiotic fucking legacy. You were goddamn SALIVATING at the thought of beating some poor newb half to death and catchin’ an easy ride in this tournament. But what did you just get in the last 5 minutes of listening to me? You got… laughed the fuck out of thy Heavenly Father’s golden crib. Going against someone who just doesn’t give a fuck.
About anything.”
Once again, he raised his hand, this time to the only bulb left that hadn’t been touched. Upon contact, it flew right off the silver conduit and shattered onto the floor.
“Not himself...”
Going back to the original bulb, he swung at it again. Stubborn bastard STILL wouldn’t break.
“Not his own well being....
… and least of all… you, Jaice. Well, maybe not LEAST of all. Heh.”
He swung harder… and the damn thing STILL didn’t break! Arthur sighed, and with a bloody hand, he sat back down Indian style.
“Because let’s take a look at those parasites you so OBVIOUSLY crave blandishment from, Fuck Boi. The bootlickers... the fucking SYCOPHANTS who inhabit every town, big or small, in this decaying society of ours. No, I leave the caring of THAT eye-rolling bullshit up to feeble-minded morons like you.
You… the simulacrum.”
With his bleeding fingertips, he began to write spirals into the hardwood flooring as if his own flesh were the ink dipped points of a feather pen.
“That’s right. You… are… the simulacrum. The physical manifestation of what the pandering blowhards in this world want to accomplish. The vomit soaked effigy of someone who actually wants to lift up the depressed, dead-eyed, medication induced masses.
Well, you can have it, Mr. Godcore FuckHard LegendTwitter HitHerInTheShitter. I’m just a mere prophet of truth who would prefer to assist in their own meaningless suicides than to… than to enable them.
Yeah. I’m talking to you, you fucking delusional…
… shit spewing…
… idotic...
... enabling...
... perennial...
... fucking...
...LOSER.
You can have it all.
Well, I lied. You can have it all… except for one teensy-weensy little thing-a-ma-bobber.
Now, this is going to be a tough one to swallow because, like I so subtly intimated before, you’re on a string of bad luck as of late and no one is going to be calling you Mr. September any time soon.
You can have it all… except for this match.
Because that one? That one’s… mine, motherfucker.
…
See you on Monday, beautiful. Muah.
"
Static again. Jesus, production team. Bush league, I tell you! BUUUUSH!!
“I… don’t know. That was unpr-”
Arthur waved his hand, cutting him off immediately.
“Of course you don’t. You’re just like all the rest.”
Arthur helped himself up off of the couch he had been laying on and stood over Dr. Longshiv. Menacingly. Ugh. You could almost smell his anger.
“But that’s okay.”
He placed his hand on Dr. Longshiv’s censor bubble, thus censoring his own hand as well.
“I… forgive you.”
A kiss to the forehead, and Arthur saw his own way out of the office. But not before turning around and winking at Dr. Longshiv.
“This one’s for you, Doc.”
“Wait… what is? What are you talking about!?”
Arthur looked somewhat surprised. Raising his brow, he rubbed his scruffy chin a bit.
“Say, Doc. Do you have… Netflix?”
Static. And then?
Fade to black.
Tick.... tock.
Tick………………. tock.
Time seemingly crawled to a stop as the golden pendulum of a wall clock with exquisite workmanship swung back and forth. The hypnotizing nature of this brought a sense of calm over Arthur Pleasant when not much else did. Not even prescription medication. Not even… self-medicating. In fact, anything with a harmonic oscillator present in its basic mechanics did the trick fairly easily, one could say.
But this clock? There was something special about the way this clock worked. It transcended the inherent functionality of telling time and put Arthur’s ever-racing mind at an infinite ease.
“Arthur?”, called a man sitting adjacent in a ridiculous looking orange “S-Chair” in what looked like a psychiatrist's office. Those Danish really had bizarre taste in interior design, don’t they?
The aforementioned man sat with his legs crossed, and a pen held firmly in his right hand mere nanometers from a notepad. The back of the notepad? Blurred out. The man’s face? Blurred out.
“Yes, Doc?”, Arthur calmly answered without breaking his concentration from the wall clock. Eyes heavy. A warm smile remained on his face.
The Doctor, whose face and backing of his notepad remained blurred, said nothing in return. The oddness of this Doctor’s censoring remained at the forefront of our internal conversations. Since no name was apparent and the fact that I have just been instructed, as your narrator, by our promotional video director to name this guy? His name, now until the end of time, shall be Dr. Longshiv. Sound good? Fantastic! Moving on, now.
“You still with me, Arthur? I… thought I lost you for a second.”, Dr. Longshiv continued.
“No, no. I’m here, Doc. Never been more “here” than right now. Don’t you worry a single solitary silly second about me, Doc!”, he said with a boyish chuckle at the end.
“Well, I would be committing malpractice if I did not tell you that I am concerned, Arthur.”
“Concerned?”
“Yes.”
“About?”
Dr. Longshiv paused. A hand reached up into the circular distortion and removed what could now be seen as a pair of bi-focals. Sighing, he continued.
“Well for starters, you’ve been missing appointments. Secondly, you’re telling me that you’ve stopped taking your medications.”
“That’s right.”
“But WHY, is the obvious question? We’ve been through this. You need to regulate your meds for your [censored due to HIPPA guidelines] disorder. Not to mention the [censored due to HIPPA guidelines] for the [censored due to HIPPA guidelines] and the [censored due to HIPPA guidelines] inhibitors for… you know.”
“I’m okay, Doc. Trust me.”
“I don’t believe you ARE okay, though. That’s the point! That’s why we’re sitting here RIGHT now. That’s why I’ve been admonishing you on your lack of focus on attending our appointments and taking your meds.”
Through the censored bubble attached to Dr. Longshiv’s facade like a facehugger to an expendable space marine, it was easy to tell that he just facepalmed.
“I’m… concerned.”
“Right, Doc.”
He giggled.
“Do you ever get tired of patients calling you Doc, Doc? Oh shit, that was a double whammy!!”
He continued to giggle. The frustration that appeared on Dr. Longshiv’s face had never been more apparent.
“Don’t change the-”
Arthur snapped out of his daydream-like reverie and sat up. Cold. Unblinking. Eyes bloodshot. A smile as empty and wide as a black hole. You could practically see the red outlines of the synapses in his brain that were firing magnificently in all directions. This took Dr. Longshiv aback, needless to say.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound aggressive.”
“Then why are you?”
Before another word could be uttered from either party, the broadcast went to static.
Sitting “criss-cross tomato sauce” on hardwood flooring was once again Arthur Pleasant. This time, he looked rather… incomplete? Maybe that’s the word? He rocked back and forth to the thumping sounds of acid jazz coming from a dusty old tape recorder in the corner of a, shall we say, very peculiar room? Yes… yes a VERY peculiar room, indeed. The confined space was made up of a mere 8 by 8 square space with dirty, spotted mirrors surrounding him from floor to ceiling. Shirtless and with his back exposed to our view, tattoos of an unknown etymology could pierce the attention of even the most hardened one’s gaze.
It was then that Arthur, this time revealing an emaciated figure as opposed to being fully clothed on the couch with Dr. Longshiv, pressed a single button on the recorder.
The music stopped surreptitiously before his voice called out.
“Hi!”, erupted from his lips. After a long pause, he continued with, “My name is Arthur! And I’m so… pleased… so VERY pleased to meet you!”
Arthur hit the eject button and removed the cassette tape. Cassettes? In 2019?! The sheer insanity of it all! Blowing into the bottom of said tape as if it were an NES cartridge that had stopped working some time ago, he turned it around and reinserted it back into the player. Wiping off some dust bunnies that had collected on top of miniature holes from the inevitable surface cracks all along the built-in speaker, he pushed play.
A loud “HI!” bellowed back from the tape recorder, followed by canned laughter from what could only be described as an old recording of a live studio audience.
With a sparse amount of body fat adding to an already disagreeable physique that been long bereft of any definition, his ashen skin coiled and stretched with each back and forth movement of his rocking. This gave the uneven, amateurishly drawn tattoos across his body an almost lifelike countenance to them - especially the ones with crudely crafted faces to them. Amidst the dimly lit ambience created by the trifecta of exposed hanging bulbs that hung directly over Arthur, he continued on with a soft-spoken demeanor.
“It’s moments like these that become engraved in our minds forever. Hehe..heh.”
Snapping his fingers in conjunction to the beat of “Nite and Day” by Ronny Jordan, (Ah! THAT’s the song we heard before he switched it to the B-Side!), Arthur soulfully continued rocking back and forth to the preserved audio coming from the audience on tape.
Eyes shut. Nostrils flaring. Arthur was “in the moment”, for sure.
“I’m not just talking about first impressions, either. No, no, noooo. While they are equally important, surely, what I mean, specifically, is the sound of something new. In particular, my… voice. This voice!! Just listen!!”
He raised his arms suggestively. As if to imply that he was not speaking directly about the words coming from his vocal cords, but rather the provocative environment he had thus created with his mannerisms.
“Hi!! My name is Arthur Pleasant!! I know… I know I said this already, but I wanted to make sure you really, REALLY heard me!! Just in case you were distracted by my appearance or… whatever else may be on your mind right about now.
Look, I get it. I DON’T look like your cookie cutter, prototypical athlete! I’m... actually kinda gross, or I’ve been told. But that’s a-okay with me. I don’t mind being judged. Besides, it’s kind of refreshing, ain’t it? All these chest puffing, performance enhanced, washboard abs walking around in Alpha Pro-Wrestling, you might forget what a REAL person actually looks like!”
He sucked back some phlegm that had built up in the back of his throat and made it look like he was going to spit it at the camera just before swallowing it. Giggling, he wiped the tears in his eyes that had formed involuntarily from his gag reflex.
"But I digress. I’m new here, folks. And soon you will discover that things like being judged for my shoddy appearance and lack of decorum do not matter to me. Because at the end of the day… DON’T YOU JUST LOVE MEETING NEW PEOPLE!? But… relax. I won’t bore you with the miserable details and empty minutiae of what could and would only be perceived as a pathetic origin story.”
The eloquence of his words flowed like wine.
“Because, well, let’s be honest with each other: nobody gives a fuck about that stuff. People care about the here and now. People care about the, “What are you going to do for us?”’s, and “What do you think you can do for me?”s. No matter where you go in life. Work. Home. Sporting events. School. Or even... your local O-B-G-Y-N! Right, Jaice!? Oh shit, sorry. I forgot. That doesn’t even pertain to you anymore. Moving on from that awkwardness!!”
He pressed another button on the tape recorder, which brought about the zippity-zip-zip-zipperoo sounds of a tape fast forwarding. As if he had it down to a science, Arthur pushed another button and the sounds of… crickets!? Yes, crickets, began emanating from the tape recorder. What in the actual fuck.
“If the BATMAN franchise couldn’t draw enough interest from the audience to inspire Warner Bros. to give the greenlight on yet ANOTHER origin story, then why would little ole ME even bother entertaining the same idea!? Look… I am many things. A man… obviously. Curiously though, I am a man looking to find his sure footing in life after enduring enough unfortunate events that would make even Lemony Snicket feel uncomfortable.”
He laughed… which, to be honest, sounded more like a snarl than anything.
“Stay with me, now. I pwomise I’m not wambling without a point to dwive home!”
He cracked his neck in one complete, fluid motion without even having to use his hands like most mere mortals.
“See, I’m not a God. I’m not a legend, either. Hell, I’m not even an icon! I’m not… any of those… awful… inhibitive things… and nor do I EVER want to be. I am a man, plain and simple.. But…
… I am also, as chance would have it, a provocateur.
Do you know what that is? In its simplest of meanings, it’s basically someone who thrives in the bad shit. And wouldn’t you know it, the bad shit just seems to follow me no matter where I go! But, that’s okay. It’s my own fault. I am my own can opener of worms. I just… haha… I thrive on all that bad shit!!
That’s why my next stop… my next stop is a fucking wrestling ring. Of all places, golly gee fuck nips! Where I can take on the “bad shit” mono-y-mono. Where the “bad shit” can explode after I dropkick it into the front row and introduce the masses to my unmitigated brand of absurdity and chaos.
And…. Jaaaaaaaice… that’s why you’ve been brought to me!
Mm. Deeeeeelicious.”
Arthur began ascending from his Indian style position on the floor and swatted one of the light bulbs hanging with just enough force that it flickered erratically for a few seconds.
“In short, Mr. I-Lost-My-Last-Five-Matches-In-A-Row-But-I-Still-Call-Myself-A-Fucking-Legend, I’ll start off by saying this:
You.
Are.
FUCKED.
And not only are you FUCKED, but you’re DOUBLE fucked. Hard. In Latin, that means “la-fucked-us, el-fucked-un”. No need to look it up for factual accuracies. You can trust me on that one. Pinky swear!
And you’re not just fucking fucked for the sake of being fucking fucked. No, Mr. Icon. Not at all. You’re fucking fucked because, well, to put it plainly? You drew the short straw from the broom-of-doom that old lady Fate is holding and now you find yourself battling against someone that’s quite possibly unlike anything you’ve EVER battled before. Yes, in your WHOOOOOLE self-documented and self-aggrandized career. Period. Or would that be a hashtag these days? Eye, Dee, Kay!?”
Arthur brought his hands together while silently mouthing “real talk” for the Millenials. Wait, wasn't he a Millenial!? Does he even KNOW what a Millenial is!? Regardless of our pondering, he raised his hand upwards again and this time it swatted at the middle bulb. Shit. This one instantly smashed to pieces. From the bowling split-esque effect of the two outside lights shining down on his hand, a crimson effulgence began trickling down his hand. Arthur stared at the wound for a moment in an almost trance-like stupor. After coughing from the residue that made its way from the bulb interior down into his esophagus, he continued.
Not without a glint of physical pain glistening in his eyes, though. The pain of being human was a SUPER bummer.
“Oof. Sorry about that. Got a little overzealous there. And no, that’s not me pumping myself up to look good for my MOST AWESOMEST DEBUT EVAAAAR! I don’t care what they think. Let ‘em believe that I’m just some shmuck with aspirations to be somebody special. Because what I profess? And how I put it into action? That’s the holiest of all cause and effect-laden truths you will EVER hear in your whole damn phantom-ass “career”.
Because… aw Geez Louise, Mr. Xtreme Guy. Damn. I can… I can already see it in your eyes. You’re shook. Like a fuckin’ crack baby who had the audacity to get in the way of its junkie Mother after shitting its diaper. Sorry for the metaphor. I know THAT one hits a little close to home! Or does it now?
But… seriously, though. Here’s the part where you have to be honest with yourself. You were hoping for a sprig of normalcy and got… me. Heh.
RAW. FUCKING. DEAL. BROH.
After losing so much and dealing with what I like to call coat hanger conspiracies, you were praying for an easy match so that you could continue spewing off at the mouth about your idiotic fucking legacy. You were goddamn SALIVATING at the thought of beating some poor newb half to death and catchin’ an easy ride in this tournament. But what did you just get in the last 5 minutes of listening to me? You got… laughed the fuck out of thy Heavenly Father’s golden crib. Going against someone who just doesn’t give a fuck.
About anything.”
Once again, he raised his hand, this time to the only bulb left that hadn’t been touched. Upon contact, it flew right off the silver conduit and shattered onto the floor.
“Not himself...”
Going back to the original bulb, he swung at it again. Stubborn bastard STILL wouldn’t break.
“Not his own well being....
… and least of all… you, Jaice. Well, maybe not LEAST of all. Heh.”
He swung harder… and the damn thing STILL didn’t break! Arthur sighed, and with a bloody hand, he sat back down Indian style.
“Because let’s take a look at those parasites you so OBVIOUSLY crave blandishment from, Fuck Boi. The bootlickers... the fucking SYCOPHANTS who inhabit every town, big or small, in this decaying society of ours. No, I leave the caring of THAT eye-rolling bullshit up to feeble-minded morons like you.
You… the simulacrum.”
With his bleeding fingertips, he began to write spirals into the hardwood flooring as if his own flesh were the ink dipped points of a feather pen.
“That’s right. You… are… the simulacrum. The physical manifestation of what the pandering blowhards in this world want to accomplish. The vomit soaked effigy of someone who actually wants to lift up the depressed, dead-eyed, medication induced masses.
Well, you can have it, Mr. Godcore FuckHard LegendTwitter HitHerInTheShitter. I’m just a mere prophet of truth who would prefer to assist in their own meaningless suicides than to… than to enable them.
Yeah. I’m talking to you, you fucking delusional…
… shit spewing…
… idotic...
... enabling...
... perennial...
... fucking...
...LOSER.
You can have it all.
Well, I lied. You can have it all… except for one teensy-weensy little thing-a-ma-bobber.
Now, this is going to be a tough one to swallow because, like I so subtly intimated before, you’re on a string of bad luck as of late and no one is going to be calling you Mr. September any time soon.
You can have it all… except for this match.
Because that one? That one’s… mine, motherfucker.
…
See you on Monday, beautiful. Muah.
"Static again. Jesus, production team. Bush league, I tell you! BUUUUSH!!
“I… don’t know. That was unpr-”
Arthur waved his hand, cutting him off immediately.
“Of course you don’t. You’re just like all the rest.”
Arthur helped himself up off of the couch he had been laying on and stood over Dr. Longshiv. Menacingly. Ugh. You could almost smell his anger.
“But that’s okay.”
He placed his hand on Dr. Longshiv’s censor bubble, thus censoring his own hand as well.
“I… forgive you.”
A kiss to the forehead, and Arthur saw his own way out of the office. But not before turning around and winking at Dr. Longshiv.
“This one’s for you, Doc.”
“Wait… what is? What are you talking about!?”
Arthur looked somewhat surprised. Raising his brow, he rubbed his scruffy chin a bit.
“Say, Doc. Do you have… Netflix?”
Static. And then?
Fade to black.
