Where to Get "All You Can Eat" Crab Legs - Yelp

AEW’s Women‘s Division finds itself in a really weird place right now. For the past year and a half or so it’s felt like an afterthought and sorely lacking any attention at all. Now AEW have set up a huge USA vs. Japan 16-women tournament thats got a lot of hype to it, but Shida has been featured on TV barely at all since Double or Nothing still. The talent has improved a lot and they got a great core now with some very good homegrown stars like Nyla Rose, Anna Jay, Abadon, Britt Baker, Leyla Hirsch, Tay Conti etc. So my mission is to take this potential and fully capitalise on it. First we start in present day, and as part of the prompt all disappointing events up until now stay the same. With all that out of the way, here is how I would try and revive the AEW Women’s Championship and Division.
AEW Women’s Eliminator:
Nyla Rose vs. Abadon (February 10th, Dynamite)
Veda Scott makes her return to commentary to team with Excalibur and Tony Schiavone for our women’s eliminator matches tonight, beginning with The Native Beast, Nyla Rose, taking on...as described by Veda, “what do you even call that...” Abadon comes out and haunts Vickie Guerrero but Nyla shows no fear. They both rush each other and it’s a brawl to begin. They soon spill outside where Rose tries to take the monster down using the guardrails, before Vickie exposes the turnbuckle and she slams Abadon into those. She goes for a finisher to end it early, but Abadon counters and the fight is back on. Abadon comes back with a Low Dropkick and Enziguri before clotheslining Nyla out. She throws her into the guardrails this time before setting Rose up on the apron, hanging over the ropes. She dives with a Leg Drop but Nyla moves and she lands flat on the mat. Nyla then hits a Guillotine Knee Drop but only gets a two count. She goes for an Avalanche Powerbomb to end it, but Abadon counters into a Super Rana and lifts both legs of Nyla up to pin her down, 1...2....3. Afterwards Nyla pushes Vickie off when she goes to speak with her.
Abadon defeats Nyla Rose (12:11)
Thunder Rosa vs. Britt Baker (February 10th, Dynamite)
A rematch between these two women here as we unfinished business solved. The match starts with a Big Boot from behind by Baker and from there it’s off to the races. Reba gets a cheap shot from outside after Britt Irish whips Rosa and she keeps going. A roll up is kicked out of but she then flattens Rosa once more. Britt takes it outside where she goes to introduce Rosa to the ring post, but Rosa counters and knocks Britt in instead. She now comes back and uses Reba as a weapon, ducking another shot from her so she hits Britt. Rosa takes a dive to the outside into both men and the fight continues. Britt comes back with some shots to the midsection before taking it outside again, hitting a Snap Suplex onto the floor. That is kicked out of as Rosa flips Britt two birds and throws her around. Baker connects an elbow shot to avoid another flying attack, and goes for a Superplex, but Rosa turns it into an Avalanche Fire Thunder Driver to win and advance. Afterwards she raises her hand and wipes her busted lip, looking deep into the hard cam as Baker is down and out.
Thunder Rosa defeats Britt Baker (10:59)
We see the first segment of Hikaru Shida on this episode, a four part series leading up to Revolution. She is in Japan currently so they are filmed from the Ice Ribbon Dojo. This particular one begins with Shida walking around watching the girls train, and coaching as she looks on. She says in English “they are talented. They will become superstar.” We then move over to a tatami (traditional Japanese room, small with wooden walls, a paper sliding door, no windows etc.) There she sits down and is interviewed about her career with the assist of subtitles. She speaks of her training and relates to the girls she just saw there. She explains how much Ice Ribbon means to her and she’s excited to see their representation in the tournament. It closes with her about her finals days in Japan. She starts to talk about AEW, but it fades out and ends with a “To be continued...”
Leyla Hirsch vs. Riho (February 17th, Dynamite)
Riho returns to AEW for the first time in nearly a full year and is excited to be back in action, but she’s got some steep competition in her corner. Legit Leyla Hirsch walks out ready to kick some ass and take names, throwing the towel on her shoulders into the crowd as she walks and laughing at Riho. “She’s like the size of Leyla’s leg.” Veda says. Tony jumps to Riho’s defence we’ve seen her topple bigger and badder in AEW before, but we’ll have to wait and see. Leyla starts off dominant as she keeps Riho down with her submissions and MMA holds. Riho on occasions looks to mount a comeback but she keeps being knocked back down. Despite this, she keeps getting back up. Out of nowhere she gets a roll up on Leyla to stun her, before a Dropkick knocks her outside. She then does a Flying Crossbody to the floor! The fight is on. Riho uses high speed to fight against the power of Leyla. Hirsch goes for a dangerous Lariat but Riho ducks and hits a Headscissors into an O’Connor Roll to pin and win.
Riho defeats Leyla Hirsch (12:45)
After the match, Tony Schiavone tries to grab an interview with Riho about her win and how it feels to be back. She goes to speak, WHEN SHE’S ATTACKED BY TWO WOMEN! Leyla Hirsch walks up and puts both arms over their shoulders, as commentary reveal it to be Killer Kelly and Lindsay Snow! Excalibur says these two women took part in the Bloodsport Women’s Tournament with Leyla Hirsch months ago, and now they’re here in AEW! Leyla hugs them both Andrew all stand over Riho and walk off.
We then see the next part of Hikaru Shida’s video series. This time begins with her training with some wrestlers, and giving feedback before we go back to the tatami. She says she thinks the girls can be big once more, and name drops a few in particular that she sees as the best. She’s then asked if they could ever expand out of Japan like herself. Shida then leads this off into saying it’s not an easy thing to do. The girls can do it but she did it herself and it’s tough. She then talks about moving to America about a year and a half ago and how she’s felt, how she’s adapted, and what AEW means to her. She details how much it means to her to be here in America and holding the most important title in the world to her. She set out to break boundaries and prove she is the best to the American audience, and she did, having held the title for 9 months. She’s now observing who’s going to stop her, but despite the immense talent - nobody is like her.
Anna Jay vs. Tay Conti (February 17th, Dynamite)
Two best friends clash, with Tay Conti and Anna Jay taking part to face in the next round. Tay offers a handshake but Anna looks away to ignore it. This leaves a bad taste in Tay’s mouth but she pushes on. They lock up and it’s intense, until Tay gains the upper hand. She uses her Judo background to dominate until she tries a Tayogoshi. Anna gets out and gets the cut off. She wrestles with a lot of aggression to the point commentary question that these two women are partners. Anna shows no mercy against Tay with some brutal offence. Conti eventually comes back and applies some vicious submission holds. Tay comes back with a Jumping Knee before a Bicycle Kick off the apron. Anna then hits her with a slam onto the apron and keeps the aggression going. In the climax of the match we saw Tay grab hold of Anna by the wrist and cling on, as they fall forward in exhaustion and rest over each other’s shoulders. Tay wraps an arm around and they hug, until Anna hugs back as she slowly lifts Tay up. They stare into each other’s eyes, continuing to breath heavy, ONLY FOR CONTI TO HIT A BRAZILIAN KICK!! PINS AND WINS!!
Tay Conti defeats Anna Jay (10:47)
Yuka Sakazaki vs. Mei Suruga (February 15th, Super 16)
Exclusively on AEW’s YouTube channel, “The Super 16” is presented live from the Ice Ribbon Dojo. Yuka Sakazaki is someone that AEW fans are familiar with from her various matches on PPV and Dynamite. Since her last AEW appearance she has added more muscle, she's expanded her moveset, and she lost TJPW's top title. Mei Suruga meanwhile is one the smallest and least experienced wrestler in the tournament, being one of Emi Sakura’s many students. She managed to get a clean one on one victory over Hikaru Shida right before Shida left Japan. She's a 21 year old prodigy who's status reaches beyond her experience level. She has Riho’s style mixed with Emi’s influence, for a brief summary. This is a high speed match up, a common style in Joshi, as the two women fly around each other with high risk offence. Yuka does a Springboard to the outside, over the guardrail to take Mei out for a good bit. She mounts a comeback and goes for a finisher to end it, but The Magical Girl reverses and pins to advance forward.
Yuka Sakazaki defeats Mei Suruga (08:46)
VENY vs. Emi Sakura (February 15th, Super 16)
VENY is someone some of you might know as Asuka. No not that Asuka, back in Japan WWE Asuka was known as Kana and the woman now called VENY is now known as Asuka. VENY is a favourite of mine. She can do damn near anything in the ring, she's extremely charismatic, and is in her prime as one of the top indie wrestlers in Japan."Veny" was supposed to debut in America during Wrestlemania weekend 2020, but the pandemic put a stop to that. This tournament is going to be her introduction to western fans. Meanwhile Emi Sakura is someone AEW fans probably know after her match with Riho at Full Gear. Since her last AEW appearance, she's been surviving the pandemic in her own little corner of the wrestling world by regularly producing Youtube wrestling shows(ChocoPro). In recent months, she's been slimming down to more of her natural weight which helps her with speed and her noted back problems. She’s now faster and better than when AEW fans last saw her. This is a technical match up with the two women indulging a game of wits, trading submissions and holds. She goes to use her new found quickness but VENY matches ever at that and puts her down to advance forward.
VENY defeats Emi Sakura (14:32)
Maki Itoh vs. Ryo Mizunami (February 15th, Super 16)
Maki Itoh is one of my favourite wrestlers right now and that’s not a joke. She’s the most popular wrestler in the field and someone that Joshi fans have been waiting to see crossover to the west more often for the last couple of years. She's insanely charismatic. She's a limited athlete, but she's an excellent storyteller and shines in singles matches. She’s only worked Mania weekend in the States so far but we’re hoping to see that change. Mizunami then has worked AEW before, but that was such a long time ago that AEW fans have probably forgotten her. She's a veteran with an extremely high level of charisma and she will chop the soul out of you. Primarily a brawler, but also has that charisma to work this kind of match. This is set to be our character matchup as Maki and Ryo square up, with Itoh crediting herself as “I AM DEITY OF SHIT”. She credits “Cornette-san” as her biggest fan. They then go at it. Ryo dominates Itoh until the comeback, when she catches Mizunami out of nowhere with a Flying Hurricanerana to win.
Maki Itoh defeats Ryo Mizunami (08:41)
Aja Kong vs. Rin Kadokura (February 15th, Super 16)
Main event of the evening and it’s looking like a doozy folks. First we have Aja Kong, easily the most legendary name in the tournament. She's 34 years into her career and still going. While we aren’t expecting to see the Kong that was battling Bull Nakano in the 90s, she is still a very smart veteran and she is still willing to taking some crazy bumps in the right occasion. She’s wrestled in both WWF (Survivor Series 1995) and AEW (Double or Nothing 2019) so she’s no stranger to the big stage. Rin meanwhile is most comparable to Shibata. She doesn't have a huge western fanbase, and she's not a big personality, but she's the Joshi version of "a wrestler's wrestler" and is capable of having the best match of the tournament. She comes Marvelous who are basically the Ring of Honor of Joshi. They are more physical and technically sound than TJPW or Ice Ribbon. Rin and Aja have a stiff and brutal matchup with terrifying strikes from the two women. Aja keeps kicking out of what’s thrown at her, not allowing to go down to a younger girl. Aja misses a Senton off the apron and hits the floor which allows Kadokura to win. Afterwards they hug as we fade to black.
Rin Kadokura defeats Aja Kong (15:22)
Quarter-Finals:
Riho vs. Tay Conti (February 24th, Dynamite)
Into the quarter finals we go as Revolution is fast approaching, and kicking it off is these two women. Both are top babyfaces, with Conti having just come out of her emotional war with Anna Jay and Riho suffering at the hands of Leyla Hirsch’s squad. They shake hands to begin and we’re set. Tay has expressed interest in wrestling in Japan before, so this is her forte into the Joshi world. Once everything’s back to normal I’d really like to see her hold the SWA World Championship in Stardom, and potentially face Riho again for it. Riho uses her speed to take Tay down, at one point dropkicking her off the apron and she falls into the guardrail, where Anna Jay sits. Anna looks at her coldly as Tay gets back up, ONLY TO BE HIT BY A BACKSTABBER BY RIHO! SHE COVERS AND WINS!! Riho advances forward to the semi-finals, while Conti stares back, equally as cold, at Anna Jay.
Riho defeats Tay Conti (07:01)
We see the third segment of Hikaru Shida in her tatami speaking of her story. She goes into detail about Corona hitting and being stuck in America, and how she felt about that. She says all that mattered then was the AEW Women’s World Championship. So much stuff was happening back home in Japan in the Joshi world (death of Hana Kimura), and she needed to topple The Beast, Nyla Rose. She describes the match, says it’s the most physical she’s ever been in, describing each painful bump and how after every move she was more worn down. But she refused to lose, and came out on top. Since then she’s carried this belt, and hadn’t dropped it. Despite the level of talent in the Super 16, no one has the talent to defeat her.
Abadon vs. Thunder Rosa (February 24th, Dynamite)
Last quarter final now, with the winner going on to face Riho in the semi’s. Thunder Rosa - having defeated Britt Baker, and Abadon - having defeated Nyla Rose. Abadon screams at Rosa to begin but she’s unphased, shouting back and the two meet forehead to forehead. They then start trading shots as the match begins. It spills outside where they continue to brawl messily. Abadon hits a Bloodline onto the floor followed by some biting. She goes for a Twist of Hate on the apron, but Rosa counters into a Cutter! They both sell before going back inside. Abadon runs for a Spear but when it’s leapfrogged, she hits a Headbutt and then runs the ropes again. She connects the Spead this time and covers, but it’s kicked out of. They go back outside where they fight up the ramp. Rosa dives with a Double Foot Stomp before they head up to the announce table. They fight there, and Rosa hits an Inverted DDT on it. Abadon rolls into the announcers chairs and lays there. Once back in, Rosa goes for a Snake Sleeper, but Abadon kicks her leg back and fights back. She throws Rosa into the ring post to bust her open. She calls for a Gravedigger, BUT ITS REVERSED INTO A FIRE THUNDER DRIVER!! ROSA PINS AND GOES TO SEMIS!!
Thunder Rosa defeats Abadon (16:11)
Maki Itoh vs. VENY (February 22nd, Super 16)
Heading into the Japan half of the quarter finals, we travel across the Pacific to the Ice Ribbon dojo once more. Itoh talks shit before the bell as VENY stands stone faced wondering what’s she did in a past life to be in the opposite corner of this. She goes to speak about Cornette-san once more but VENY cuts her off and the match has begun. She dominates the early stages until Maki out of nowhere counters a Suplex into a Falling DDT. She hits a Dropkick off the apron and VENY eats shit. Maki applies a Boston Crab, but VENY gets the ropes and flips Itoh out. She big boots her and is back on the offence. They take it to the apron where Itoh goes to pick VENY up, but VENY knocks her down and they roll back inside. Maki goes for a Ito Special but it’s reversed, and VENY goes for a Powerbomb. Itoh reverses that into a Itoh Royale, which is kicked out and they double down with stereo dropkicks. Maki climbs the top ropes for a Diving Headbutt, but VENY quickly runs up and hits a Superplex. She pins and wins to advance forward into the semis.
VENY defeats Maki Itoh (09:18)
Rin Kadokura vs. Yuka Sakazaki (February 22nd, Super 16)
Yuka runs around Rin to begin with, using her quickness to avoid being caught by any strikes or holds. This proves unsuccessful as after running the ropes for a Flying Shoulder Tackle, she’s hit with a stiff elbow in midair to knock Yuka down. This is the cut off as she dominates from this point forward. Rin goes for a Meteora from the middle ropes, BUT YUKA HITS A FRONT DROPKICK OUT OF MIDAIR!! She scales the top ropes and FLIES WITH A CROSSBODY!! KICK OUT! Yuka continues to run circles before taking Rin to the apron. She then jumps from inside, over the ropes, WITH A HURRICANERANA TO THE FLOOR!! The Magical Girl is back in action as she hits a Baseball Slide Dropkick into the railings. She rolls out to grab Kadokura but Rin throws her into the guardrails instead. She takes control back and does a Lala Histro Cradle into a Cross Armbreaker but Yuka gets a foot on the ropes. She manages to rally up for a huge flurry of offence to take Rin down and cover after a Magical Girl Splash, 1.......2......3! She’s going to the semi-finals where she will face VENY.
Yuka Sakazaki defeats Rin Kadokura (11:45)
We get a live performance from the Itoh Respect Army - Maki Itoh and Mizuki perform live in living colour a rock idol anthem. This gives Yuka a rest before the main event of the evening, the Semi-Finals match between Yuka Sakazaki and VENY. Itoh and Mizuki hype everyone up with the performance ahead of the big match, before the music stops and they leave. That’s when VENY walks out.
Semi-Finals:
VENY vs. Yuka Sakazaki (February 22nd, Super 16)
She walks down menacingly with pure seriousness on her face. There is no fucking around here. She’s winning this tournament. Yuka meanwhile is as happy as can be. Yuka high fives everyone and jumps down in joy. They shake hands, but immediately after the bell rings VENY immediately kicks Yuka down and dominates. Yuka is tired while VENY is relatively fresh having only wrestled the opener. She dominates until it heads to the outside. She goes to slam Yuka into the railings, but Sakazaki reverses and dumps her over. She then hits a Springboard Flying Seated Senton, over the railings, into VENY. She mounts her comeback and hits for the Magical Girl Splash, BUT ITS KICKED OUT OF! Yuka starts having to match VENY’s strikes, as once VENY starts laying them in, Yuka becomes impervious to pain and fights back with her own. It turns into a slugfest here, but after a Diving Double Foot Stomp from Yuka only gets two she’s out of options. VENY capitalises here and looks to finish with a Powerbomb, BUT ITS TURNED INTO A FRANKENSTEINER! MAGICAL GIRL SPLASH! YUKA IS GOING TO THE FINALS!!
Yuka Sakazaki defeats VENY (19:21)
On March 3rd, Dynamite, we see the final of Hikaru’s segment, starting with her rolling a suitcase while wearing a mask as she walks to her plane back to America. We go back to the tatami where she’s asked about Revolution, and what she thinks of Yuka Sakazaki. She speaks on her before being asked about Riho and Thunder Rosa. She speaks about Rosa and their feud, saying she’s beaten her before though at last years All Out. The interviewer asks about the All Out the year before that. Who did she face then. Did she win? Shida seems insulted by that but keeps going, saying Riho got the better of her. But while she’s spent the past year back home, she made a new home - AEW. And she is now the queen of that home, and no amount of Riho will stop.
Riho vs. Thunder Rosa (March 3rd, Dynamite)
We’ve reached our American semi-finals, and 5 days after Yuka Sakazaki’s defeat of VENY - Riho and Thuhder Rosa are set to main event Dynamite. On Saturday Night then, the day before Revolution, we will see the Super 16 Finals streamed on YouTube between Yuka Sakazaki and the winner of this match, with the winner going on to face Hikaru Shida at Revolution. The match starts physical and doesn’t slow down. They go to the mat straight away and trade submission attempts. Rosa then dominates until Riho counters out of a corner charge with a roll up only to get two. Rosa punishes Riho using the ring post. Riho fights back though as she flies off the apron and uses speed to keep Rosa down. She goes for a springboard but is caught midair. Rosa then starts to kick the shit out of Riho, striking her repeatedly. It spills to the floor where Riho mounts a comeback, utilising the ring post to her own advantage this time. With Rosa tied up in the post, Riho runs off the apron with a Double Foot Stomp to the back. It goes into back and forth inside the ring, before Riho flies out once more. Rosa is up first and sets up a table, before they go back inside. Commentary note the No DQ on the outside rule. RIHO HITS A DOUBLE FOOT STOMP TO ROSA OFF THE APRON THROUGH THE TABLE!! They’re both out now, but while down, OUT COMES BRITT BAKER!! SHE HITS ROSA WITH A CHAIR! Riho doesn’t notice as she takes her back inside and covers to win! Britt walks off with a smile on her face, and waves at a fuming Rosa.
Riho defeats Thunder Rosa (23:41)
Finals:
Riho vs. Yuka Sakazaki (March 6th, Super 16)
The Magical Girl comes down happy as ever, high fiving and hugging fans and running circles around the ring in ecstasy. Riho then comes out in her signature dress and also with an umbrella with the Imperial Japanese Flag designed on it. Both women offer their hands to each other, and both embrace before locking up. A collar and elbow is engaged and maintained, Yuka breaks the chains by connecting a Dropkick, followed by another Basement Dropkick! Riho ducks a Lariat attempt and runs the ropes, performing a dizzying array of spins before landing the Tornado DDT! 1.....2....Yuka kicks out! Yuka runs the ropes and hits a Seated Senton in the centre of the ring. She goes for a cover but Riho kicks out. Riho takes Yuka down with a Half Crab. Yuka winces in pain and cries in agony but throws Riho off her leg. Yuka then hits a Slingblade and rolls to the outside.
Riho connects a Baseball Slide Dropkick through the both ropes, before lifting Yuka up and hitting an incredible Deadlift Suplex into the middle of the ring. Excalibur makes note of Riho being 98 lbs so that feat of strength is truly incredible. Yuka connects an Enziguri and begins a Three Amigos. Riho flips out of the last one and hits a Roundhouse Kick followed by Double Foot Stomp! She covers, 1.......2....Kick Out! Riho seems annoyed at this and takes Yuka to the corner. They trade elbows for a bit before Yuka swaps them around and hits a Roundhouse Kick! She then takes Riho to the top turnbuckle. Yuka attempts to hit a Avalanche Butterfly Suplex, but Riho doesn’t move. Riho shoves Yuka onto the apron and Yuka grabs her back in pain. Riho then hits a Diving Double Foot Stomp onto the apron! That receives a holy shit chant as Riho throws her back into the ring and goes to cover.
Yuka rolls into a Fujiwara Armbar! She channels her inner Zack Sabre Jr. and begins to stomp on Riho’s head as she has the submission locked in. Riho rolls forward into a School Boy but Yuka kicks out. Yuka rolls back but is met by a Basement Dropkick! Riho then hits a Northern Lights Suplex! She goes to cover but Yuka rolls out. Yuka whips Riho to the apron. She hits a Dragon Screw on the ropes and connects a Baseball Slide Dropkick! Yuka goes for a Half and Half Suplex on the apron, but Riho gets out and hits a Belly to Back Suplex! Right on the hardest part of the ring as Yuka sells the pain. Riho rolls back into the ring, but is met by a Springboard Front Missile Dropkick by Yuka! Yuka then heads to the top ropes and does a magical pose, Diving Double Foot Stomp! 1........2.....KICK OUT!!! Yuka is now desperate and decides, “fuck it”, and begins a frenzy of attacks.
Any and everything used. Yuka hits a Running Meteora! She goes for another but Riho catches with an Enziguri and then hits a Running Double Foot Stomp! She picks Yuka up and hits a German Suplex but Yuka lands on her feet; Half and Half Suplex! Yuka hits a Slingblade and begins a series of Daniel Bryan like Roundhouses, with a few yes chants thrown in from the audience. She keeps going until Riho ducks one and hits a Bicycle Knee! Yuka responds with a Bicycle Kick! Riho hits an Impaler DDT!!! She gets the crowd going and goes for an Exploder Suplex, but Yuka counters into a Backbody Drop! Yuka then hits the Exploder Suplex followed by a Pendelum Kick! She takes Riho to the top ropes and goes for an Avalanche Butterfly Suplex! RIHO COUNTERS MIDAIR IN A ROLL UP!! 1......2.....3!!!! Riho is going to face Hikaru Shida tomorrow night for the AEW Women’s World Championship!
Riho defeats Yuka Sakazaki (10:17)
AEW Revolution 2021:
Anna Jay vs. Britt Baker vs. Tay Conti vs. Thunder Rosa - Four-way Match
AEW’s Women’s International Eliminator Tournament has come and gone, and with it many women have some grudges held. Thunder Rosa was cost the semi-finals with Riho after Britt Baker interference. This is of course, due to Rosa beating Britt in the First Round. Also, Anna Jay and Tay Conti faced in the First Round where Conti was successful. That drove a wedge between them as we’ve seen. There is enough tension where we need a resolution, and so they’re all put into a match together - whoever is the best comes out on top. The Four-way is made for Revolution, with the winner set to be Shida or Riho’s next challenger in the coming weeks. However before the match, we see Brandi Rhodes come out for the first time in 2 months. She has a mic in hand and says that two years ago there was a similar multi-women match set. That was the during the genesis of AEW. A three-way became a four-way. Now we know how talented of a roster the AEW Women’s Division is, but what if it could be blustered?
Well she’s got the perfect solution to that. How could she make this match even more stacked however? Easy answer, add another women. But not just any women...a Virtuosa. So with a little helping hand, she’s secured someone to really put up a fight. Outcomes Deonna Purazzo. The current Knockouts Champion makes her way out and joins the fray. The crowd applaud loudly at the surprise arrival, as this match is now made a Five-way. Immediately the beefing girls go for each other, Britt and Rosa and Tay and Anna. Deonna meanwhile just picks people off, playing it smart and looking for the win. She’s not fuelled by animosity like the rest, she is just being intelligent. We see the rest of the women all take themselves out to the point Britt turns around into a Jumping DDT and Fujiwara Armbar. She taps out and Purazzo wins the match. She takes the mic afterwards and hoists her Knockouts Championship high. “Who’s ready for a Battle of the Belts?” she says before leaving.
Deonna Purazzo defeats Anna Jay, Britt Baker, Tay Conti and Thunder Rosa (11:17)
Hikaru Shida (c) vs. Riho - AEW Women’s World Championship
We’ve seen the whole tournament so far and the mini-doc of Hikaru Shida. It’s the first majorly built AEW Women’s Championship PPV match...ever, so it’s got some expectations on its shoulders. Shida walks out wearing her attire from the AEW video game trailer, pointed out by Excalibur. Riho is just coming off a match from last night while Shida hasn’t wrestled in nearly a month, so she is fully in control early on. She busts out some early signature moves so the audience get a groove of her once more since it’s been a minute. They go outside where Riho starts to come back and from there it’s back and forth. They recreate the finishing sequence that won it for Riho last time, ending with Riho getting a roll up originally, but this time Shida kicks out! They then keep going as Riho kicks out of a few more moves by Hikaru. Riho goes for a Diving Double Foot Stomp, but she’s hit midair and then by a Tamashii no Three Count! KICK OUT!! They keep fighting as Riho once more tries for the finishing sequence that won it for her last time, but this time it ends when Shida lifts her into a Falcon Arrow! 1..............2..............3!! She wins and retains!
Hikaru Shida defeats Riho (14:56)
We now head into the build for Double or Nothing. However we aren’t all building towards that. See, it’s announced at Revolution a supercard of supercards is set for April 4th. The “Bloodshed Supercard” is coming up, pitting stars from AEW, NJPW, NWA and Impact against one another. The big match advertised is a Lethal Lockdown Match: pitting Kenny Omega, The Good Brothers and Kenta against Jon Moxley and Death Triangle. But also set for the show, we’ll get into detail here. Deonna Purazzo is now the #1 Contender to the AEW Women’s World Championship, and an appearance by her is advertised for the Dynamite after Revolution. She shows up and cuts a typical promo of hers on Hikaru, claiming herself the one true Virtuosa and hyping her credentials. These outmatch everything Shida has ever done, and when they face, she’ll truly outmatch her for all to see.
The match is dubbed “Battle of the Belts” after AEW trademarked that. Knockouts Champion vs. AEW Women’s World Champion. Next week Shida goes to speak, but she’s cut off by Deonna. Purazzo attacks her and beats down the rival champion. She tells Shida she should of stayed in Japan, because now she’s crossed the Pacific she’s in HER country. The Virtuosa runs the place here, and she is going to cement herself as the best champion in the entire country - nay, the world. Later in the night when asked about how she felt of the attack, Hikaru says “Next Tuesday. Impact Wrestling. Watch me.” before leaving. Then, on Impact, we see Hikaru come out after a Ten-person Knockouts Tag Team Match. She looks around with her title, and walks over to the captain of the winning team, Kiera Hogan. She shakes her hand and points back and forth between the two. Kiera vs. Shida is sanctioned for next week on Impact.
They face, but due to Hikaru now being in Deonna’s house, she makes her presence known with an attack. Part of rebuilding the Women’s division is other feuds need to exist in it, so let’s touch on those. Firstly, Leyla Hirsch and her new stable, dubbing themselves “Bloodsport” have made an enemy out of Riho. The two face with the stipulation that the winner will face Serena Deeb for the NWA Women’s Championship. Hirsch wins after making Riho tap. Then in her match with Deeb, a returning Allysin Kay comes out and interferes. Deeb rolls up with her distraction. Leyla doesn’t attack Kay however. After all, she was the fourth women in that Bloodsport tournament along with Hirsch, Kelly and Snow. They offer her a spot but Allysin declines and says she just wants that NWA Women’s Championship back. A Three-way then is made, which ends with Kay pinning Deeb. She gets her title back, and afterwards, offers an embrace to Hirsch. Snow and Kelly get her to accept.
Bloodsport pose together with Allysin Kay now in their rankings, but tension between her and Hirsch is clear after Kay just took the title she’s been craving for weeks. However, they’re now a unit. Also, Anna Jay and Tay Conti. Anna takes a leadership role in The Dark Order as her and Conti slowly start patching things up. They both agree they got lost in the tournament and were drunk off the thought of glory. They hug it out and walk out together. Then, Thunder Rosa and Britt Baker. The first thing we see on Dynamite after Revolution is Thunder Rosa brutalising Britt Baker. She destroys her. She kayfabe reinjures her and puts her back on crutches. Britt doesn’t wrestle after this but has a vendetta against Rosa, and Rosa is likewise. The women all have feuds, with only one revolving around the title, and they actually get TV time on Dynamite. It’s basically just what AEW do with the guys, but the gender is changed. That’s literally how you do women’s wrestling.
Bloodshed Supercard:
Deonna Purrazzo vs. Hikaru Shida - Battle of the Belts
The singles match main event of the show, it’s the heavily anticipated “Battle of the Belts.” Shida is out first, wearing a kimono and carrying her own umbrella to the ring. She twirls it around at the hard camera in a optical illusion before walking down. Deonna is out afterwards and the Virtuosa walks with purpose, hoisting her title over Shida’s head. Hikaru hoists hers up and they meet forehead to forehead. The match the begins. Shida and Deonna trade goods and submissions on the mat before it goes outside and gets physical there. Purrazzo uses the guardrails and ring posts, before taking it to the apron. Shida hits her with a Superkick and runs the ropes inside the ring, dropkicking Purrazzo into part of the set. Once back up they have some stiff back and forth with a lot of shots and strikes to knock the other down. Both women keep kicking out however. We see many moments when Hikaru looks like she’s about to tap but resists and keeps fighting. They head outside once again where Deonna hits a Backbody Drop onto the floor. Once back inside, Shida hits a Falcon Arrow into a Tamashii no Three Count to win. Afterwards her and Deonna resiliently shake hands in respect.
Hikaru Shida defeats Deonna Purrazzo (25:10)
Heading out of Bloodshed Supercard, Britt Baker and Thunder Rosa are still battling it out. Britt is set to return to action on the April 14th edition of Dynamite, where she will face Rosa in a No Disqualification, No Countout Match. It’s a brutal bout with Britt showing the aggression she did in her Tooth and Nail Match on Rosa. She ends up winning after a chairshot and kendo stick assisted Lockjaw makes Rosa pass out. Meanwhile, Hikaru Shida continues her trail of dominance over the AEW Women’s division. She’s earned the respect of Deonna Purazzo’s who’s gonna back off to Impact. Shida cuts a promo in English after the match saying she wants more of the Knockouts, and they are an amazing group of girls. She once again faces Kiera Hogan, this time on Dynamite, with interference banned. They have a clean bout that ends with Shida once again winning. They shake hands afterwards. This is Hogan’s first AEW match and she makes a big splash, but comes up short.
Next in line is Nyla Rose, who is still with Vickie Guerrero but their relationship is going very sour. Nonetheless, as we approach a year after Hikaru took the belt from Nyla, they’re set to face one more - this time it’s 2 Out of 3 Falls. It’s an excellent bout that ends with Shida winning by falling onto Nyla after the two basically kill themselves. Nyla the next week cuts a promo on Shida, saying she wants one final shot, and if she loses - she will never challenge for the title while Shida is champion again. This is when Britt Baker gets involved and puts her stamp on the picture. She limps down on a crutch as that match with Rosa as temporarily hurt her again. She cuts a mini promo of her own, before blasting Nyla with the crutch. A #1 Contenders Match is set up, with the winner going on to face Hikaru at Double or Nothing.
Britt wins after a very hard fought and brutal contest. Afterwards, Tony Schiavone comes out and reads a letter from Brandi. She congratulates both women on the incredible match. She then announces Nyla as the first women to take part in the AEW Women’s Casino Ladder Match at Double or Nothing. In the final weeks before Double or Nothing, Britt cuts some very passionate promos about the struggle she’s went through to even become a wrestler, and as soon as she became the best thing in this company she was injured. But this time, nothing is going to stop her. She’s not going to be hindered by dentistry, not by trying to being a good guy, and not by injury. She will be victorious. Reba is banned from ringside, as if she gets involved Britt automatically loses. Baker is now fuelled by anger as she wants to take down the unstoppable Hikaru Shida.
Then, our other stories. Well the premier one is the aforementioned Women’s Casino Ladder Match. Once more it’s decided there’s too much beef amongst the AEW Women’s division, so Tony Khan’s solution is to throw nine of them into a ladder match, and whoever isn’t dead by the end gets an AEW Women’s Championship shot. And just like last time, there will be a mystery participant. Women gradually get announced via AEW’s Twitter, with Nyla Rose as the first on TV before they slowly start adding names to the field, like they did last year. Anna Jay and Tay Conti are announced together, Serena Deeb, Leyla Hirsch, Riho etc. Thunder Rosa and Abadon face once more after their epic match in the Super 16. Abadon hits a Spear into part of the stage which takes them both out and it goes to a double countout. Both women are then put into the match, with the ninth women remaining a mystery.
Double or Nothing 2021:
Abadon vs. Anna Jay vs. Leyla Hirsch vs. Nyla Rose vs. Riho vs. Serena Deeb vs. Tay Conti vs. Thunder Rosa vs. ??? - Women’s Casino Ladder Match
Serena Deeb and Nyla Rose start it off hot, Nyla trying to dominate but Deeb using her strength to counteract. Tay Conti comes in and her and Deeb come to a babyface arrangement to take the big women down. Thunder Rosa follows suit and starts to mix it up with everyone. Leyla Hirsch, Anna Jay, Riho and Abadon all come out and continue the fight. It’s multi-man chaos, with each women sabotaging the other from getting that poker chip. They all want the prize. Killer Kelly at one point tries to walk down and help out Hirsch, but Riho valiantly takes her on and brawls with her to the back. She then dives off the stage with a Crossbody into Lindsay Snow and Killer Kelly. Allysin Kay comes out and puts her through a part of the stage to take her out.
Riho comes back, freshly bruised by Kay, and looks to climb the ladder, but Anna Jay pushes her down. She then starts to taunt and mock the 9th and final entrant while she waits for them to appear...and it’s RETURNING KRIS STATLANDER! Statlander comes in and wrecks house; takes out all the people involved while the action continues. Abadon lets out a mighty scream as she goes to climb the ladder. Tay and Anna push her off and meet at the top. They then start throwing shots at each other. They all fall under Thunder Rosa pushes them off and climbs up, grabbing the poker chip and holding it high it in triumph. She now with a future AEW Women’s World Championship match locked in. She takes the mic and tells Hikaru “good luck - you’ll need it.” before dropping it and heading to the back.
Thunder Rosa wins the Women’s Casino Ladder Match (16:35)
Hikaru Shida (c) vs. Britt Baker - AEW Women’s World Championship
Baker comes out without Reba for the first time in a long time, pure determination on her face to succeed. Both women put their heart and soul into the match, pouring every last bit of fight they’ve got in. Britt gets a Lockjaw in near the end and refuses to let go when Shida grabs the ropes. The ref has to physically pull her off, ONLY FOR SHIDA TO HIT ONE FINAL TAMASHII NO THREE COUNT!! She pins and wins.
Hikaru Shida defeats Britt Baker (10:21)

Part 1
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Build to Bash at the Beach 2021
On the Dynamite after their huge victory over FTR at Revolution, the Golden Lovers are announced as the new Golden Champions of AEW, they will be defending their titles tonight against a team of their choosing. When their match is scheduled to happen, Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi announce that now they are champions, they want to give an opportunity to people who wouldn't normally get such an opportunity, and hence they've gone out of their way to find the best local competitors around, and give them a shot at the tag titles tonight. The Golden Champions win the match in about a minute, and as they celebrate, FTR make their way down to the ring. FTR claim that the Golden Champions choosing to offer a tag title shot to a pair of local competitors, rather than a full roster all waiting and hoping for such an opportunity, is disgraceful. Kenny Omega interjects to remind FTR that they're in no position to demand a title shot, because the Golden Champions already proved they could beat FTR at Revolution. As he says this, the Lucha Bros come down to the ring. The Lucha Bros claim that we've seen enough of FTR vs the Golden Champinos, and it's time for something fresher, and that would be the Lucha Bros vs Golden Champions, only this time the Lucha Bros haven't been wrestling for 20 minutes beforehand. The three teams square off before the Golden Champions laugh with each other, before leaving the ring, as FTR and the Lucha Bros stare at each other with animosity.
Similar to last week, the Golden Champions announce that they're going to have another title defence against a team that usually don't receive these opportunities, and they've listened to the criticism of their decision last week, so this week they're choosing from the AEW roster, and this week they'll be facing Peter Avalon and Brandon Cutler. As they did last week, the Golden Champions win easily, this time in 4 minutes. As the Golden Champions are celebrating, FTR run down the entranceway armed with steel chairs. However, the Golden Champions see them coming and get away as FTR enter the ring. As the Golden Champions retreat, FTR decide to take out their frustration on Peter Avalon, picking him up and hitting him with the Goodnight Express. As FTR stand tall, they are jumped from behind by the Lucha Bros, who beat down FTR as the Golden Champions look on from the entranceway.
On the following week's episode of Dynamite, FTR interrupt the show to cut a promo calling out the Golden Champions. FTR ask why the Golden Champions have repeatedly felt the need to dodge giving them a rematch for the tag titles, but before Kenny or Kota can speak, they are interrupted by the Lucha Bros, who ask why they seem to be ignored in this conversation, despite being the number 1 ranked team in AEW's rankings system. The Golden Champions then finally admit that FTR and the Lucha Bros both present an equally valid case for why they should be considered the number 1 contender, and on the first week of Bash at the Beach, FTR will face the Lucha Bros, with the winner facing the Golden Champions on week 2 of Bash at the Beach. FTR and the Lucha Bros both start celebrating, before staring at each other, ready to fight.
On week 1 of Bash at the Beach, FTR and the Lucha Bros go for about 20 minutes, but ultimately the Lucha Bros pick up the win after Fenix hits the Fenix driver on Dax Harwood to pick up the 1, 2, 3.
Week 2 of Bash at the Beach 2021
The Golden Champions (c) vs the Lucha Bros for the AEW tag team championship
The match begins with Kota Ibushi and Fenix locking up. Ibushi takes control right away with a headlock, but Fenix pries his way out of it into an armlock of his own. Ibushi rolls out of the armlock into his own armlock, but Fenix escapes this armlock with a flip, following it up with a spin kick, but Kota ducks underneath it, and connects with a spinning heel kicl. Kota then grabs Fenix and irish whips Fenix to his corner. Ibushi then tags in Kenny Omega, and the Golden Lovers perform a double fisherman's suplex to Fenix.
Kenny Omega then proceeds to work Fenix's back whilst Fenix tries to make the tag to Pentagon. Kenny puts Fenix in a Boston Crab, and through sheer power, Fenix is able to crawl his way over to Pentagon and make the tag whilst still in the hold. Pentagon gets in the ring, runs the ropes and rebounds back to Kenny Omega with a running knee, knocking down Kenny. As Fenix rolls out of the ring, Pentagon covers Kenny, 1, 2, kickout by Kenny Omega.
Pentagon recovers and begins working Kenny Omega's limbs, but Kenny reacts quickly and manages to grab one of Pentagon's legs and puts him in an ankle lock. Pentagon struggles with the hold for a while but manages to grab the rope. However, Kenny doesn't let go of the hold, and the referee starts counting to 5. Kota Ibushi gets in the ring and starts yelling at the referee to cause a distraction, however, Fenix recovers, gets in the ring, and hits a springboard cutter to Kota Ibushi. In the meantime, Pentagon has freed his leg and hit a superkick to Kenny Omega, but his leg is still injured so that move takes out both men.
Almost simultaneously, Pentagon and Kenny Omega make hot tags to their partners. Both Fenix and Kota run at each other and begin trading fists. Kota Ibushi suddenly grabs Fenix and hits him with a belly-to-belly suplex, before picking him up and irish whipping him to the ropes. Fenix rebounds back at Kota and catches Kota by surprise with a tilt-a-whirl DDT, followed by a springboard moonsault, covering Kota, 1, 2, kickout by Kota Ibushi.
Fenix recovers, drags Ibushi towards his team's corner and tags in a now fresh Pentagon. Pentagon begins to work Ibushi's limbs, stomping on his arms and legs, but Kota manages to avoid one stomp, roll to his feet and hit a step-up enzuigiri to Pentagon, following it up with a german suplex. Pentagon recovers in the turnbuckle, and Ibushi goes to him, hitting him with a series of knife-edge chops. Kota Ibushi is then pulled away from the turnbuckle by the official, as Pentagon takes a moment to recover, before running at Ibushi with a discuss lariat. Pentagon then sits on Ibushi and begins punching him over and over. Kenny Omega gets in the ring to try and stop it, but the official gets in his way. Pentagon stops punching Kota to deal with Omega, but this allows Ibushi to secure a surprise ankle lock to Pentagon.
Fenix recovers now, runs into the ring and takes out Ibushi to break up the hold. Kenny Omega gets in the ring and hits Fenix with a lariat, before tossing Fenix over the top rope. Kenny gets back on the apron, and Kota tags him in. The Golden Champions then line up their finisher. As Pentagon gets up, the Golden Lovers hit him with the Golden V-Trigger, with Kenny covering Pentagon for the 1, 2, 3.
The Golden Champions (c) def. the Lucha Bros via pinfall to retain the AEW tag team championship (19:36)
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Build to Double or Nothing 2021
On the following week's episode of Dynamite, the Golden Champions would host a championship celebration party, with just them and a few catering staff, to celebrate their reign so far. Kota Ibushi and Kenny Omega would constantly put each other over with compliments, sip on wine and enjoy a platter of quail eggs, all whilst sitting on a sofa watching an episode of Dragon Ball Z. Their celebratory party would be interrupted by the Private Party, who would say that they can't have a private party without the Private Party. Kenny Omega gets annoyed by their invasion, jumping to his feet and going to attack Marq Queen, but Kota Ibushi stops Omega, before saying "just because you are the Private Party, doesn't make you welcome". The Private Party then very dejectedly leave as the Golden Champions get back to Dragon Ball Z.
The next week, the Private Party host a Private Party of their own, but this time everyone on the roster is invited besides the Golden Champions. The partying stops when the Golden Champions arrive, pissed off about feeling excluded. Isaiah Kassidy then repeats what Kota told them last week, "just because you're the champions, doesn't make you welcome". Marq Queen then tells Kota he should get Kenny onto the good anime, then puts on Naruto. Kenny Omega suddenly jumps Marq Queen, and a brawl ensues, with the people feuding with each other going at it whilst the Golden Champions and the Private Party brawl. Later in the show, it is announced that the Golden Champions will be defending their AEW tag team championship against the Private Party the following week of Dynamite.
The scheduled title clash between the Golden Champions and Private Party is a 12 minute spot fest. Both teams take turns showing off their best spots, with a series of near falls after the 9 minute mark, but the Golden Champions secure the victory after hitting the Golden Trigger to Isaiah Kassidy, with Kenny covering him for the 1, 2, 3.
On the following episode of Dynamite, the Golden Champions announce that their next title defence will be at the Double or Nothing PPV, and their opponent for that match will be decided that week. Kota Ibushi announces that there will be a battle royal with the AEW tag team roster, with the winning team earning the match at Double or Nothing. The teams in the match are all the current tag teams in AEW, plus a new tag team of QT Marshall and Austin Gunn. The final four teams are FTR, the Young Bucks, the Jurassic Express and Marshall and Gunn. The first team eliminated are Jurassic Express after Jack Perry gets superkicked over the top rope by Nick Jackson. Dax Harwood soon puts QT Marshall in a figure four leg lock, and refuses to let go of the hold, causing Marshall to "break" his ankle. Marshall rolls under the bottom rope and is escorted out of the match, meaning if Austin Gunn is eliminated, his team are out of the match. Cash Wheeler quickly grabs Gunn and goes to throw him over the top rope, when Matt Jackson catches Wheeler with a superkick, before tossing him over the top rope, and eliminating him from the match. The Young Bucks then grab Austin Gunn and put him in position for the Meltzer Driver, but Austin Gunn is able to pry himself free from Nick's hold, beating down both the Bucks before clotheslining Nick Jackson over the top rope, eliminating him from the match. Austin Gunn and QT Marshall have earned a match at Double or Nothing.
On the following week of Dynamite, QT Marshall announces that his leg injury from the battle royal means that he can't compete at Double or Nothing. The Golden Champions come down to the ring to berate Austin Gunn, saying that he's now lost his title shot, but Gunn says that it's not if he can find a new partner. The Golden Champions then laugh at Gunn, saying there's nobody in the back who will even want to tag with him, let alone accept the match on such short notice. Throughout the show, we see Austin Gunn talking to people backstage, but all of them refusing to take match. Towards the end of the show, we see Austin Gunn walk up to an open door. He looks at it, before knocking and coming in, closing the door behind him, and the door reads "AEW Producer Billy Gunn".
On the following week of Dynamite, the Golden Champions claim that they are now beginning their search for a worthy tag team to face at Double or Nothing for their AEW tag team championships. In the meantime, Kenny Omega has taken a one-on-one match with Austin Gunn tonight. During Gunn vs Omega, Kota Ibushi begins getting involved to distract Austin Gunn, when a masked assailant runs down the entranceway and starts beating up Kota Ibushi. This assailant distracts Omega, who gets caught in a single cradle pinfall by Austin Gunn for the 1, 2, 3. Austin Gunn immediately bolts up the entranceway to get away from a furious Kenny Omega. The assailant joins Austin at the top of the ramp, taking off his mask to reveal BILLY GUNN!! Billy Gunn is handed a microphone, and he says that he's chosen to team with his son for one more match, and they're going to win the AEW tag team championship. Kenny and Kota, now standing in the ring together, throw a tantrum after hearing this news, with Kota Ibushi grabbing the referee and hitting him with a Golden Star Powerbomb to let out his frustration.
Double or Nothing 2021
The Golden Champions (c) vs the Gunns for the AEW tag team championship
This match begins with Kota Ibushi and Austin Gunn. Kota Ibushi offers Austin a handshake before they lock up. Austin reaches for it, but Ibushi pulls it away, before laughing at Austin. Austin is angered by this, and immediately takes down Ibushi with a Lou Thesz Press. After Austin is finished punching Ibushi, Ibushi quickly staggers to his feet, collapsing in his turnbuckle. Kenny Omega makes a blind tag to Ibushi as Austin Gunn hits Ibushi with a splash in the corner. Kenny gets in the ring before Austin has fully recovered and hits him with an O'Connor Roll German Suplex into a pinfall, 1, 2, kickout by Austin Gunn.
Kenny Omega recovers, then lines up a move on Austin Gunn, who is using the ropes to get to his feet. Kenny Omega then runs at Austin, grabs Austin's head, leaps over the top rope and hits Austin with a snake eyes on the ropes, followed by a springboard senton. Kenny covers Austin, 1, 2, kickout by Austin Gunn.
Kenny Omega notices that Kota Ibushi has recovered, so Kenny irish whips Austin to his team's turnbuckle. Kenny then runs at Austin, but Austin steps out of the way, with Kenny crashing into the turnbuckle. Kota Ibushi makes a blind tag of his own as Austin Gunn begins laying punches onto Kenny Omega. Kota punches Austin in the face, staggering Austin back, before leaping to the top rope and hitting Austin with a leaping dropkick.
Austin begins crawling to make the hot tag to Billy Gunn, but Kota manages to sink in an Ankle Lock, pulling Austin away from the potential tag. Austin tries his best to crawl to his corner and make the tag. Just as Austin looks set to make the tag, Kenny Omega pulls Billy Gunn off the turnbuckle. However, Austin uses that momentum to grab the ropes and force a rope break.
Outside the ring, Kenny Omega and Billy Gunn have a stare off, before Billy lands a punch on Kenny that knocks Kenny right back to the ground. Billy Gunn gets back onto the apron and calls for the tag. Just as he does this, Austin Gunn frees himself from a headlock hold, pushing Kota away and leaping to make the hot tag to Billy Gunn. Kota Ibushi immediately back pedals towards his turnbuckle as Billy Gunn steps into the ring.
Billy Gunn immediately picks up Kota Ibushi and throws him across the ring. Kota rolls out of the ring and reconvenes with Kenny Omega, but Austin Gunn has recovered and he hits the Golden Champions with a dive off the apron. Austin Gunn then grabs Kota Ibushi and tosses him back into the ring. Kota crawls to escape the ring, but Billy Gunn grabs his leg, pulls him in and picks him up for a military press slam, followed by a leg drop cover for a 2 count.
Outside the ring, Kenny Omega has managed to grab Austin Gunn and hurl him into the steel steps. Billy Gunn takes his attention away from Kota Ibushi momentarily to see if his son is okay, allowing Kota Ibushi to strike with a missile dropkick to the back of Billy Gunn. Kota Ibushi then lays on Billy Gunn's back and begins laying in punches. He stops when he sees Kenny Omega is back on the apron. Kota grabs Billy Gunn by the hair, and walks towards Kenny Omega to make the tag. Kota Ibushi then kicks Billy Gunn in the gut, before the Golden Champions hit the Golden Trigger to Billy Gunn, covering Billy, 1, 2, 3.
The Golden Champions (c) def. the Gunns via pinfall to retain the AEW tag team championship (14:09)
Also at Double or Nothing, Lance Archer beats Jon Moxley to end Moxley's AEW World title reign and become the new AEW World Champion in a 25 minute street fight, and Adam Page won the Casino Battle Royal to earn a world title match at All Out.
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Build to Fyter Fest 2021
Following the Golden Champions' victory over the Gunns at Double or Nothing, Kota Ibushi is booked in a one on one match against Austin Gunn, which he wins decisively in 10 minutes following a Golden Star Powerbomb for the 1, 2, 3.
On the following week's episode of Dynamite, Kenny Omega would be booked in a singles match against Marko Stunt. Kenny Omega would pick up the clean victory following a One-Winged Angel. After the match, Kenny and Kota would berate Marko Stunt, lightly slapping him on the face, and pushing him to the ground. Jungle Boy Jack Perry would run down to the ring to stop the Golden Champions' bullying, when Kota Ibushi would suddenly strike Jungle Boy, knocking him down. Kota and Kenny would then beat down Jungle Boy, but Luchasaurus would make the save. Jungle Boy, Marko Stunt and Luchasaurus would use their numbers advantage to throw Kenny Omega over the top rope, before Luchasaurus would grab Kota Ibushi and hit him with a chokeslam.
Following on from the previous week's attack, Jungle Boy would be booked in a one on one match against Kota Ibushi. Jungle Boy would put up a surprisingly even match against Kota Ibushi, with Ibushi unable to connect with the Golden Star Powerbomb. Kenny Omega would eventually come down to the ring to run interference. Marko Stunt would try and stop Kenny, but Kenny easily deals with Marko Stunt. Kenny taking out Marko distracts Jungle Boy in the ring, giving Ibushi the opportunity to finally connect with the Golden Star Powerbomb, pinning Jungle Boy for the 1, 2, 3. Following the match, the Golden Champions would once again beat down Jungle Boy and Marko Stunt, and once again Luchasaurus would run down to make the save, but as he gets in the ring, Kenny Omega punches him in the nuts, before Kota and Kenny hit Luchasaurus with the Golden Trigger to stand tall after the match.
On the following week's episode of Dynamite, the Golden Champions would face the Jurassic Express in a 2v3 handicap match. The Jurassic Express would utilise their numbers advantage to pick up the win following a chokeslam by Luchasaurus to Kota Ibushi, with Luchasaurus pinning Kota for the 1, 2, 3. Following the match, Marko Stunt would grab a microphone and challenge the Golden Champions to put their titles on the line at Fyter Fest against Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus.
On the next week's Dynamite, the Golden Champions would be in a backstage interview, when they are asked if they are going to accept the Jurassic Express' challenge. Kenny steps forward and says that they have accepted the match against the Jurassic Express, but they hear that the match at Fyter Fest won't be their biggest concern heading into the two week special. Immediately, a paramedic runs through the shot, followed by another paramedic. The interviewer leaves the Golden Lovers to chase down the paramedics, when we see Jungle Boy Jack Perry holding his arm whilst resting next to a car. with the driver's door open. Luchasaurus and Marko Stunt soon come into shot, and Jack Perry tells them that he was jumped by two men wearing balaclavas, they grabbed Jungle Boy's arm, held it in the door hinge and slammed the car door shut, before running away. The doctors say that they don't know how long Jungle Boy will be out, but that Jungle Boy won't be cleared for Fyter Fest. Luchasaurus then turns to Marko Stunt and says "I guess you're up Marko", before the team are escorted out of the parking lot.
Week 1 of Fyter Fest 2021
The Golden Champions (c) vs the Jurassic Express (Luchasaurus and Marko Stunt) for the AEW tag team championship
The match starts off with Kenny Omega and Luchasaurus. Kenny Omega grabs Luchasaurus in an attempt to chain wrestle, but Luchasaurus immediately shoves Kenny Omega back to his corner. Kenny Omega starts waving at Kota Ibushi to make the tag, but Kota Ibushi holds his hands up, saying "he's yours". Kenny Omega then nervously turns around into a lariat by Luchasaurus. Luchasaurus then picks up Kenny Omega and goes for a chokeslam, but Kenny Omega reverses it with an arm drag, followed by a running bulldog.
Kenny Omega then puts Luchasaurus in a resting armbar, but Luchasaurus powers out of it, picking up Kenny Omega and slamming him onto the ground. Luchasaurus then goes to pick up Kenny Omega for a deadlift slam, but Kenny hits Luchasaurus in the head with a knee strike, followed by a rebound lariat, but this only staggers back Luchasaurus. Kenny Omega then rushes to tag in Kota Ibushi, and the pair get back in the ring and hit a double clothesline to Luchasaurus, which knocks him down. Kota Ibushi then follows it up with a standing shooting star press cover, but gets a 2 count. Kota Ibushi then recovers and lines up a running strike to Luchasaurus. But as Luchasaurus gets to his feet, he immediately sticks out his leg and connects with a big boot to Kota Ibushi.
Ibushi recovers in the corner, and Luchasaurus is ready to strike, when Marko Stunt yells out that he wants to be tagged in. Luchasaurus nervously glances over at Marko, before making the tag. Marko Stunt then immediately runs at Kota Ibushi with a dropkick in the corner. Marko hits a running dropkick to Ibushi again. Marko goes for the move a third time, but Ibushi manages to catch Marko Stunt in a powerbomb position, and hits Marko with the Golden Star Powerbomb. Instead of covering Marko Stunt, Ibushi immediately stands up and stares at Luchasaurus. Ibushi then picks up Marko Stunt, and hits him with another Golden Star Powerbomb. Ibushi pops up once again, and beckons Luchasaurus to get in the ring and stop the beating. Ibushi picks up Marko for a third Golden Star Powerbomb, but this time Luchasaurus steps over the top rope to get in the ring and put a stop to this. However, the Golden Champions wanted Luchasaurus to do this, as Kenny Omega was waiting, and as Luchasaurus put one leg over the top rope, Omega pushed the top rope up, hitting Luchasurus in the nuts with the rope, and sending Luchasaurus crashing down to the outside. Ibushi then hits yet another Golden Star Powerbomb to Marko Stunt, and makes the cover, 1, 2, 3.
The Golden Champions (c) def. Jurassic Express via pinfall to retain the AEW tag team championship (8:22)
After the match, the Golden Champions get in the ring and begin beating up Marko Stunt some more. They begin by hitting Marko with the Golden Trigger, before they each take turns hitting Marko with 450 splashes. Kota Ibushi then lays Kenny Omega's tag team title belt on the mat, and Kenny Omega hits Marko Stunt with the One-Winged Angel on the title belt, before leaving Marko Stunt in the ring as they walk away. AEW medical officers and Luchasaurus then lay Marko Stunt on a strecher to help him out of the arena.
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Build to Fight for the Fallen
On Week 2 of Fyter Fest, there is a mini announcement that Marko Stunt is okay following the vicious attack by the Golden Champions, and that he'll be back in action soon.
On the Dynamite after Week 2 of Fyter Fest, Kota Ibushi is booked in a match against Luchasaurus. Marko Stunt is announced to be absent from this week's episode, meaning Luchasaurus is on his own to deal with Ibushi and Omega. During the match, Kenny Omega slides a steel chair into the ring, before distracting the referee. Kota Ibushi uses this opportunity to hit the steel chair on the ground and then throw it to Luchasaurus. Luchasaurus catches it as the referee spins around, and the referee awards Kota Ibushi the win. Kota Ibushi immediately escapes the ring, and he and Omega begin circling the ring, with Luchasaurus waiting for them to attack. However, the Jurassic Express' music hits, and out come Marko Stunt, wearing a neck brace, and a returning JUNGLE BOY!! Jurassic Express then team up to beat down the Golden Champions, standing tall after the match.
On the following week of Dynamite, the Jurassic Express are in the ring cutting a promo about Jungle Boy's return, when Jungle Boy reveals that he has CCTV footage of the attack. He plays the footage, and it shows Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi putting on balaclavas, before going into the parking lot to beat down Jungle Boy. Jungle Boy then calls out Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi to come down to the ring. The Golden Champions announce that it was them who attacked Jungle Boy, but now they've beaten Jurassic Express, they want to find the next worthy challenger. Jungle Boy interrupts them, and says that he wants to face one of them tonight, and if he is successful, the Jurassic Express are guaranteed one more shot at the AEW tag team championship at Fight for the Fallen. Kota Ibushi accepts the challenge, before turning to Kenny Omega and telling Kenny that he's got this. Kenny looks surprised, but Kota reminds Kenny that he faced Luchasaurus last week, and it's Kenny's turn this week. Kenny then reluctantly accepts the match. During the match, Kota Ibushi is constantly getting involved, causing distractions, which leads to him getting banned from ringside. Kenny Omega begins pleading with the referee to change his mind, but as he's doing this, Jungle Boy sneaks up behind Kenny Omega and rolls him up for the 1, 2, 3. Jungle Boy rolls out of the ring as the Jurassic Express celebrate outside the ring, whilst Kenny Omega storms angrily to the back.
On the following week of Dynamite, the contract signing for the AEW tag team championship match between the Golden Champions and Jurassic Express is held. Marko Stunt joins his teammates still wearing a neck brace. The two teams sign the contracts, and then have a face off. The Golden Champions then take off their belts to hold them up, when they suddenly clock Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus with the belts. They appear to stand tall until Marko Stunt climbs the contract table and hits the Golden Champions with a diving crossbody, before ripping off the neck brace to reveal that he's okay. The Golden Champions roll out of the ring to flee as Marko Stunt checks on the rest of Jurassic Express.
Fight for the Fallen
The Golden Champions (c) vs the Jurassic Express ("Jungle Boy" Jack Perry and Luchasaurus) for the AEW tag team championship
Beginning the match are Jungle Boy and Kota Ibushi. They start the match off circling each other, seeing each other out, before they lock up. Jungle Boy takes control with a headlock, but Ibushi is able to reverse it by pushing Jungle Boy to the ropes and using that momentum to irish whip Jungle Boy to the opposing ropes, with Kota following it up with a shoulder tackle. Kota Ibushi then runs the ropes and runs back to Jungle Boy, who baseball slides underneath Kota and leaps to his feet to hit a reverse STO to Ibushi. Ibushi recovers quickly but staggers to the turnbuckle. Jungle Boy rushes over and hits Ibushi with a knife edge chop.
Jungle Boy then grabs Ibushi's arm and irish whips Ibushi to the opposing corner. Ibushi leaps up to the top turnbuckle and backflips off it as Jungle Boy rushes underneath. Ibushi then runs the ropes and rebounds back at Jungle Boy, ducking underneath a clothesline attempt and hitting Jungle Boy with a german suplex. Ibushi runs the ropes once again and hits Jungle Boy with an elbow drop for a 1 count. Ibushi takes a moment to step back, before grabbing Jungle Boy by the hair, putting him in position for a fisherman's suplex, but Jungle Boy reverses it with a fisherman's suplex of his own. Ibushi rolls out of the ring to recover, but Jungle Boy suddenly hits Ibushi with a suicide dive. Jungle Boy then grabs Ibushi and tosses him back in the ring before climbing the top rope. However, Jungle Boy took too long, as Ibushi was able to recover, and is able to push away the top rope, causing Jungle Boy to fall into a seated position on the top rope. Ibushi then leaps and hits a top-rope hurricanrana to Jungle Boy.
Kota Ibushi then walks over to his corner and makes the tag to Kenny Omega. Omega steps into the ring and immediately sits over Jungle Boy and lays in a series of punches, before grabbing Jungle Boy's arm and putting it in an armbar. Jungle Boy struggles with the hold, but manages to reach the ropes and break the hold. However, Kenny Omega refuses to let go of the hold, despite the rope break. Luchasaruus notices this and gets in the ring, grabbing Kenny Omega and throwing him off Jungle Boy. Kenny Omega gets to his feet and stands in Luchasaurus' face, but Luchasaurus then steps aside as Jungle Boy hits Kenny Omega with a superkick, going for the cover, 1, 2, Kota Ibushi breaks up the pin.
Jungle Boy quickly recovers and connects with a superkick to Ibushi, before making the hot tag to Luchasaurus. Kenny and Kota both recover as Luchasaurus stands in front of them. Kenny and Kota look at each other, then look at Luchasaurus, before running at him, but Luchasaurus catches them both with chokeholds, before hitting the Golden Champions with a double chokeslam. The Golden Champions then roll out of the ring on opposing sides, and circle the ring. However, Jungle Boy catches Kota Ibushi off guard with an irish whip into the barricade, followed by a shoulder tackle which takes out Ibushi entirely, leaving Kenny alone to deal with Luchasaurus. Kenny slowly walks up the steps, and steps in the ring, but Luchasaurus suddenly grabs Kenny Omega whilst he's still on the apron and picks him up into a military press. Luchasaurus then steps forward as he releases Kenny Omega, allowing Omega to land stomach first on the mat.
Luchasaurus then walks over to Jungle Boy and tags him in, and the pair pick up Kenny Omega and hit him with a double powerbomb. Jungle Boy covers Kenny Omega, 1, 2, kickout by Kenny Omega. Kota Ibushi has recovered and is standing on the ring apron, calling for a tag by Kenny Omega. Kenny begins to stir, before crawling towards Kota Ibushi. Jungle Boy grabs Kenny Omega's leg to try and stop the tag, but Kenny, using the ropes to get to his feet, hits an enzuigiri to Jungle Boy, before leaping to make the hot tag to Ibushi.
Ibushi bursts into the ring and immediately runs at Jungle Boy with a clothesline, followed by another clothesline, followed by a Northern Lights Suplex cover, 1, 2, Luchasaurus breaks up the pin. Kota Ibushi gets up and pushes Luchasaurus out of the ring, before turning to Jungle Boy and getting him in position for a powerbomb. However, Jungle Boy reverses it with a double leg takedown, followed by a jackknife cover, 1, 2, 3.
The Jurassic Express def. the Golden Champions (c) to win the AEW tag team championship (23:51)
Marko Stunt runs down the entranceway and grabs the title belts from the ring announcer's area to give to Luchasaurus and Jungle Boy as Jurassic Express celebrate, whilst Kota Ibushi lays on the ring mat, in shock that he was pinned, whilst Kenny Omega just walks up the entranceway into the back, without even looking at Kota Ibushi.
END OF PART 2

I used to think I could be happy anywhere. I wanted to see the world, and imagined I could make a life for myself wherever you plunked me down. Now I chalk that up to a youthful lack of taste. The same one which makes small children prefer pieces of breaded, processed chicken in the shape of dinosaurs over filet mignon.
There’s a connection between my body and the land where I was born. Yes, that’s a real thing. I didn’t believe it either until I moved out here. As I grow older, I crave familiarity more than novelty. Familiar sights and sounds. Familiar flora and fauna. The very scent of the air.
I have nobody to blame but myself. I made a classic young man’s error, getting on a plane for somebody I wasn’t married to. “Yet”, I told myself. Had my future with her all planned out, down to the color of the curtains...only to be dumped over the phone while unpacking.
I just wanted to go home after that. I wanted the comfort of those familiar sights, sounds and smells. Instead, because I spent my last dime transplanting my life from Oregon to Florida, I found myself stranded in an utterly alien environment.
I don’t belong here. Certainly not my body, but my heart least of all. Come to think of it, my true “happy place” was never a place, but a person. Was. Now I’m a stranger in a strange land, surrounded by incomprehensible beasts I have no ability nor desire to understand.
The first thing that struck me when I left the airport was the faint smell of burning tires, mixed with what I would soon learn is a scent typical of swampland. An obese woman dressed up as Uncle Sam occupied a booth set up outside, handing out free baby turtles to “police, firefighters or military in uniform.” I still don’t know what that was about.
The smell inside the cab was the same as outside but intensified by heat. A dense musk I was reluctant to immerse myself in, except that I knew nothing of local public transit options and couldn’t afford to bring my car.
On the drive from the airport to the apartment complex, I spied gators sunbathing right on the front lawns of houses adjacent to a large pond. Just right out in the open. And here I always thought the point of creating civilization was to get away from large predators.
A news report on the cab’s radio described a recent altercation between a shirtless man and police. Evidently he lit his beard on fire, declared that he could turn his entire body to steel and fire lightning from his eyes at will, then challenged bystanders to face him on the field of honor.
There’s a running joke that every time a news report begins with “A Florida man…” followed by a list of depraved crimes against nature and decency, they’re really all about the same guy. Some sort of demented superhero named “Florida Man”.
It was followed by a report on a string of missing persons cases. I didn’t know it then, but pretty soon I’d regard that as an improvement. If the rate of disappearances picks up, pretty soon this could be a dramatically nicer place to live.
This state is, at the very least, never boring. Maybe it’s something in the air, or the water. Maybe it’s the frequent hurricanes. Frequent by my standards anyway. But more likely it’s just the abundance of meth.
I was mugged on my third night, though mugged might not be the right word. The poor slob was too out of his mind to actually take my wallet. He wore a vomit stained undershirt and something resembling a kilt fashioned from a garbage bag around his lower body.
I couldn’t understand a word that came out of his nearly toothless mouth. I don’t know for certain if he was tweaking, he may simply have been homeless. Every native I’ve run into since I got here speaks English, but degenerated by varying degrees.
It’s not just a Southern drawl. Not much of that here. Nor is it a self consistent local dialect. It’s a mushy, corrupted patchwork, ever-changing to suit the mood of the speaker. I’m not just trying to be difficult, there have been times when I sincerely had to nod and smile because I couldn’t understand the fellow speaking to me.
I have known plenty of brilliant Southerners. This isn’t about North and South. I recall struggling to describe the nature of that cultural divide to an exchange student once, realizing in the process how petty and artificial it is.
The only actual, literal rocket scientist I personally know speaks with a Southern accent so thick, he ought to wear a tablet around his neck to display subtitles. So whatever’s wrong with Florida has nothing to do with the larger Southern US, which has produced a respectable number of accomplished thinkers. It’s specifically a Florida thing.
When you’re little, everyone you trust tells you to follow your heart. What awful advice that turned out to be! I followed my heart all the way from a lush, temperate wonderland of natural beauty to a putrid swampy hellscape prowled by roving bands of mutants. Fuck you, heart.
That’s not to say I haven’t met some interesting people here, albeit nearly all of them from out of state. I don’t have a large enough sample size to say this with any confidence, but it does seem like Florida is a popular place to pass through when you’re young, figuring yourself out and deciding what to do with your life.
Passing through Florida, and through my life. Each of them like a momentary sip of water, just barely sustaining me as I languish in this human desert. The cab ran over another of the increasingly common potholes.
I would later learn that the city concentrates maintenance funding on the areas immediately surrounding the theme parks which bring in all those lucrative tourist dollars. They visit the parks, maybe they visit the beaches, then they’re gone. No sense in fixing up what they’ll never see.
Consequently everything outside of the oasis of city spending surrounding those theme parks looks like a borderline post apocalyptic banana republic. I’m exaggerating, but not by much. As with any state there are nice and not so nice parts of Florida, I’ll be generous and assume I happened to move to one of the latter.
The landscape consists of dodgy, cobbled together strip malls and various small businesses of questionable legality. All of them operating out of dirty single story hovels which change hands frequently. Payday loans, pawn shops, cash for gold, and churches.
Oh, the endless variety of churches! One on every street corner, as plentiful as coffee shops back home. Pentecostal, Seventh Day Adventist, Scientologists, Eckankar, even a few snake handlers. The more gonzo, sensationalist and fringe, the better.
Like Vegas without the casinos. Everything’s instant, value priced, while-u-wait. Culture without nuance, depth or patience, with a population to match. If you’re familiar with the website “People of Wal Mart”, imagine that, but everywhere you look any time you step outside.
Partly due to the cultural disconnect and partly due to the lingering shock of being dumped, I began floating through life high above everything, nowhere touching the Earth. It no longer had anything I wanted. Nothing with which to entice me to re-engage.
The sting of the breakup, though it felt as if it would last forever at the time, eventually petered out. The habit of disconnection I picked up in the process did not die with it, but persisted as a permanent new feature of my personality...one which quickly proved its worth as a pain avoidance mechanism.
Nobody could hurt me if I never sincerely invested myself in them. What an ingenious trick! Nothing prevented me from going through the motions. From saying all the same kinds of things I would’ve, if I allowed myself to return the love so generously invested in me by a string of women more emotionally adventurous than I.
This way I could have companionship, gratification and the various other benefits of a relationship, but with none of the danger. It never lasted longer than a few months though. They always picked up on what I was doing when, sometimes just experimentally, they tried to hurt me a little bit.
A test of some sort. Going to dinner with an old boyfriend, sloppy makeouts with some rando at a party or something of that nature. I was supposed to get angry. To yell, to cry, even to slap them depending on their tastes. Anything but an indifferent shrug.
If only they weren’t so curious, things might’ve lasted longer. But they had to know. They couldn’t just accept outward appearances as reality. They had to scrape at the skin, recoiling in horror when the wound refused to bleed. When only cold, dull metal shone back at them through the opening.
I know I’m the one who was in the wrong. To lead them on like that, letting them entrust their hearts to an emotional cripple. I should be guilty. But then, guilt is a feeling. I’m just about out of those by now.
It’s the same way anywhere there’s loads of people. Malls, airports, theme parks, bars. I imagine a sort of invisible force field just slightly larger than I am. A full body condom. To separate me from these people, however frequently I must immerse myself in them.
A Christian roommate back in college had his own term for it: Being in the world, but not of the world. A stopped clock is still correct twice a day. This particular world is one I have to be “in” for the time being, I decided...but I will never be “of” it.
There’s no avoiding interaction, not forever. Don’t think I haven’t tried. I don’t even leave my apartment lately, performing online jobs for a service called Mechanical Turk. Basically human assisted search results.
I did it on the side at first, but once you’ve stuck with it for long enough and are highly rated, you can make serious money at it. Enough for rent and utilities anyway, plus a little extra for the occasional pizza or energy drinks that food stamps won’t cover.
So I stagnated. Then I stagnated more. Days, weeks, months went by with no human contact save for text on my monitor. The only times I’d go out would be for booze or coffee. Or to hike. With practice, over time I whittled down the number of words I needed to say to the bartender (in order to communicate what I wanted) to the absolute minimum.
She didn’t notice what I was doing at first. When she did, she started giving me the stink eye every time I ordered. Not that I care. I don’t know her. I don’t fucking know any of these people. This may as well be a foreign country.
Back home, I loved to hike. You really can’t get away with being an indoor person in the Pacific Northwest. There’s an embarrassment of gorgeous wilderness just minutes from any city. Not so much here. Just endless flat expanses of asphalt or swampland, punctuated by big budget tourist attractions and gimmicky, low budget Americana.
I chose this apartment complex in large part because it’s directly adjacent to a much nicer, more upscale complex. They’ve got their own beautifully landscaped bicycle path, the closest thing to a wooded trail for miles.
Naturally, they’ve put up a rustic wooden fence as a “suggestion” that those of us who don’t pay for the path’s upkeep should stay out. Of course I just step right over that shit. I don’t know these people. I don’t care what they think of me, or owe them anything.
It’s one of the rare bright spots in my life since moving here. Nothing like a proper hiking trail but it makes for pleasant Sunday walks. The landscaping is a little overdone and artificial, like everything else in this state...natives included.
Even so, simply being out in the sun, more or less surrounded by trees, flowers and grass is a sorely needed respite. The only interruption is the occasional overly disciplined cyclist, wearing full body neon spandex and a teardrop helmet, rocketing past to one side.
One of ’em stopped once to lecture me for making use of the path. He could tell from my clothing where I must live. I just stood there, expressionless, until he tired himself out and left. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Except for incidents like that, I could be both outside and alone for the entire day once a week. I needed the exercise too. My hermitic lifestyle had begun to take a toll on my body. The regular diet of rice, beans and pasta plus the occasional pizza delivery also wasn’t doing me any favors.
Despite the weekly exposure I’d grown distressingly pale. All muscle definition vanished and with each passing day I felt myself growing weaker. Every Sunday, when I emerged from the apartment for a walk, the sun hurt my eyes a little more.
Deterioration. Progressively worse, resembling the transformation already underway within me. A gradual withering which I could imagine no plausible way to reverse. To hell with it, I decided. It’s not as if I’m terribly attached to life at this point.
It was during one of these Sunday walks, specifically a stopover in an undeveloped field of grass, that I found it. The field is one of the few places I can reach from the path that’s purely natural, neither landscaped nor built upon.
I didn’t think much of the object jabbing me in the back initially. I simply meant to lay down and look up at the sky, maybe listen to some music. But something sharp pressed into me as I reclined. Rolling over and retrieving the offending object, I stared.
Can’t say why I didn’t notice the smell sooner. Once close enough to my face, it made me gag. Something like the cracked, partly decomposed claw of a crab. Not any species I’ve ever seen. Too large for one thing, and black as night.
Here and there, coarse, pointy bristles protruded from it. Like the ones which cover tarantulas, seen up close. Coconut crabs? Out here? Not that I knew of. Lobsters? Not this far inland. As repulsive as it was, it made for a welcome curiosity. A disruption of my usual, increasingly mind numbing routine.
I contemplated bringing it back to the apartment, but decided against it because of the smell. Instead I took a picture with my phone, then laid elsewhere in the field until the sun began to set. I’ve become accustomed to the heat since moving here, but it’s downright pleasant in the evening.
Except in the Summer, and even then only for a scant few days, back home it was never warm enough that I could take walks after dark without a jacket. Strolling along beneath the stars, the now comfortably tepid air tickling my bare arms made me resolve to schedule some more evening walks in the following weeks.
Now and again I passed through great teeming clouds of gnats or some other tiny winged insect. I knew these small, localized swarms assembled in the evening for breeding purposes and felt mildly disgusted by that as I picked them out of my hair.
Then again, they inconvenienced me relatively little compared to what it must be like from their perspective. Imagine some gigantic, incomprehensible beast plowing into you while you’re just trying to get laid. A brief moment of disgust for me. But for many of those flies, a brutal and unexpected end to their already short lives.
They’re the lucky ones. I’ve got to go on living here. I took a shower when I got home to wash the remaining gnats out of my hair, as otherwise I could feel a few stragglers writhing against my scalp, fighting to free themselves. Down the drain with ’em.
I ordered a pizza online afterwards, still dripping, towel wrapped around my waist. I didn’t even bother getting dressed in time for the delivery. Just opened the door, took the pizza and handed him the cash. “Oh. I uh, I didn’t mean to…sorry!”
I didn’t so much as make eye contact. “Well, have a great evening and enjoy your pizza!” Token friendliness, and thinly veiled pleading for a generous tip. I shut the door in his face. I order pizza once a month at most. The rate of turnover is such that it’ll be someone else next time anyway, guaranteed.
Strangers in the night, just how I like it. The pizza was decent for what I paid, though some strange process happens as it cools down. It’s never anywhere close to as good reheated as it is freshly baked.
The same thing happens to any fast food I’ve tried. Addictively tasty when fresh and hot, but it slowly congeals as it cools, saturated fats solidifying until achieving a rubbery texture. It doesn’t stop me from eating it though. My insides are no less cold, no less limp.
I played computer games on one monitor while ‘turking’ on the other until the sun came up. All told I made nearly fifty dollars. Something about sleep deprivation really puts me in “the zone”. The energy drinks probably have something to do with it.
I enter this hazy, almost dreamlike mindset where the work flies by. I’m no less proficient in MOBAs when I get like this either. My skills improve, if anything. Time loses all meaning. My bloodshot eyes track the action with no conscious effort on my part, my every movement automated.
During one of these semi-lucid marathon gaming sessions, in the wee hours of the morning, I first glimpsed one. A whole, living specimen that must’ve followed the scent I picked up from touching that claw. I only saw it out of the corner of my eye mind you, and because I knew I was inebriated, I didn’t take it seriously.
Mild hallucination comes with the territory. It was hardly the first time I spotted blotchy, moving silhouettes in my peripheral vision. Mildly concerning the first time, but I don’t scare easily. I have a solid grasp on what’s real. On what’s even possible, versus the mind playing tricks on itself.
That infuriates some people. Usually ones with some frivolous worldview built on a mixture of sloppy thinking and outright fraud. I could be less abrasive if I were to qualify my statements as if they were just my opinions, but they’re not. Anyway, do they deserve that level of consideration? It’s their own fault for being suckered into such obvious hokum.
This fortified materialistic mindset insulates me against fear of the dark. In most cases I’m likely to be the scariest thing hiding in the dark anyway. I can’t pinpoint when I turned into what I am now, but any crazed vagrant, thief or meth head concealed by cover of night has more to fear from me than the inverse.
That’s just realistic threats, too. Ghosts, demons and the like never enter into my consideration. To reach the center in my brain responsible for fear, such ideas would first have to pass through the center responsible for separating the plausible from the implausible. They never do.
I simply know better. It’s a bleak, boring world out there. No sasquatches, no devils, no ghosts or chupacabras. Humans are the only monsters on this planet, myself included. The longer you live around them, the more of their attributes you absorb until one day you look in the mirror and see one of ’em staring back at you.
That reminds me, I should start smoking. Whatever it takes so that I die before the transformation completes. Death is my destination, as certainly as someone with a gun to his temple. I’ve just chosen to take a more circuitous, scenic route.
To that end, when I woke up the next morning with a pounding headache, I headed straight for the bar. Sheila was surprised to see me, I think. I don’t look at her face much. I’m also not actually sure that’s her name. Sharla? Shauna?
“Shit, you’re a mess.” No argument from me, I left the apartment without showering. My hair must’ve been a riot to look at, stiff oily tufts sticking out all over. When I said nothing, she sighed and asked me what I wanted.
“Whisky, neat.” She frowned. “This ain’t fuckin Star Trek. I’m not that machine. Whatever it was, you know. Tea, earl grey, hot. Can’t you say hello first? Maybe ask how I’m doing?” I smiled. Shirley’s not usually funny. Shanna?
“I just want my drink.” I paid upfront. A tab would’ve been too much of a commitment for my liking. The beginnings of roots I had no intention of putting down in a place like this. I already felt hungover and would undoubtedly regret this later in the day.
Morning drinking is one of those cliche signs that you’ve lost control of your life. I’ve got no life to lose control of, so I ought to be alright. My eyes wandered, then came to rest on the dingy little strip club across the street.
I think it used to be a Blockbusters. They repainted but didn’t bother to change the architecture, just blacked out the windows. The sign was missing some letters, and had been for the past year. The giant pair of neon outlined cartoon tits above that communicates their value proposition clearly enough. Most of their regulars probably can’t read anyway.
A pair of surly, shirtless men with huge beer bellies were duking it out in the strip club’s parking lot. Really going at it, smashing each other’s ugly, drunken faces with their fists, a trash can lid, and at one point the hood of a parked car. I looked away, having seen that sort of thing so many times around here that it wasn’t even worth paying attention to.
I’m not an eavesdropper by nature. I could care less what anybody around me is talking about, but it’s occasionally ridiculous or outrageous enough that my ears perk up. This is how I’ve learned everything I know about how their minds work, which is more than I ever wanted to.
For one thing, there exists no semblance of critical thought in their understanding of the world. Their method for determining what’s true basically boils down to what they’ve heard other people say. The more people say the same thing, the more credible it is in their estimation.
I cannot count the number of times I’ve heard them breathlessly discussing obvious internet hoaxes as though they were real. Confusing satire for news, or the contents of tabloids and chain letters as if they were the products reputable journalism.
This is how they accumulate a sort of “folk wisdom”. What “everybody knows is true”. A mishmash of politically motivated rumors, investment scams or other get rich quick nonsense, and the sort of hollow Earth, Jewish conspiracy, ancient aliens bullshit of the sort commonly discussed on Coast to Coast AM and Infowars.
Whether they believe it boils down to how cool they think it would be if true, and the degree to which it reinforces their entrenched political views...which are themselves dictated in large part by fear, selfishness and stupidity.
According to the average conversation I overhear while drinking, Obama was born in Kenya, The government puts fluoride in our water and chemtrails in the sky to dumb us down (as if these people need any help with that) anybody who’s not some sort of evangelical Christian is out to get everybody that is, and these various menaces are all somehow in cahoots with each other.
Rolling up everybody you dislike into a single vague, sinister entity as if Jews have any truck with Muslims, or atheists with either is surely simpler than forming separate opinions of each group. Which is easier still than getting to know individuals, though I suppose I’m not one to talk as I avoid that like the plague.
Topping off their list of bogeymen, there’s the feminists, the gays, the blacks, the ACLU, the government and basically any other barrier to achieving their idea of utopia; a country under the exclusive control of people who look, sound, think, dress, fuck, and smell like they do.
That’s a wonderful joke to me, because if you ask one of these creatures to list the qualities they imagine all blacks possess that they find so disagreeable, what you’ll get from them is a spot on description of themselves.
They’re disgusting, aren’t they? It can’t just be me. There are days when I wonder if I’ve judged them too harshly. This usually happens when I haven’t run into one for a while. That little shred of guilt vanishes the moment I next hear one of them speak.
“Oh ya, dem fings is real. I seen ’em” says the plump woman with the ratty blonde hair seated near me. Whoever she’s speaking to is just outside my field of vision, but I don’t care enough to turn my head. I continue listening anyway, and discover she’s talking about ghosts.
“Dey had experts on dat show, I done watched it t’other night on da Histry channel.” Oh yes, of course. The History channel. Also known as the Hitler, ghosts and aliens channel. Gotta give the people what they want, integrity be damned.
“Expert” has a very particular meaning for these people. “Scientist” is a dirty word. It has political connotations for them. It’s those damnable “government scientists” who tell them that climate change exists, that the Biblical account of human origins probably isn’t accurate, that vaccines are a necessary precaution against pathogens, that fluoride is harmless in sufficiently small amounts, etcetera.
Just a bunch of dour, humorless spoilsports in their view, whose input on any matter of emotional importance is never welcome. “Experts” are another story. That’s any white or Asian man in nice clothes who argues in favor of their own ill formed opinions, with a command of the English language far enough in advance of their own that he sounds intelligent and credible, but not so much that he comes off as snooty.
These buffoons regularly appear in so-called documentaries about the existence of mermaids, the alien origins of Bigfoot and so on with “Expert” under their names at the bottom of the screen. It’s these “experts” the locals are referring to when they use the ambiguous “they”.
As in “Did you hear that they proved the existence of Atlantis?” or “They found evidence dragons really existed back in the middle ages”. Which it turns out was the poor fellow’s interpretation of The Last Dragon, an openly fictitious mockumentary which speculates about how the anatomy of dragons might work if they existed. If.
Doesn’t matter. He saw it, it sounded serious and authoritative, so in his mind he’s got a rock solid basis for making such a claim. There’s no use arguing. He’s got that vague but convincing memory to latch onto.
Even if you take out your phone and show him the exact program he’s talking about to demonstrate for him that it was never meant to be taken as fact, he’d shrug and say something like “close enough”. As if it was a reasonable mistake anybody could’ve made, and you’re the asshole for taking it seriously enough to settle the matter.
It’s maddening and never, ever worth the hassle. When you wrestle with a pig, you both get filthy, but the pig enjoys it. I learned that the hard way when I took a night class on programming.
A well built fellow in a pink polo shirt with a popped collar was impressing the anorexic blonde with the disproportionately huge bust seated next to him by explaining that time is the fourth dimension.
Not realizing the tar baby I was about to become entangled with, I muttered that time isn’t objectively the fourth dimension (since it isn’t as though they have numbers carved into them) and that there exist spatial dimensions in excess of the three familiar to us as well, one of which could be accurately called the fourth.
He “corrected” me, citing a Michio Kaku television special he watched the night before. Didn’t matter that we could both be right. That duration can indeed be added to length, width and height as one of the metrics used to describe a solid at the same time that spatial dimensions exist in excess of the three familiar to human experience.
What mattered is that he saw something on TV which sounded credible, so he felt certain that the irritating nerd contradicting his recollection of it couldn’t possibly know better. I drew a tesseract for him. To his credit he recognized it. Most people recognize a tesseract even if they don’t know the term for it.
“This is a four dimensional cube, or at least a flat drawing of one. Yet the fourth dimension expressed here isn’t temporal, but spatial. What’s being visualized isn’t the duration of the cube, but an additional degree of extrusion.
A line is an extrusion of a point, a square is an extrusion of a line, and a cube is an extrusion of a square. When you extrude a cube, you get a tesseract. That has nothing to do with time and everything to do with space.”
He scoffed but didn’t explain why. “Whatever nerd. Just go look up what I was watching, then come back and tell me that. You think you know everything.” Of course I don’t, but this particular topic was one I happened to know something about.
His posturing further impressed the tits on a stick whose narrow white ass he’d been blowing smoke up before I made the mistake of involving myself. “Ooohhh, you’re so smaaart. You should come to my place and help me study tonight.”
Maybe I really am the fool. He was presumably balls deep in her a few hours later, while I pulled another all-nighter playing MOBAs and narrowing search results for random internet retards. If you judge a method by the results it produces, impressive sounding horseshit outperforms factual accuracy every time.
The women I did occasionally capture the interest of seemed mainly attracted to the novelty of dating somebody who could string together a coherent sentence without straining himself. I’ve got opposable thumbs, an even number of toes and all my original teeth, apparently rare and enticing qualities around these parts.
A few tugged at my heart. Tempted me to engage, to become entangled. Really sweet, bright, worthwhile girls who had the misfortune of meeting me. Of being fooled by the human shaped outer shell, mistakenly imagining there was still anything of substance left inside.
Even then, they could tell what I was turning into. I don’t blame them for leaving. If I had any scruples I would’ve warned them off myself when we met, but I didn’t. Nothing that I once liked about myself remains. It all burnt to the ground the day I received that phone call while unpacking.
When my blood alcohol level rose to the point where I could no longer silently endure the braying and bleating of barnyard animals carrying on behind me, I stumbled out through the double doors in a blinkered stupor. Is the sun always this painfully bright?
The debilitating level of intoxication made the heat and humidity surprisingly bearable. I was soon drenched with sweat but only noticed when my hand became too slippery to hold onto the bottle. Wait, I paid for the whole bottle? Shit, I’d better finish it then.
Drank too much? Drink more, that’ll fix it. Booze logic at work. I can’t say exactly how I got there, but after a long unintelligible smear of blurry scenery, I realized I was back in the field. I really ought to wear a GPS collar when I drink, so that after I sober up I can have Google Maps show me the route I took. Something like those Billy focused Family Circus comics with the dotted line all the fuck over the yard.
I concluded it was an ideal place to pass out, and was in the process of laying down when I spotted the unmarked van pulling into the parking lot at the far side of the field. I pressed down as flat as I could, but continued watching with rapt interest.
Someone must own this field after all. I worried about how they might react to finding me here, drunk and disheveled. Not for long though. Curiosity quickly supplanted fear as I watched a quartet of men in black suits, white rubber gloves and sunglasses emerge from the vehicle.
Even if I were sober, they were far enough away that I couldn’t make out what they were doing in any real detail. Whiskey goggles only added to the difficulty. What is that, I thought. What the fuck is it?
Some kind of carrion. A dead animal, about the size of a man. Too many legs though! Too many for a bear, or a deer, or anything I know about. Jet black all over. Long spindly legs dragging behind as they heaved it into a body bag, zipped it up, then loaded it into the back of the van.
Fuck me. I studied the label on the bottle but could find nothing to blame for what I’d just seen. When I looked up, one of the agents seemed to stare directly at me. I froze. He turned a few degrees. Then a few more, surveying the field for any witnesses.
Despite my drunken incompetence, just by laying flat in the tall grass, I managed to evade notice. Once fully satisfied that there were no witnesses, all four men piled into the van and drove off. Why during broad daylight? Even in such a state, that seemed odd to me.
Unless they didn’t want to risk anybody finding whatever the fuck it was that they bagged up and made off with. Didn’t want to leave it rotting out here even a second longer than necessary, heading out to retrieve it the moment somebody called it in.
Cops? No, no. FBI? Maybe. Spooks of some kind. I don’t know enough about the agencies which handle hush hush, cloak and dagger type shit to venture a guess at who employs those men. Just that they weren’t the sort of fellows I should introduce myself to.
I remained there for a time, watching for any further activity. Then I abruptly vomited, getting some on my shirt. I stood up swearing at myself, every other word slurred to the point of unintelligibility. Then it struck me.
They did it. They finally fucking did it. I’m one of the local creatures now. God damnit. Maybe this is how it happens? Maybe nobody’s actually native to this fetid swamp, the prehistoric peninsula that time forgot. Maybe they come here and begin changing. By the time they realize what’s happening, it’s too far along.
Fuck me. Fuck this place. Garbage, all of it. But I could no longer exclude myself from the mess around me. Now I’m just another figure in the background, fitting in at last when I hoped I never would. Death, take me now.
I tripped in a gopher hole and stumbled, falling to my hands and knees. When my senses returned, it took a while to fully process what was in front of me. I never really bothered to explore the whole field before this, just wandered a short ways in and laid down to watch the clouds roll by.
But now, close to dead center of the field, I found myself peering down what appeared to be a borehole of some kind. A sinkhole, maybe? Is this what they look like? Didn’t sound right. This looked excavated, not naturally formed.
It was about five feet in diameter and so deep that I couldn’t see the bottom. It just faded into inscrutable blackness after about fifty feet. If I didn’t stumble on that gopher hole, I’d probably have fallen into the much larger opening instead.
What is this? Something related to construction? That must be it. A freshly dug well, possibly. Or the early stages of a geothermal heating and cooling setup for whatever building would soon be erected here. With atypically good timing, my stomach chose this point to once again empty itself.
The remains of my liquid breakfast spiraled down into the darkness, scattering along the way into so many soupy droplets. I dry heaved a couple times, confirming that was the last of it. I then repeatedly called out into the abyss. I don’t remember exactly why. Just to listen for the echo I think.
There’s a lot I don’t remember about that day. How I wound up at the field for example. I just know that I got home somehow, because that’s where I woke up, head pounding like Michael J. Fox working a jackhammer.
The sun had already gone down. Not recently either; when I stepped outside to gauge the temperature it was chilly enough that I decided against walking it off. My cat wove between my ankles as though deliberately trying to topple me.
It’s a stretch to call Goblin “my cat”. Just a stray who tolerates me because I feed and shelter her. A scraggly little creature that I welcomed into my life because she’s cleaner and better mannered than most of the people I’ve run into since my arrival.
I spent so much time developing an immunity to human attachment that I neglected to do the same for animals. I’m helpless but to dote on this grumpy, stubborn little critter. I’m sure I’d love her less if she could speak. Makes me wonder if the locals might be rendered equally charming by a sudden outbreak of mutism.
Goblin leapt onto my lap the moment I sat down at my computer, aggressively burrowing into my jacket. She gets clingy at night. Probably less to do with affection than the fact that my body emits a good deal of heat.
What was that, I thought. What exactly was it? A jumble of half remembered sights and sounds trickled back into my mind, bit by bit, as I struggled to sort out how much of it really happened. Most of all, I felt captivated by fleeting memories of the hole.
What’s down there, I wonder. Down that hole, deep in the Earth. What could be down there? What’s down in the hole? Gotta get my thoughts under control. Clicking the time in the lower right of the screen brought up the calendar. Thursday already?
Hardly the first time my sleep cycle became inverted. Takes forever to fix it, too. I’ve read you need to stay awake until evening, resisting the urge to crash before then. I never manage. Instead, I stay awake further and further into the wee hours of the morning, falling asleep later and later in the day until I come full circle.
It’s hell on my body, and increasingly my mind as well. When a series of soft knocks came at the door, I initially ignored them under the assumption I was hallucinating. Who would visit me? I stumbled to the door and opened it just a crack.
Camille, my next door neighbor. She brought me cornbread and grits the night after I finished moving in. I ate it all, but other than that we’ve had no contact since, save for occasional glances when we both retrieve our mail at the same time.
“I don’t mean to bother you, it’s just...I never see you leave your apartment anymore. Is something wrong?” I searched for answers to that question which wouldn’t fill many volumes. “No” I grunted. She didn’t buy it, probably smelling the whisky on my breath.
“If something’s happening in your life...if you’re hurting and don’t have anybody to talk to about it, you could come see me any time you want. I don’t know anything about you, so I can’t promise I’ll know how to help, but I’m a good listener.”
I just wanted her gone. “I go for walks sometimes. Don’t worry about me.” I began to shut the door, but she wedged her foot in there. “Somebody left a thing on your door.” She carefully handed me a post-it note through the narrow opening.
Sure enough. Looked to be from the landlord, too. “...Thanks.” With that, I pushed her foot out of the opening with my own, then shut the door the rest of the way. The note expressed similar concerns about “antisocial behavior”.
Asocial rather than antisocial, surely? What is there to complain about? In most ways, I’m a model tenant. I don’t blast music at odd hours, I don’t host parties, I don’t do much of anything. If not for the light coming out of my windows at night, one could be forgiven for assuming this apartment is vacant.
The note ended with something or other about an upcoming “community party” in the “clubhouse”, the same large structure which houses the office where I signed all the necessary paperwork to move in. What “community” exactly? I just live here.
I crumpled it up and threw it in the bin on my way to the kitchen. The moment I flicked the light switch, a single cockroach fled beneath the fridge. I grimaced. Not much to speak of in the fridge except the pizza I ordered the other day.
Read the rest here.

I used to think I could be happy anywhere. I wanted to see the world, and imagined I could make a life for myself wherever you plunked me down. Now I chalk that up to a youthful lack of taste. The same one which makes small children prefer pieces of breaded, processed chicken in the shape of dinosaurs over filet mignon.
There’s a connection between my body and the land where I was born. Yes, that’s a real thing. I didn’t believe it either until I moved out here. As I grow older, I crave familiarity more than novelty. Familiar sights and sounds. Familiar flora and fauna. The very scent of the air.
I have nobody to blame but myself. I made a classic young man’s error, getting on a plane for somebody I wasn’t married to. “Yet”, I told myself. Had my future with her all planned out, down to the color of the curtains...only to be dumped over the phone while unpacking.
I just wanted to go home after that. I wanted the comfort of those familiar sights, sounds and smells. Instead, because I spent my last dime transplanting my life from Oregon to Florida, I found myself stranded in an utterly alien environment.
I don’t belong here. Certainly not my body, but my heart least of all. Come to think of it, my true “happy place” was never a place, but a person. Was. Now I’m a stranger in a strange land, surrounded by incomprehensible beasts I have no ability nor desire to understand.
The first thing that struck me when I left the airport was the faint smell of burning tires, mixed with what I would soon learn is a scent typical of swampland. An obese woman dressed up as Uncle Sam occupied a booth set up outside, handing out free baby turtles to “police, firefighters or military in uniform.” I still don’t know what that was about.
The smell inside the cab was the same as outside but intensified by heat. A dense musk I was reluctant to immerse myself in, except that I knew nothing of local public transit options and couldn’t afford to bring my car.
On the drive from the airport to the apartment complex, I spied gators sunbathing right on the front lawns of houses adjacent to a large pond. Just right out in the open. And here I always thought the point of creating civilization was to get away from large predators.
A news report on the cab’s radio described a recent altercation between a shirtless man and police. Evidently he lit his beard on fire, declared that he could turn his entire body to steel and fire lightning from his eyes at will, then challenged bystanders to face him on the field of honor.
There’s a running joke that every time a news report begins with “A Florida man…” followed by a list of depraved crimes against nature and decency, they’re really all about the same guy. Some sort of demented superhero named “Florida Man”.
It was followed by a report on a string of missing persons cases. I didn’t know it then, but pretty soon I’d regard that as an improvement. If the rate of disappearances picks up, pretty soon this could be a dramatically nicer place to live.
This state is, at the very least, never boring. Maybe it’s something in the air, or the water. Maybe it’s the frequent hurricanes. Frequent by my standards anyway. But more likely it’s just the abundance of meth.
I was mugged on my third night, though mugged might not be the right word. The poor slob was too out of his mind to actually take my wallet. He wore a vomit stained undershirt and something resembling a kilt fashioned from a garbage bag around his lower body.
I couldn’t understand a word that came out of his nearly toothless mouth. I don’t know for certain if he was tweaking, he may simply have been homeless. Every native I’ve run into since I got here speaks English, but degenerated by varying degrees.
It’s not just a Southern drawl. Not much of that here. Nor is it a self consistent local dialect. It’s a mushy, corrupted patchwork, ever-changing to suit the mood of the speaker. I’m not just trying to be difficult, there have been times when I sincerely had to nod and smile because I couldn’t understand the fellow speaking to me.
I have known plenty of brilliant Southerners. This isn’t about North and South. I recall struggling to describe the nature of that cultural divide to an exchange student once, realizing in the process how petty and artificial it is.
The only actual, literal rocket scientist I personally know speaks with a Southern accent so thick, he ought to wear a tablet around his neck to display subtitles. So whatever’s wrong with Florida has nothing to do with the larger Southern US, which has produced a respectable number of accomplished thinkers. It’s specifically a Florida thing.
When you’re little, everyone you trust tells you to follow your heart. What awful advice that turned out to be! I followed my heart all the way from a lush, temperate wonderland of natural beauty to a putrid swampy hellscape prowled by roving bands of mutants. Fuck you, heart.
That’s not to say I haven’t met some interesting people here, albeit nearly all of them from out of state. I don’t have a large enough sample size to say this with any confidence, but it does seem like Florida is a popular place to pass through when you’re young, figuring yourself out and deciding what to do with your life.
Passing through Florida, and through my life. Each of them like a momentary sip of water, just barely sustaining me as I languish in this human desert. The cab ran over another of the increasingly common potholes.
I would later learn that the city concentrates maintenance funding on the areas immediately surrounding the theme parks which bring in all those lucrative tourist dollars. They visit the parks, maybe they visit the beaches, then they’re gone. No sense in fixing up what they’ll never see.
Consequently everything outside of the oasis of city spending surrounding those theme parks looks like a borderline post apocalyptic banana republic. I’m exaggerating, but not by much. As with any state there are nice and not so nice parts of Florida, I’ll be generous and assume I happened to move to one of the latter.
The landscape consists of dodgy, cobbled together strip malls and various small businesses of questionable legality. All of them operating out of dirty single story hovels which change hands frequently. Payday loans, pawn shops, cash for gold, and churches.
Oh, the endless variety of churches! One on every street corner, as plentiful as coffee shops back home. Pentecostal, Seventh Day Adventist, Scientologists, Eckankar, even a few snake handlers. The more gonzo, sensationalist and fringe, the better.
Like Vegas without the casinos. Everything’s instant, value priced, while-u-wait. Culture without nuance, depth or patience, with a population to match. If you’re familiar with the website “People of Wal Mart”, imagine that, but everywhere you look any time you step outside.
Partly due to the cultural disconnect and partly due to the lingering shock of being dumped, I began floating through life high above everything, nowhere touching the Earth. It no longer had anything I wanted. Nothing with which to entice me to re-engage.
The sting of the breakup, though it felt as if it would last forever at the time, eventually petered out. The habit of disconnection I picked up in the process did not die with it, but persisted as a permanent new feature of my personality...one which quickly proved its worth as a pain avoidance mechanism.
Nobody could hurt me if I never sincerely invested myself in them. What an ingenious trick! Nothing prevented me from going through the motions. From saying all the same kinds of things I would’ve, if I allowed myself to return the love so generously invested in me by a string of women more emotionally adventurous than I.
This way I could have companionship, gratification and the various other benefits of a relationship, but with none of the danger. It never lasted longer than a few months though. They always picked up on what I was doing when, sometimes just experimentally, they tried to hurt me a little bit.
A test of some sort. Going to dinner with an old boyfriend, sloppy makeouts with some rando at a party or something of that nature. I was supposed to get angry. To yell, to cry, even to slap them depending on their tastes. Anything but an indifferent shrug.
If only they weren’t so curious, things might’ve lasted longer. But they had to know. They couldn’t just accept outward appearances as reality. They had to scrape at the skin, recoiling in horror when the wound refused to bleed. When only cold, dull metal shone back at them through the opening.
I know I’m the one who was in the wrong. To lead them on like that, letting them entrust their hearts to an emotional cripple. I should be guilty. But then, guilt is a feeling. I’m just about out of those by now.
It’s the same way anywhere there’s loads of people. Malls, airports, theme parks, bars. I imagine a sort of invisible force field just slightly larger than I am. A full body condom. To separate me from these people, however frequently I must immerse myself in them.
A Christian roommate back in college had his own term for it: Being in the world, but not of the world. A stopped clock is still correct twice a day. This particular world is one I have to be “in” for the time being, I decided...but I will never be “of” it.
There’s no avoiding interaction, not forever. Don’t think I haven’t tried. I don’t even leave my apartment lately, performing online jobs for a service called Mechanical Turk. Basically human assisted search results.
I did it on the side at first, but once you’ve stuck with it for long enough and are highly rated, you can make serious money at it. Enough for rent and utilities anyway, plus a little extra for the occasional pizza or energy drinks that food stamps won’t cover.
So I stagnated. Then I stagnated more. Days, weeks, months went by with no human contact save for text on my monitor. The only times I’d go out would be for booze or coffee. Or to hike. With practice, over time I whittled down the number of words I needed to say to the bartender (in order to communicate what I wanted) to the absolute minimum.
She didn’t notice what I was doing at first. When she did, she started giving me the stink eye every time I ordered. Not that I care. I don’t know her. I don’t fucking know any of these people. This may as well be a foreign country.
Back home, I loved to hike. You really can’t get away with being an indoor person in the Pacific Northwest. There’s an embarrassment of gorgeous wilderness just minutes from any city. Not so much here. Just endless flat expanses of asphalt or swampland, punctuated by big budget tourist attractions and gimmicky, low budget Americana.
I chose this apartment complex in large part because it’s directly adjacent to a much nicer, more upscale complex. They’ve got their own beautifully landscaped bicycle path, the closest thing to a wooded trail for miles.
Naturally, they’ve put up a rustic wooden fence as a “suggestion” that those of us who don’t pay for the path’s upkeep should stay out. Of course I just step right over that shit. I don’t know these people. I don’t care what they think of me, or owe them anything.
It’s one of the rare bright spots in my life since moving here. Nothing like a proper hiking trail but it makes for pleasant Sunday walks. The landscaping is a little overdone and artificial, like everything else in this state...natives included.
Even so, simply being out in the sun, more or less surrounded by trees, flowers and grass is a sorely needed respite. The only interruption is the occasional overly disciplined cyclist, wearing full body neon spandex and a teardrop helmet, rocketing past to one side.
One of ’em stopped once to lecture me for making use of the path. He could tell from my clothing where I must live. I just stood there, expressionless, until he tired himself out and left. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Except for incidents like that, I could be both outside and alone for the entire day once a week. I needed the exercise too. My hermitic lifestyle had begun to take a toll on my body. The regular diet of rice, beans and pasta plus the occasional pizza delivery also wasn’t doing me any favors.
Despite the weekly exposure I’d grown distressingly pale. All muscle definition vanished and with each passing day I felt myself growing weaker. Every Sunday, when I emerged from the apartment for a walk, the sun hurt my eyes a little more.
Deterioration. Progressively worse, resembling the transformation already underway within me. A gradual withering which I could imagine no plausible way to reverse. To hell with it, I decided. It’s not as if I’m terribly attached to life at this point.
It was during one of these Sunday walks, specifically a stopover in an undeveloped field of grass, that I found it. The field is one of the few places I can reach from the path that’s purely natural, neither landscaped nor built upon.
I didn’t think much of the object jabbing me in the back initially. I simply meant to lay down and look up at the sky, maybe listen to some music. But something sharp pressed into me as I reclined. Rolling over and retrieving the offending object, I stared.
Can’t say why I didn’t notice the smell sooner. Once close enough to my face, it made me gag. Something like the cracked, partly decomposed claw of a crab. Not any species I’ve ever seen. Too large for one thing, and black as night.
Here and there, coarse, pointy bristles protruded from it. Like the ones which cover tarantulas, seen up close. Coconut crabs? Out here? Not that I knew of. Lobsters? Not this far inland. As repulsive as it was, it made for a welcome curiosity. A disruption of my usual, increasingly mind numbing routine.
I contemplated bringing it back to the apartment, but decided against it because of the smell. Instead I took a picture with my phone, then laid elsewhere in the field until the sun began to set. I’ve become accustomed to the heat since moving here, but it’s downright pleasant in the evening.
Except in the Summer, and even then only for a scant few days, back home it was never warm enough that I could take walks after dark without a jacket. Strolling along beneath the stars, the now comfortably tepid air tickling my bare arms made me resolve to schedule some more evening walks in the following weeks.
Now and again I passed through great teeming clouds of gnats or some other tiny winged insect. I knew these small, localized swarms assembled in the evening for breeding purposes and felt mildly disgusted by that as I picked them out of my hair.
Then again, they inconvenienced me relatively little compared to what it must be like from their perspective. Imagine some gigantic, incomprehensible beast plowing into you while you’re just trying to get laid. A brief moment of disgust for me. But for many of those flies, a brutal and unexpected end to their already short lives.
They’re the lucky ones. I’ve got to go on living here. I took a shower when I got home to wash the remaining gnats out of my hair, as otherwise I could feel a few stragglers writhing against my scalp, fighting to free themselves. Down the drain with ’em.
I ordered a pizza online afterwards, still dripping, towel wrapped around my waist. I didn’t even bother getting dressed in time for the delivery. Just opened the door, took the pizza and handed him the cash. “Oh. I uh, I didn’t mean to…sorry!”
I didn’t so much as make eye contact. “Well, have a great evening and enjoy your pizza!” Token friendliness, and thinly veiled pleading for a generous tip. I shut the door in his face. I order pizza once a month at most. The rate of turnover is such that it’ll be someone else next time anyway, guaranteed.
Strangers in the night, just how I like it. The pizza was decent for what I paid, though some strange process happens as it cools down. It’s never anywhere close to as good reheated as it is freshly baked.
The same thing happens to any fast food I’ve tried. Addictively tasty when fresh and hot, but it slowly congeals as it cools, saturated fats solidifying until achieving a rubbery texture. It doesn’t stop me from eating it though. My insides are no less cold, no less limp.
I played computer games on one monitor while ‘turking’ on the other until the sun came up. All told I made nearly fifty dollars. Something about sleep deprivation really puts me in “the zone”. The energy drinks probably have something to do with it.
I enter this hazy, almost dreamlike mindset where the work flies by. I’m no less proficient in MOBAs when I get like this either. My skills improve, if anything. Time loses all meaning. My bloodshot eyes track the action with no conscious effort on my part, my every movement automated.
During one of these semi-lucid marathon gaming sessions, in the wee hours of the morning, I first glimpsed one. A whole, living specimen that must’ve followed the scent I picked up from touching that claw. I only saw it out of the corner of my eye mind you, and because I knew I was inebriated, I didn’t take it seriously.
Mild hallucination comes with the territory. It was hardly the first time I spotted blotchy, moving silhouettes in my peripheral vision. Mildly concerning the first time, but I don’t scare easily. I have a solid grasp on what’s real. On what’s even possible, versus the mind playing tricks on itself.
That infuriates some people. Usually ones with some frivolous worldview built on a mixture of sloppy thinking and outright fraud. I could be less abrasive if I were to qualify my statements as if they were just my opinions, but they’re not. Anyway, do they deserve that level of consideration? It’s their own fault for being suckered into such obvious hokum.
This fortified materialistic mindset insulates me against fear of the dark. In most cases I’m likely to be the scariest thing hiding in the dark anyway. I can’t pinpoint when I turned into what I am now, but any crazed vagrant, thief or meth head concealed by cover of night has more to fear from me than the inverse.
That’s just realistic threats, too. Ghosts, demons and the like never enter into my consideration. To reach the center in my brain responsible for fear, such ideas would first have to pass through the center responsible for separating the plausible from the implausible. They never do.
I simply know better. It’s a bleak, boring world out there. No sasquatches, no devils, no ghosts or chupacabras. Humans are the only monsters on this planet, myself included. The longer you live around them, the more of their attributes you absorb until one day you look in the mirror and see one of ’em staring back at you.
That reminds me, I should start smoking. Whatever it takes so that I die before the transformation completes. Death is my destination, as certainly as someone with a gun to his temple. I’ve just chosen to take a more circuitous, scenic route.
To that end, when I woke up the next morning with a pounding headache, I headed straight for the bar. Sheila was surprised to see me, I think. I don’t look at her face much. I’m also not actually sure that’s her name. Sharla? Shauna?
“Shit, you’re a mess.” No argument from me, I left the apartment without showering. My hair must’ve been a riot to look at, stiff oily tufts sticking out all over. When I said nothing, she sighed and asked me what I wanted.
“Whisky, neat.” She frowned. “This ain’t fuckin Star Trek. I’m not that machine. Whatever it was, you know. Tea, earl grey, hot. Can’t you say hello first? Maybe ask how I’m doing?” I smiled. Shirley’s not usually funny. Shanna?
“I just want my drink.” I paid upfront. A tab would’ve been too much of a commitment for my liking. The beginnings of roots I had no intention of putting down in a place like this. I already felt hungover and would undoubtedly regret this later in the day.
Morning drinking is one of those cliche signs that you’ve lost control of your life. I’ve got no life to lose control of, so I ought to be alright. My eyes wandered, then came to rest on the dingy little strip club across the street.
I think it used to be a Blockbusters. They repainted but didn’t bother to change the architecture, just blacked out the windows. The sign was missing some letters, and had been for the past year. The giant pair of neon outlined cartoon tits above that communicates their value proposition clearly enough. Most of their regulars probably can’t read anyway.
A pair of surly, shirtless men with huge beer bellies were duking it out in the strip club’s parking lot. Really going at it, smashing each other’s ugly, drunken faces with their fists, a trash can lid, and at one point the hood of a parked car. I looked away, having seen that sort of thing so many times around here that it wasn’t even worth paying attention to.
I’m not an eavesdropper by nature. I could care less what anybody around me is talking about, but it’s occasionally ridiculous or outrageous enough that my ears perk up. This is how I’ve learned everything I know about how their minds work, which is more than I ever wanted to.
For one thing, there exists no semblance of critical thought in their understanding of the world. Their method for determining what’s true basically boils down to what they’ve heard other people say. The more people say the same thing, the more credible it is in their estimation.
I cannot count the number of times I’ve heard them breathlessly discussing obvious internet hoaxes as though they were real. Confusing satire for news, or the contents of tabloids and chain letters as if they were the products reputable journalism.
This is how they accumulate a sort of “folk wisdom”. What “everybody knows is true”. A mishmash of politically motivated rumors, investment scams or other get rich quick nonsense, and the sort of hollow Earth, Jewish conspiracy, ancient aliens bullshit of the sort commonly discussed on Coast to Coast AM and Infowars.
Whether they believe it boils down to how cool they think it would be if true, and the degree to which it reinforces their entrenched political views...which are themselves dictated in large part by fear, selfishness and stupidity.
According to the average conversation I overhear while drinking, Obama was born in Kenya, The government puts fluoride in our water and chemtrails in the sky to dumb us down (as if these people need any help with that) anybody who’s not some sort of evangelical Christian is out to get everybody that is, and these various menaces are all somehow in cahoots with each other.
Rolling up everybody you dislike into a single vague, sinister entity as if Jews have any truck with Muslims, or atheists with either is surely simpler than forming separate opinions of each group. Which is easier still than getting to know individuals, though I suppose I’m not one to talk as I avoid that like the plague.
Topping off their list of bogeymen, there’s the feminists, the gays, the blacks, the ACLU, the government and basically any other barrier to achieving their idea of utopia; a country under the exclusive control of people who look, sound, think, dress, fuck, and smell like they do.
That’s a wonderful joke to me, because if you ask one of these creatures to list the qualities they imagine all blacks possess that they find so disagreeable, what you’ll get from them is a spot on description of themselves.
They’re disgusting, aren’t they? It can’t just be me. There are days when I wonder if I’ve judged them too harshly. This usually happens when I haven’t run into one for a while. That little shred of guilt vanishes the moment I next hear one of them speak.
“Oh ya, dem fings is real. I seen ’em” says the plump woman with the ratty blonde hair seated near me. Whoever she’s speaking to is just outside my field of vision, but I don’t care enough to turn my head. I continue listening anyway, and discover she’s talking about ghosts.
“Dey had experts on dat show, I done watched it t’other night on da Histry channel.” Oh yes, of course. The History channel. Also known as the Hitler, ghosts and aliens channel. Gotta give the people what they want, integrity be damned.
“Expert” has a very particular meaning for these people. “Scientist” is a dirty word. It has political connotations for them. It’s those damnable “government scientists” who tell them that climate change exists, that the Biblical account of human origins probably isn’t accurate, that vaccines are a necessary precaution against pathogens, that fluoride is harmless in sufficiently small amounts, etcetera.
Just a bunch of dour, humorless spoilsports in their view, whose input on any matter of emotional importance is never welcome. “Experts” are another story. That’s any white or Asian man in nice clothes who argues in favor of their own ill formed opinions, with a command of the English language far enough in advance of their own that he sounds intelligent and credible, but not so much that he comes off as snooty.
These buffoons regularly appear in so-called documentaries about the existence of mermaids, the alien origins of Bigfoot and so on with “Expert” under their names at the bottom of the screen. It’s these “experts” the locals are referring to when they use the ambiguous “they”.
As in “Did you hear that they proved the existence of Atlantis?” or “They found evidence dragons really existed back in the middle ages”. Which it turns out was the poor fellow’s interpretation of The Last Dragon, an openly fictitious mockumentary which speculates about how the anatomy of dragons might work if they existed. If.
Doesn’t matter. He saw it, it sounded serious and authoritative, so in his mind he’s got a rock solid basis for making such a claim. There’s no use arguing. He’s got that vague but convincing memory to latch onto.
Even if you take out your phone and show him the exact program he’s talking about to demonstrate for him that it was never meant to be taken as fact, he’d shrug and say something like “close enough”. As if it was a reasonable mistake anybody could’ve made, and you’re the asshole for taking it seriously enough to settle the matter.
It’s maddening and never, ever worth the hassle. When you wrestle with a pig, you both get filthy, but the pig enjoys it. I learned that the hard way when I took a night class on programming.
A well built fellow in a pink polo shirt with a popped collar was impressing the anorexic blonde with the disproportionately huge bust seated next to him by explaining that time is the fourth dimension.
Not realizing the tar baby I was about to become entangled with, I muttered that time isn’t objectively the fourth dimension (since it isn’t as though they have numbers carved into them) and that there exist spatial dimensions in excess of the three familiar to us as well, one of which could be accurately called the fourth.
He “corrected” me, citing a Michio Kaku television special he watched the night before. Didn’t matter that we could both be right. That duration can indeed be added to length, width and height as one of the metrics used to describe a solid at the same time that spatial dimensions exist in excess of the three familiar to human experience.
What mattered is that he saw something on TV which sounded credible, so he felt certain that the irritating nerd contradicting his recollection of it couldn’t possibly know better. I drew a tesseract for him. To his credit he recognized it. Most people recognize a tesseract even if they don’t know the term for it.
“This is a four dimensional cube, or at least a flat drawing of one. Yet the fourth dimension expressed here isn’t temporal, but spatial. What’s being visualized isn’t the duration of the cube, but an additional degree of extrusion.
A line is an extrusion of a point, a square is an extrusion of a line, and a cube is an extrusion of a square. When you extrude a cube, you get a tesseract. That has nothing to do with time and everything to do with space.”
He scoffed but didn’t explain why. “Whatever nerd. Just go look up what I was watching, then come back and tell me that. You think you know everything.” Of course I don’t, but this particular topic was one I happened to know something about.
His posturing further impressed the tits on a stick whose narrow white ass he’d been blowing smoke up before I made the mistake of involving myself. “Ooohhh, you’re so smaaart. You should come to my place and help me study tonight.”
Maybe I really am the fool. He was presumably balls deep in her a few hours later, while I pulled another all-nighter playing MOBAs and narrowing search results for random internet retards. If you judge a method by the results it produces, impressive sounding horseshit outperforms factual accuracy every time.
The women I did occasionally capture the interest of seemed mainly attracted to the novelty of dating somebody who could string together a coherent sentence without straining himself. I’ve got opposable thumbs, an even number of toes and all my original teeth, apparently rare and enticing qualities around these parts.
A few tugged at my heart. Tempted me to engage, to become entangled. Really sweet, bright, worthwhile girls who had the misfortune of meeting me. Of being fooled by the human shaped outer shell, mistakenly imagining there was still anything of substance left inside.
Even then, they could tell what I was turning into. I don’t blame them for leaving. If I had any scruples I would’ve warned them off myself when we met, but I didn’t. Nothing that I once liked about myself remains. It all burnt to the ground the day I received that phone call while unpacking.
When my blood alcohol level rose to the point where I could no longer silently endure the braying and bleating of barnyard animals carrying on behind me, I stumbled out through the double doors in a blinkered stupor. Is the sun always this painfully bright?
The debilitating level of intoxication made the heat and humidity surprisingly bearable. I was soon drenched with sweat but only noticed when my hand became too slippery to hold onto the bottle. Wait, I paid for the whole bottle? Shit, I’d better finish it then.
Drank too much? Drink more, that’ll fix it. Booze logic at work. I can’t say exactly how I got there, but after a long unintelligible smear of blurry scenery, I realized I was back in the field. I really ought to wear a GPS collar when I drink, so that after I sober up I can have Google Maps show me the route I took. Something like those Billy focused Family Circus comics with the dotted line all the fuck over the yard.
I concluded it was an ideal place to pass out, and was in the process of laying down when I spotted the unmarked van pulling into the parking lot at the far side of the field. I pressed down as flat as I could, but continued watching with rapt interest.
Someone must own this field after all. I worried about how they might react to finding me here, drunk and disheveled. Not for long though. Curiosity quickly supplanted fear as I watched a quartet of men in black suits, white rubber gloves and sunglasses emerge from the vehicle.
Even if I were sober, they were far enough away that I couldn’t make out what they were doing in any real detail. Whiskey goggles only added to the difficulty. What is that, I thought. What the fuck is it?
Some kind of carrion. A dead animal, about the size of a man. Too many legs though! Too many for a bear, or a deer, or anything I know about. Jet black all over. Long spindly legs dragging behind as they heaved it into a body bag, zipped it up, then loaded it into the back of the van.
Fuck me. I studied the label on the bottle but could find nothing to blame for what I’d just seen. When I looked up, one of the agents seemed to stare directly at me. I froze. He turned a few degrees. Then a few more, surveying the field for any witnesses.
Despite my drunken incompetence, just by laying flat in the tall grass, I managed to evade notice. Once fully satisfied that there were no witnesses, all four men piled into the van and drove off. Why during broad daylight? Even in such a state, that seemed odd to me.
Unless they didn’t want to risk anybody finding whatever the fuck it was that they bagged up and made off with. Didn’t want to leave it rotting out here even a second longer than necessary, heading out to retrieve it the moment somebody called it in.
Cops? No, no. FBI? Maybe. Spooks of some kind. I don’t know enough about the agencies which handle hush hush, cloak and dagger type shit to venture a guess at who employs those men. Just that they weren’t the sort of fellows I should introduce myself to.
I remained there for a time, watching for any further activity. Then I abruptly vomited, getting some on my shirt. I stood up swearing at myself, every other word slurred to the point of unintelligibility. Then it struck me.
They did it. They finally fucking did it. I’m one of the local creatures now. God damnit. Maybe this is how it happens? Maybe nobody’s actually native to this fetid swamp, the prehistoric peninsula that time forgot. Maybe they come here and begin changing. By the time they realize what’s happening, it’s too far along.
Fuck me. Fuck this place. Garbage, all of it. But I could no longer exclude myself from the mess around me. Now I’m just another figure in the background, fitting in at last when I hoped I never would. Death, take me now.
I tripped in a gopher hole and stumbled, falling to my hands and knees. When my senses returned, it took a while to fully process what was in front of me. I never really bothered to explore the whole field before this, just wandered a short ways in and laid down to watch the clouds roll by.
But now, close to dead center of the field, I found myself peering down what appeared to be a borehole of some kind. A sinkhole, maybe? Is this what they look like? Didn’t sound right. This looked excavated, not naturally formed.
It was about five feet in diameter and so deep that I couldn’t see the bottom. It just faded into inscrutable blackness after about fifty feet. If I didn’t stumble on that gopher hole, I’d probably have fallen into the much larger opening instead.
What is this? Something related to construction? That must be it. A freshly dug well, possibly. Or the early stages of a geothermal heating and cooling setup for whatever building would soon be erected here. With atypically good timing, my stomach chose this point to once again empty itself.
The remains of my liquid breakfast spiraled down into the darkness, scattering along the way into so many soupy droplets. I dry heaved a couple times, confirming that was the last of it. I then repeatedly called out into the abyss. I don’t remember exactly why. Just to listen for the echo I think.
There’s a lot I don’t remember about that day. How I wound up at the field for example. I just know that I got home somehow, because that’s where I woke up, head pounding like Michael J. Fox working a jackhammer.
The sun had already gone down. Not recently either; when I stepped outside to gauge the temperature it was chilly enough that I decided against walking it off. My cat wove between my ankles as though deliberately trying to topple me.
It’s a stretch to call Goblin “my cat”. Just a stray who tolerates me because I feed and shelter her. A scraggly little creature that I welcomed into my life because she’s cleaner and better mannered than most of the people I’ve run into since my arrival.
I spent so much time developing an immunity to human attachment that I neglected to do the same for animals. I’m helpless but to dote on this grumpy, stubborn little critter. I’m sure I’d love her less if she could speak. Makes me wonder if the locals might be rendered equally charming by a sudden outbreak of mutism.
Goblin leapt onto my lap the moment I sat down at my computer, aggressively burrowing into my jacket. She gets clingy at night. Probably less to do with affection than the fact that my body emits a good deal of heat.
What was that, I thought. What exactly was it? A jumble of half remembered sights and sounds trickled back into my mind, bit by bit, as I struggled to sort out how much of it really happened. Most of all, I felt captivated by fleeting memories of the hole.
What’s down there, I wonder. Down that hole, deep in the Earth. What could be down there? What’s down in the hole? Gotta get my thoughts under control. Clicking the time in the lower right of the screen brought up the calendar. Thursday already?
Hardly the first time my sleep cycle became inverted. Takes forever to fix it, too. I’ve read you need to stay awake until evening, resisting the urge to crash before then. I never manage. Instead, I stay awake further and further into the wee hours of the morning, falling asleep later and later in the day until I come full circle.
It’s hell on my body, and increasingly my mind as well. When a series of soft knocks came at the door, I initially ignored them under the assumption I was hallucinating. Who would visit me? I stumbled to the door and opened it just a crack.
Camille, my next door neighbor. She brought me cornbread and grits the night after I finished moving in. I ate it all, but other than that we’ve had no contact since, save for occasional glances when we both retrieve our mail at the same time.
“I don’t mean to bother you, it’s just...I never see you leave your apartment anymore. Is something wrong?” I searched for answers to that question which wouldn’t fill many volumes. “No” I grunted. She didn’t buy it, probably smelling the whisky on my breath.
“If something’s happening in your life...if you’re hurting and don’t have anybody to talk to about it, you could come see me any time you want. I don’t know anything about you, so I can’t promise I’ll know how to help, but I’m a good listener.”
I just wanted her gone. “I go for walks sometimes. Don’t worry about me.” I began to shut the door, but she wedged her foot in there. “Somebody left a thing on your door.” She carefully handed me a post-it note through the narrow opening.
Sure enough. Looked to be from the landlord, too. “...Thanks.” With that, I pushed her foot out of the opening with my own, then shut the door the rest of the way. The note expressed similar concerns about “antisocial behavior”.
Asocial rather than antisocial, surely? What is there to complain about? In most ways, I’m a model tenant. I don’t blast music at odd hours, I don’t host parties, I don’t do much of anything. If not for the light coming out of my windows at night, one could be forgiven for assuming this apartment is vacant.
The note ended with something or other about an upcoming “community party” in the “clubhouse”, the same large structure which houses the office where I signed all the necessary paperwork to move in. What “community” exactly? I just live here.
I crumpled it up and threw it in the bin on my way to the kitchen. The moment I flicked the light switch, a single cockroach fled beneath the fridge. I grimaced. Not much to speak of in the fridge except the pizza I ordered the other day.
Read the rest here.