Garrison Kelly's Blog, page 95

Distractions From Eating

***DISTRACTIONS FROM EATING***

I have my creative work to thank for a lot of things in my life whether it’s easing schizophrenic symptoms, getting my voice out there, or just having some good old fashioned imaginative fun. Now I have another thing I can thank my art for: distracting me from overeating. As many of you know, I’ve struggled with my weight for a good portion of my adult life. I’ve tried the Atkins Diet and was successful with it, but only temporarily. My main problem was that I was always bored and overeating was my favorite source of fun. It didn’t matter if it was McDonald’s, candy bars, soda, or pizza; if I was bored and junk food was available to me, I would wolf it down and feel like shit afterwards.

Say whatever you will about my skill level with drawing pictures or my frequency of cat pictures, but alongside my writing, reading, and editing, they’ve been welcome distractions from overeating. And whenever I posted a piece of art to my social media accounts, I would scroll through my pictures and admire my handiwork, not because I’m an arrogant jerk, but because I don’t have to think about eating. Even when I’m watching What Culture’s WWE videos or Last Week Tonight with John Oliver episodes on You Tube, I’m doing something other than stuffing my face. Living in a boring place like Port Orchard, it’s easy to give into your food-related vices since there are restaurants, grocery stores, and convenience stores pretty much everywhere you go.

Ever since I’ve been occupying my mind in even the smallest ways, I’ve been eating less frequently and looking better in the mirror as a result. If I ever did get bored enough to eat, I’d usually drink a bottle of distilled water instead and piss away the pounds. I drank a lot of water and ate minimally while I was in Hawaii and have already noticed changes in my body. When I first flew from Seattle to Kauai, I would need a seatbelt extender. When I returned home to Sea-Tac, the airplane seatbelts fit perfectly fine. I’ve also noticed that I’m getting full off of less food and I’m not huffing and puffing when I return home from my walks.

Obviously, I’m still a heavy guy and there are times where I occasionally grab a bag of Mickey D’s or a Pizza Hut pizza. I am by no means a weight loss guru or a super athlete. However, I’m not the only one who says that overeating can be triggered by moments of extreme boredom. Scientific studies, gym teachers, food documentaries, I’ve heard them all echo these sentiments. While I understand that what works for one person won’t necessarily work for the other, I can say with confidence that little distractions are helping me lose weight. It may be a slow process and I may have miles to go, but the thing about losing weight is that you feel the effects right away. Your mood improves, you have more energy, and you look at yourself in the mirror with less judgment.

But of course, there are days when I don’t feel like working on creative endeavors. Today was one of those days. My guess is that I’m still in recovery mode from these past few days of housework and remodeling and that’s why my brain doesn’t want to cooperate with me. Hell, I had to go to the chiropractor yesterday after lifting a whole bunch of heavy furniture. I had a shelf break because it carried a shit ton of CD’s. Dale wasn’t happy about that since he’s in no way a musical person. He doesn’t understand the beauty of David Draiman’s golden voice or Dimebag Darrell Abbot’s shredding guitars. All that aside, I was definitely in need of some recuperation. I’m a fragile introvert after all.

Even with all of this mental exhaustion working against me, I managed to only eat two meals and I got full after both of them. They weren’t even big meals, at least not compared to what I ate before. My afternoon snack consisted of three plums. My first official meal was at 5:00 at night and it was a baked potato with no toppings, a portion of spam, and a banana. At 8:45, I ordered a sandwich and breadsticks from Domino’s Pizza, both of which aren’t even close to being as fattening as a full pizza. I have no plans to end the night with more food.

I may have to spend some more time in recovery mode tomorrow and the next few days because that’s when my family and I are going to paint my bedroom walls light blue. We might do one or two walls one day and do the rest of it over the course of Monday and Tuesday. I won’t have to do a whole lot to disconnected my electronics since they’re all hooked up to a power strip. We’re not going to move out my furniture for the painting process; we’re just going to scoot it over a few feet. God, I love my wooden floors! I would have never been able to scoot things over on a dust-collecting carpet.

I hope all of my readers are doing okay considering what a wild and crazy October it has been. Halloween is coming up soon and for any metal heads who live near the Tacoma Dome, Five Finger Death Punch and Shinedown are going to perform there on November 5th with Sixx AM and As Lions opening for them. November is also National Novel Writing Month. Last year I completed the first drafts of my Poison Tongue Tales stories. This year I’m going to storm through all 17 remaining chapters of Demon Axe. I’m also going to use some of those days to compete in the WSS contests like I normally do.

We’ve got ears, say cheers!


***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

One of the best things about being in recovery mode is that I still have enough mental energy to pump out a drawing or two. Although to be honest, I’ve gotten a little bit rusty with my latest effort, a picture of Detective Shawn Henry from Demon Axe. I’ll do better next time when the time comes to draw Edge Spider, the drug dealing gangster from the Poison Tongue Tales 2 cyberpunk story The Audiomancer. One of the pieces of advice I constantly receive from Angie at the WSS is to write about villains who are sane-minded since they’re scarier than the wild and crazy ones. I hope I achieved that with Edge Spider.


***VIDEOGAME DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

MIKE HAGGAR: Hello? Mayor Haggar here.

DAMNED: Hehehe! Mr. Haggar, I’m so pleased to make your acquaintance. I believe you know who I am. Don’t hang up! We have an important business proposition for you: your daughter for your cooperation. Plus, we’ll throw in a monthly bonus to your salary.

MIKE HAGGAR: What?! What’s happened to Jessica?! Who is this?!

DAMNED: Not so fast, Mike. Turn on your TV.

MIKE HAGGAR: You son of a…what have you done with her?!

DAMNED: Nothing yet, but we’d enjoy the opportunity. Listen to reason, man. Why make your job difficult? Just let us do as we please like the mayor before you did! Agh-hahahahaha!!

-Final Fight-

Having a Cold One

Whoever built a funeral home at the end of this abandoned highway was creepy, low, and rotten…and an imaginative guy. Casey Carter had a phantasmal grin on his face as he drove through here in his hearse with a dead body in the back. Some of his teeth resembled wolf fangs, others were golden or diamond-encrusted. His gray puffy horseshoe hair looked like a tumbleweed ready to blow down the highway as Casey drove with the windows rolled down. The smell of death was in the air that night, and that was just the mortician’s bloody lab coat and latex gloves. Heart-racing organ music played on his stereo and that gave Casey an even bigger grin, reminiscent of a wild animal ready to devour an injured rabbit.

It seemed as though it would take some serious plastic surgery to remove Casey’s grin, but all it took was a hard bump over a pothole and the deflation of his front passenger’s tire. “Son of a bitch!” he yelled demonically as he pulled over to the side of the empty highway. Once the hearse was stopped, he pounded on the steering wheel like he was in a championship boxing match. With hands as meaty and calloused as his, it seemed like an apt description. The undertaker let out a monstrous growl before throwing open the door and stomping towards the back to get the spare tire.

Corpulent Casey Carter fumbled with his keys so much that it looked like he was playing pocket pool. Maybe he was. He unlocked the back door and instead of reaching for the jack and the spare tire, his hideous smile returned as he gazed lovingly at the casket he was supposed to deliver. “Oh dear Beatrice, you are so radiant and beautiful even in death. You’re just like a ray of golden sunshine!” he whispered.

Speaking of radiant lights, a bright one shone from behind Casey while a gruff voice yelled, “You there! Put your hands up! Turn around slowly! That cutie girl is mine!” The undertaker did as he was told, but not without losing his jack-o-lantern smile, which complimented his bushy black and white eyebrows perfectly. His eyes widened with delight as he recognized the man who was holding him up.

With little more than a candle-lit pumpkin-themed lantern to reveal his features, the gray prison jumpsuit, slashed up face, and greasy brown hair gave away the profile of escaped convict Jay David, who licked his lips as if he just ate a bucket of fried chicken, all while gazing lovingly at the casket. With a prison guard’s pistol trained on Casey, Jay said, “Step aside, sweetie pie. That bitch is mine for the taking. I’m having a cold one tonight, motherfucker!”

Casey laughed like a demonic hyena and said, “Enjoy my sloppy seconds, Mr. David!” The prisoner’s demented slasher face turned into one of disgust. “Well, what are you waiting for? You clearly came here look for some fun. How many years have you been locked up? It must be so lonely in solitary confinement. Yes, you’re a popular guy on the evening news, but not so popular with the ladies. Well, the live ones, anyways.”

Jay laughed right back at him and said, “You’re a sick son of a bitch, I’ll give you that. If you weren’t taunting me right now, I’d probably have a beer with you. I’d probably crack the bottle of your head and throw you under the bus, but I’d still have a nice cold beer with you.”

“Now why would you do that to your best friend, Mr. David? Prisoners don’t like being around snitches like you. If you wanted to ‘have a cold one’ so badly, why don’t you just go back to jail?” chuckled Casey.

Jay squeezed the trigger and blew off a chunk of Casey’s hair, causing the mortician to drop to his knees and let out a few sarcastically frightened coos while holding his cheeks. Those coos turned to laughter and “Woo-hoo’s” as he slowly returned to his feet. He looked his adversary in his confused eyes and said, “Let me guess: you don’t miss twice?”

The convict rushed up to Casey and pressed the gun up to the old man’s scraggly chin. He said with clenched teeth and an itchy trigger finger, “Don’t you fuck with me, you goddamn nut job! You want to live to see another day? Huh?! Step aside, shut your mouth, and let me have the bitch in the box!”

Even at the threat of getting his head blown off, Casey chuckled, slowly stepped back, and said, “Okay, sweetheart, you win. The bitch in the box is all yours. But you have to promise you’ll let me watch. I love to watch!” The oratory ended with Casey blowing a wet kiss at his captor.

Jay squeezed off another shot and this time hit Casey in the arm, causing the old fart to double over and emit a blood-curdling scream as he kept his coat sleeve over his wound to stop the bleeding. The scream continued in the form of babyish crying, even going so far as to suck his thumb and call for his mommy.

“Yeah, and I’m the one with mental problems. Give me a break,” said Jay while shaking his head. He cast a hypnotic gaze at the coffin and crawled inside the hearse like he was possessed. “Alright, baby girl,” he said in a raspy whisper. “It’s just you and me versus the world. I’ve been waiting for this moment a long, long time. Jerking off just isn’t the same. Then again, neither is getting corn-holed in the showers. But you know that already. Of course you do, because you put me in that hellhole. Well, now that you’re dead, Miss Beatrice, you and I will be together until the end of the world. I love you, sweet princess. I love you so much!”

Jay set down his pistol and lantern and ripped the coffin lid off with hulking strength. Instead of a “bitch in a box”, he got a face full of green poisonous gas, which has him hacking up blood right away. The fumes got so bad that he tumbled out of the hearse and landed on his back. He violently coughed some more and even rested in a puddle of his own vomit, which tasted like rotten prison chow. Once he was done barfing and coughing, he was so lightheaded that he was ready to pass out in his own filth.

The convicted necrophiliac had his hands firmly held behind his back while cuffs were tightly bound to his wrists. “On your feet, you sick prick!” shouted a much less creepy version of Casey Carter. With one Herculean jerk, Jay David was pulled to his feet, but still had a head full of clouds.

“Bet you didn’t see this coming, did you?” whispered Casey, whose arm wound turned out to be a ketchup stain. “Bulletproof lab coats: what else will they come up with? Of course, you can’t get that kind of equipment unless you’re part of a special group, like I’d say, the Paulson City Police Department.”

“You’re…you’re a cop?!” said Jay as he breathed heavily with a sore throat and nose.

“For a guy who spent most of his life tricking the police, you sure are slow to catch on. You’re damn right I’m a cop. This whole thing was a setup. Like a moth to a flame, motherfucker. Like a moth to a flame!” Casey punctuated that last line with his in-character laugh before chucking Jay in the back of the now-clear hearse and locking the doors.

Accompanying Jay’s winded breathing were a girlish sob and kicking legs. “It’s not fair! It’s not fucking fair!” he shouted as Casey got in the driver’s seat and pulled away. “Why can’t women say yes to me? Just three little letters! Y-E-S! It’s not that hard! I didn’t want to kill them, but they gave me no choice!”

Detective Carter slammed on the brakes and caused Jay to lurch forward headfirst into the “casket”, causing even more dizziness and heavy breathing than before, not to mention a small drip of blood. The cop said, “You know what? You’re probably just going to keep escaping from prison anyways. You’ve done it half a dozen times already. I don’t know why the prison guards keep doing the same thing over and over again. So you know what? I’m going to do them and the whole world a favor and deal with you myself. You and I are going for a ride. Not just any ride, but a nickel ride! Buckle up, sweet cheeks! It’s going to be bumpy!”

Jay shouted an extended, “No!” before Casey slammed on the accelerator and drove over the bumpy road, all with a flat tire, making this ride even more bouncy and miserable. Jay was hurled into the casket edges and hearse walls with such force that his bones shattered and deep gashes were forming on his body. Sparks from the flat tire grinding against the pavement shot inside the hearse and burned Jay like a branding iron on his fresh wounds.

By the time Casey reached his new destination, Jay Nathaniel David, a thirty-one-year-old rapist and murderer, looked less like an intimidating criminal and more like a pile of human wreckage. Blood and bone powder flooded the back of the hearse. Organs splashed against the walls. Teeth rolled around like dice in the most violent game of craps.

How did Detective Carter react to this? With a million dollar smile and a finger to his lips as he shushed the dead body and softly said, “Don’t tell a soul. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to my bonus pay!”

Burning Dragon

“Halt! Who goes there?!” shouted the poleax-wielding guard at the entrance of the Doom Hammer Temple. His brown leather armor, painted up face, and military stance gave off a “don’t fuck with me” aura that had many men shaken to their core. The guard’s blade was only inches away from the intruder’s throat and ready to slash it open at a moment’s notice.

The metal armor-wearing, blue scaled man-dragon Brock Soulburn gave a sadistic grin with his razor-sharp mouth and bladed tongue. “You’re shitting me, right? You fuckers have something I want, something that will give me a big ass payday and all the roasted chicken and red wine I can handle. Mmm-mmm-mmm! I want that Night Terror mask. I want it now!” With one vicious chomp, Brock took a bite out of the poleax’s blade and chewed it like a tender steak before swallowing it with a deep gulp.

The guard’s wide-eyed stare and shaky body took away his aura of intimidation in a big fucking hurry. “Holy shit!” he whispered fearfully before Brock breathed fire on him and had him dancing around in pain. The guard rolled down the stony temple stairs and bashed his body against every corner of almost every step. He was left a broken and fiery heap on the ground with nothing left to do but die like a bitch.

Brock gave a hearty belly laugh as he moseyed inside the stone-built Doom Hammer Temple. A small army of guards swarmed in on him with poleaxes ready to slash him to pieces. They threw their wildest and most savage strikes only to have their weapons gnawed on with Brock’s bear trap mouth.

With a mouthful of blades and wooden splinters, the man-dragon spit them out and rained down violence and fire upon the squadron of guards. The warriors dropped to the ground with shattered bones, spraying blood, and burning bodies. Those who weren’t caught in the crossfire continued to swarm in on Brock only to have their faces punched in with an anvil of a fist and their ribs shattered with a battering ram of a kick.

The entire guardianship of the temple resembled an ocean of fire, blood, and powdery bone meal. Brock was kind enough to breathe a harsh breeze upon the flames and douse them out completely. They were tall enough to obstruct his view of what lied ahead of him. At the bone-built altar was the placeholder for Night Terror, an evilly-smiling mask with dagger horns, bladed fangs, and bright neon red eyes.

Brock’s clear path to victory was weakly halted by an elderly shaman in a red robe and pig mask on his knees praying and crying at the same time. Even with the beastly mercenary approaching him, he never stopped praying and chanting. Whatever god he was pleading to couldn’t save him from getting a smack across the back of the head, which opened his skull and splashed his brains around the already messy floor.

“Damn, that was too easy!” boasted Brock Soulburn. His own delightful laughter rivaled the creepiness of the mask he came to collect. He even strutted towards the bone altar without even a modicum of effort to claim his prize. “Alright, you scary son of a bitch, your ass is coming home with me, baby!”

Night Terror convulsed with laughter as the mask came to life and planted a cartoonish kiss on Brock’s mouth. As the sickened dragon was wiping the flavor off of his mouth with his beefy arm, the mask gave off a series of high-pitched “Hoo-hoo!” chants as it floated around freely and crazily.

“You sick bastard! Get your ass back here!” shouted Brock before breathing fire in Night Terror’s direction. The swift mask flew out of the way as a stream of flames followed him around the ceiling of the temple. Night Terror’s path lead him back to Brock, where this time he licked the man-dragon’s pointy ears with a sloppy dog tongue. The “Hoo-hoo!” chants and spinning around continued.

After Brock wiped the slime out of his ear with his meaty finger, he clenched his teeth, growled throatily, and tightened his muscles in anger. With one monstrous claw, he ripped a chunk of stone out of the ground and chucked it like a baseball at Night Terror. Unsurprisingly, the mask dodged with deftness. Brock continued to rip chunks out of the stone floor and fling them at his target, but all he hit were pieces of the temple wall and a few sacred artifacts.

Night Terror mocked his attacker some more by sticking his dog tongue out and wagging it like a cartoon character. With his blood boiling, his teeth tight, and his veins ready to burst like blood bombs, Brock ripped up one more chunk of the floor and threw it with an even faster velocity. This time the projectile found its mark. The stone slab nicked the mask in the forehead and caused it to whirl around like a leaf before it landed on the ground, presumably down for the count.

“And stay down, you sick piece of shit!” shouted Brock before he stomped his way over to the mask to claim what was rightfully his. He picked up the fallen mask by both sides of its face and shook it violently while screaming, “You hear me! Stay dead, you stupid bastard! Stay! Dead!”

Night Terror came back to life and shoved his wet tongue up Brock’s nose, causing the dragon to spin around and hack up a huge wad of spit. The mask floated high in the air once again and laughed at his opponent while the man-dragon pounded the floor with both fists and shouted, “That’s it! I quit! I’ve had it with this crap!”

Before he had the chance to storm out of the temple, Night Terror made a silly sad face and said, “Quit? You can’t quit now, my friend. You’ve come this far and made so much progress. How can you quit when things are going so well for you? Did you already forget how delicious and wonderful that roasted chicken and red wine will taste? Surely, you can’t get it for free.”

“Oh, shut up, you disgusting prick!” shouted Brock with his arms folded like an annoyed child. “Everybody knows that nothing in this world is for free! That’s why I became a mercenary! It’s called work! You may want to try it sometime instead of irritating the piss out of everyone who comes here!”

“You want money?!” screamed Night Terror, which snapped Brock out of his angry trance. “There are easier ways to make money than by blindly doing what you’re told and going on suicide missions like this one. For example…”


Nightfall had cast its winter shadow over the Steel Wolf Barbaric Tribe. Everyone should have been tucked away in their straw huts for the evening, but the orcish warriors were standing around with their weapons drawn and anxious poses about them. Some of them tapped their feet, some of them banged their spears on the ground, but the seven-foot tall chief sat in his throne of bone with a chest full of gold at his side, his beefy fist underneath his chin, and a vicious look on his face. Their mask should have been retrieved by now in what should have been a simple mission for a simple-minded mercenary.

The orc barbarians got into military stances as the silhouette of a muscle-bound dragon warrior appeared at the wooden gate of their village. The chieftain stood up from his throne, grabbed his chest full of money with one hand, and hauled the heavy equipment toward the shadowy figure, thinking the job was done.

“Brock Soulburn!” shouted the chieftain in his authoritative voice. “We have the money we negotiated for earlier. This chest contains our finest and most ancient gold that we have harvested from our sacred grounds. You can live comfortably for the rest of your life with this kind of gold. All we ask for in return is the Night Terror mask, a treasure more valuable to us than any form of mainland money. Do you have the mask with you?”

The shadowy figure of Brock Soulburn slowly walked into the torch light of the orc village. The other warriors came closer with their spears drawn in case he tried something funny. Their intimidating figures turned to shaky cowardice when they saw Night Terror grafted on the face of the dragon warrior, who said in a newly demonic voice, “Get your own damn mask!”

The possessed dragon warrior breathed fire upon the entire cast of villagers, including the chieftain. This wasn’t ordinary fire. The flames were a bright blood red with a poisonous green center. The flames had also created a much larger blast zone. As they were burning into a pile of ashes, the barbarians’ souls were flowing out of their mouths and into Night Terror’s own sadistic grin. Even the mighty seven-foot tall chieftain dropped to the ground with a thud as his ancient soul was consumed by this savage fire. The more souls Night Terror / Brock Soulburn consumed, the bigger the man-dragon’s belly got. He even let out a loud burp that was so powerful that the flames were put out.

All that remained of this now dead village was that big juicy chest full of gold, to which Night Terror swirled his tongue around his face in anticipation. The mask carried the possessed body of Brock Soulburn over to the chest, who kicked the lock open with deadly force and opened it up to an orgasmic response. So much gold. So much treasure. So much delicious roasted chicken. So much heavenly red wine. In his demonic tone, the possessed Brock said, “Mmmmmmm, yummy food!” before hanging his sloppy tongue off the side and drooling heavily.

Shield Me

The closer the subway train got to the Dreadnaught City station, the more Colonel Scott Percival doubted whether or not he could return to a normal life. Still dressed in his black khakis, brown boots, and black combat vest from the war, everything about Scott screamed “soldier”.

There was not one trace of love or peace in his contemplative facial expression as he kept his eyes glued to the floor of the train. Visions of war caused him to clench and unclench his ham-hawk fists. His energy blade was nestled by his side in case the war came back home with him. He never knew when the next explosion would come or who would be next to fire an assault rifle at him. In the cyberpunk hellhole of Dreadnaught City, being steadfast and hyper-vigilant was a way of life.

Scott’s inner demons were interrupted by the beeping sound of the train doors opening at its final stop for the night. With nobody else onboard except for him, getting off this clunky car was the easiest part of his evening so far.

The hardest part was seeing his girlfriend Gayle Rodriguez leaning against a platform pillar with her arms and legs crossed and tears running down her face. No trace of happiness, not even a weak smile, just a red cocktail dress, flowing black hair, and eyeballs full of stinging juices.

The traumatized soldier approached the equally traumatized girlfriend and wrapped his massive arms around her in a tender embrace. “It’s okay, baby girl. I’m home now,” Scott said in his best smooth jazz voice while stroking Gayle’s silky soft hair.

Gayle broke the embrace and looked into Scott’s coffee brown eyes with her own puppy-dog expression. “You don’t understand, babe. I can’t be with you anymore. I’ve done something horrible. I’m sorry, Scott! I can’t do this! I had to make money while you were away…and…I…I…”

“Back to work, sweetheart. Your dinner break was over an hour ago,” said a rough feminine voice from the shadows of the platform. When the woman walked into the overhead light, she revealed herself to be a gasmask-wearing heavyweight with a large red geisha robe fitting snugly over her pudgy features. Like Scott, she too had an energy blade nestled beside her, ready for combat at a moment’s notice.

With a look of concern shadowed by his black dreadlocks, Scott asked, “Gayle, who is this woman? What have you been doing while I was away?”

Gayle’s sobs became louder as she buried her face into her boyfriend’s chest and yelled, “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, Scott!”

“Break up the love fest, you stupid bitch!” shouted the obese woman. “There are horny men that need attending to and I don’t have anybody else to do it! You want your paycheck? You want to keep living in a heated apartment? Come with me! Never mind that loser you’re hugging! If he was a real boyfriend, he would have stayed home with you instead of running away from his so-called patriotic duty!”

Scott broke the embrace with his girlfriend and slowly paced toward the female pimp with his hand firmly around the dragon-themed hilt of his energy blade. “What did you say to me, bitch? What did you say?! You want to get your head chopped off tonight or what?!” Gayle was about to interrupt him with a sorrowful warning, but Scott backed her off and said, “Just stay behind me and don’t do a damn thing! I’ve got this! We can talk about the whole prostitution thing later! Right now, I’m going to gut this fat bitch alive and spread her insides all over this fucking platform!”

The pimp glared at Scott behind her hideous gasmask and drew her skeleton-themed hilt before ejecting a blade of hot red energy from it. She swung it around with the deftness of a samurai, sometimes even showing off when she spun it in the air. “For the record, my name isn’t fat bitch. It’s Carla Madder. Madame Carla Madder. The only one who should get her name changed to bitch is that woman you’re protecting!”

Scott Percival screamed in primal fury before drawing his glowing blue energy blade and throwing down with Carla Madder. Gayle stayed in the background curled up in a ball on the floor and letting her tears and snot run down her legs. The two warriors slashed and twirled their blades at each other, sometimes blocking with their weapons and other times flipping and dodging out of harm’s way. Their weapons even took chunks of cement out of the pillars and floor. The more destruction they caused to public property, the more they swung at each other with a berserker’s fury. Their furious brawl stalled with the two warriors holding their weapons together and glaring violently at each other.

“Is that all you got? I thought you soldiers had big fucking grenades. Turns out your just smuggling some cherry bombs!” taunted Carla. After laughing obnoxiously at her own joke, Scott went for an overhead slash only to have her duck down and head butt him in the stomach, dropping him to his knees and causing him to release his blade. Carla kicked the weapon onto the train tracks and stared at her opponent with a grizzly bear’s hunger. She even took her gasmask off and revealed her mouth to be an ugly contraption filled with razor sharp teeth and bloody red lips.

Gayle’s eyes shot up in horror at she watched her boss lick her top teeth with disgusting sexuality. Scott’s girlfriend crawled over to the edge of the platform and vomited stomach acid onto the train tracks.

“You have every disease on the fucking planet and you’re suddenly disgusted by what my mouth looks like. What about what YOUR mouth looks like, bitch?!” shouted Carla, earning her a punch to the gut and a clenched-teeth expression from Scott. The rock hard fist sank into her big belly like her body was made of quicksand. The wide-eyed Scott even struggled to pull his hand out, even grabbing his own wrist with his free hand.

“Pathetic! That’s all you soldier boys are!” taunted Carla as she popped Scott’s hand out of her belly and spin kicked him in the chest, sending the “soldier boy” flying backwards several feet and rolling on the ground. The demonic pimp squeezed her own breasts in violent anticipation while Scott was lying on his back hacking and wheezing.

Gayle crawled over to Scott and wrapped his huge arm around her shoulders in an attempt to get him to his feet. Even with Scott’s cooperation, lifting him was like trying to lift a small car. He continued to inhale deep, raspy puffs of oxygen, but dropped down to one knee. “Come on, Scott, get up! Please! Help me!” shouted Gayle.

The words of encouragement filled Scott’s mind with fire and fury. Even with his lungs burning and his chest stinging, he got up on his feet, looked his girlfriend in the eyes, and said, “I love you so much right now.” And then he heard a whirling noise and felt a hot blast of energy seer through his shoulder. He screamed in horrific pain as his left arm limply fell to the ground in a splash of blood, no longer attached to his already pain-wracked body. Scott got down on one knee again and clutched his shoulder, squealing through gritted teeth and tightened eyelids. Gayle screamed along with him and hugged his neck tightly.

“Enough of this shit!” shouted Carla, immediately gaining the silent attention of Gayle while Scott continued to cry out in agony. From where she was standing, it appeared the pimp threw her energy blade at her opponent. She confirmed this when she pointed her sausage finger at the hilt of her blade, which was halfway across the platform. “You’ve seen how much of a protective boyfriend your so-called man can be. How protective is he going to be with just one arm? How is he going to earn you the kind of money you made while working with me, Gayle? Is he going to be a circus freak? Is that how he’ll earn his money?”

Carla breathed like a wild beast while Gayle slowly backed away from her. The heavyset pimp approached her like a lion getting ready to feast. She kicked Scott in his shoulder hole along the way, causing the battle born soldier to roll around and scream even louder. Carla smiled viciously and said, “Gayle, give me my energy blade and all will be forgiven. You can come back to work anytime you want. I’ll even give you some…extra shifts!” Gayle attempted a fierce glare at her boss, but could only muster more sorrow. “Give it to me, Gayle! Give me the goddamn blade!”

This was Gayle Rodriguez’s chance to see the writing on the wall. She could side with her armless boyfriend and potentially live on the streets or continue having sex for money and live comfortably. Scott was a gentleman and the ultimate romantic lover. There was nothing romantic about what Gayle did for her paychecks. But big paychecks they were, so big that she could be in line for a promotion. Plus, how could she look Scott in the face after everything she did while he was away? Paycheck or not, it was wrong. Dead wrong.

With shaky legs and arms, Gayle got down on one knee and struggled to keep the energy blade in a firm grasp. Carla motioned for her to toss it with a wave of her hand. The prostitute steadied herself and once again tried to form a strong glare. All she did was shake some more. Her insides felt like they were being ground up into meat. With one girly throw, she tossed the hilt of the energy blade.

Carla reached up to grab it, but the hilt sailed over her head and into the one arm of Scott Percival, who ejected the red energy and slashed the pimp’s throat in one quick motion. Blood and organs flowed heavily from Carla’s big neck as she dropped to the ground and soaked the platform with her life juices. She tried to curse at her former charge, but all that would come out was a waterfall of blood. Once she landed on the floor chest first, the final tidal wave of blood splashed onto the train tracks below. One final twitch of her fat pinky and that was all she wrote.

Scott tossed the blade aside and looked tearfully into his girlfriend’s eyes. She looked back at him with that same ghostly expression before running up to him in high heeled shoes and hugging her one-armed man tightly while showering his face with kisses. “I’m so sorry, Scott! I didn’t mean for things to turn out this way! Please forgive me!” she begged.

Even with one arm, Scott’s hug felt warm and protective, like a romantic shield. “I’ll never let anything bad happen to you again, Gayle. I’ll find a way to make money. And when I do, we’re going to have that family we’ve always wanted.”

“I love you, Scott!”

“I love you too, baby girl. Let’s get the fuck out of this dump.”

Hawaiian Vacation

This coming Monday morning, I’m headed to the Sea-Tac Airport for a week-long vacation to Hawaii with my aunt Ruth, my step-dad Dale, and my mom. The last time I’ve been to Hawaii was around this time in 2010. Beautiful sunshine, beautiful beaches, beautiful women, and cute cuddly chickens: that’s what Hawaii is all about. I couldn’t ask for a better way to kick back and relax. Because I’ll be busy soaking up the sunshine and petting chickens, my internet time will be limited to short bursts on the hotel computer. That means for the week I’ll be gone, I won’t compete in the corresponding contest at the WSS. But that’s next week. I still have a few more days to submit a story for this week’s contest, which I haven’t decided what I’m going to do just yet. The prompt is “Energy” and lord knows I have a lot of magical story ideas in my archives, but nothing definitive. Before I get too far off track, if you want the exact dates I’ll be gone, the vacation lasts from October 3rd to October 10th. Again, this means minimal internet contact and zero creative output, which means the WSS, Demon Axe, Dark Fantasy Warriors, and reading commitments to Marie Krepps will have to wait. But do you know what the best part about vacations is? Coming home to sleep in your own bed with your own kitty while using your own computer. I’ll be back, no doubt about it.

Suicide Squad

MOVIE TITLE: Suicide Squad
DIRECTOR: David Ayer
YEAR: 2016
GENRE: Superhero Film
RATING: PG-13 for swearing and violence
GRADE: Pass

Pentagon Secret Agent Amanda Waller wants to put together a black ops team comprised of the world’s deadliest supervillains, including the psychopathic Harley Quinn, the mercenary sniper Dead Shot, the muscle monster Killer Croc, and the sly bank robber Captain Boomerang just to name a few. Agent Waller promises to give these crazy criminals lighter prison sentences if they carry out the mission of saving the world from the genocidal Enchantress and her magical army-killing weapon. The Suicide Squad, as they’re named, never loses their rebellious natures despite having micro bombs implanted in their necks. They will gladly push the boundaries of poor taste and violent madness if it means getting what they want while still agreeing to Waller’s terms.

I may be fighting a losing battle when I give this movie a passing grade (four stars), but the one thing we can all agree upon is how awesome Margot Robbie was at playing Harley Quinn. People will look at a picture of her and think she’s some kind of sex object. She’s not. She’s delightfully loony, battle hardened, darkly funny, blatantly sarcastic, and madly in love with another psychopath we all know as The Joker. Say whatever you want about how Jared Leto may or may not live up to Heath Ledger’s golden performance in The Dark Knight. At the end of the day, you have to admit that Harley Quinn and The Joker make a cute and deliciously violent couple. If they ruled Gotham City until the end of time, they can’t do any worse than some rich politician screwing things up in congress. At least Harley and Joker are honest about being demonic criminals.

And while I’m at it, the other members of the Suicide Squad were believable as well. Dead Shot may be a serpentine bastard when he carries out his death warrants, but the love he has for his daughter would make anybody nominate him for Dad of the Year. El Diablo, a pyromantic gangster, is a family guy who is constantly tormented by what he did to his wife and children; and guess what, there’s not a damn thing that’s fake about him or his feelings. The Army Colonel who leads the Suicide Squad into battle, Rick Flag, was once in love with the woman Enchantress possessed. You think he’d like to have her back someday? Whether they’re fighting for love, fighting against authority, or just plain fighting, you can’t really hate any of these Suicide Squad members. If you had the smart phone app that detonated the micro bombs in their necks, you wouldn’t have the spine or the heart to activate it. Trust me on that.

Despite the overwhelming negative reviews this film has received, I personally would be hard pressed to find a major flaw. It turns out I could find one, but it’s so small that it doesn’t ruin the entire movie for me. You see, I don’t care if the prisoners in question are a bunch of heartless killers with blood on their hands that’ll never come off. I don’t really like watching these supervillains get tortured at the black site in Louisiana. The movie opens with Dead Shot getting smashed in the stomach with a knight stick multiple times. It continues with Harley Quinn being strapped to a chair with a ball gag in her mouth and a feeding tube forcing liquid gunk up her nose and down her throat. What happened to Harley Quinn was downright disturbing to watch. In fact, I’d say some prison reform is in order, even for brutal fighters like these supervillains. Maybe we can transfer them to one of those Norwegian prisons from Michael Moore’s documentary “Where To Invade Next”. In those jails, they actually eat their food from a plate with a fork and knife. What a concept!

Disturbing moment aside, Suicide Squad was a fun movie that didn’t need to be “saved” by anybody’s performance. I thought the performances were wonderful. I thought the action-packed violence was even better. You can’t have a superhero film without at least a modicum of strong violence, and boy do these warriors deliver. Harley Quinn can actually hold her own with just a bat while everybody else is covering the battlefield with bullets and bombs. Where’s all this negativity coming from? Do people just enjoy looking for flaws? Does nobody just sit back, relax, eat their popcorn, and enjoy the movie anymore? Like I said earlier, I may be fighting a losing battle with my passing grade, but just like the Suicide Squad themselves, I’ll die trying.

Emoticon Artist

“Whoever left the Eagle Eye of Aragon in this dump should have his head chopped off,” said the brutish orc warrior Knox, who grinned at his war axe in anticipation of carrying out that threat. The odors of shit, piss, and rotten metal in this junkyard assaulted the nostrils of everyone in his adventuring party and made keeping their lunches down a fight to the death. The sight of human and rat bones congregating among the junk heaps did no favors for their nauseated stomachs.

“Yeah, I’m not happy about being here either, Knox,” said the scrappy, dust-covered gnome thief Christopher. “But my sources tell me the Eagle Eye is somewhere among these piles. Somebody wanted to get rid of it in a hurry to avoid being caught by authorities. They didn’t do a good enough job of it.”

“Let’s just get the cursed thing before Lord McCain shows up,” said the heavily armored cleric Bradshaw, who held his spiked mace with confidence and passion. “Then again, I wouldn’t mind throwing down with that creep.”

Each adventurer took separate routes in digging through these trash piles so as to expand their search. They dug with quickness and strength so as not to spend too much time getting dizzy from the shitty odors. Once one pile of trash was sorted through, another was and the cycle of dirty clothing and shivers of disgust continued all over again. Christopher gagged and coughed as he dug to the bottom of his pile and found a used sheepskin condom. He threw it off to the side and nearly hit Knox in the face with it, to which the savage orc barked at him to be more careful.

“Looking for this?!” said a deep, ominous voice at the junkyard’s mesh fence entrance. The adventurers got in their fighting stances and pointed their respective weapons at the dark robed figure covered in glowing red auras known as Lord McCain. The Eagle Eye of Aragon glowed a brilliant shade of yellow that rivaled the morning sun itself. The adventurers shielded their eyes with their arms so as not to be blinded by this beautiful gem.

The snake-faced wizard grinned at the party while bearing his fangs and slithering his tongue. As if swallowing a pill, Lord McCain gulped the Eagle Eye down and sent a storm of electricity through his own body. The party watched in wide-eyed awe as McCain’s robes disintegrated and his green scaly body was growing with bulging muscles until he had morphed into a full-fledged dragon. The partiers swallowed saliva and nearly shit themselves at the sight of this transformed mega-demon, who screamed so violently at his foes that a gust of wind blew past them and sent Christopher rolling backwards.

Knox quickly pushed the fear to the back of his mind and smiled like a slasher, long tongue, drool, and all. “Is that how we’re going to do this?! Fine by me, McCain! I’ll drink your blood like a cold frosty beer!” With his gigantic axe raised to the sky, Knox charged at the dragon with bloodlust in his eyes, slobber flowing from his chin, and train-like power in his legs.

Fantasizing about slashing the shit out of Lord McCain would have given Knox a bulge in his fur shorts the size of an elephant’s trunk, had it not been for the sudden ringing noise interrupting his bloody thoughts. He looked back and saw Bradshaw texting on his cell phone and not paying attention to the battle at hand. “Hey! Moron! Put the phone away! There’s a pissed off dragon in front of us!” shouted the orc brute.

That momentary distraction allowed the vicious beast to grab Knox by his ankles with one massive, razor-sharp claw and drag him across the dirt ground, causing him to leave his axe behind. “Bradshaw! Put the phone away and help me!” The cleric continued to text on his cell phone like he was writing the next great novel. “Bradshaw! No!” shouted Knox as he was hauled up into the air and had his entire upper body chewed off by the blood hungry dragon, like his massively muscle-bound body was just a corn dog to the transformed beast.

Bradshaw was left all alone to text on his phone and to potentially be eaten by this drooling monster. One earth-shaking step at a time, the dragon stomped his way over to the cleric, who never took his eyes off of his phone and whose thumbs were moving at the speed of light. With one powerful whack, the dragon knocked the phone out of the holy warrior’s hands.



“Hey! What was that for?!” whined Beth Bradshaw, a chubby young lady with a ponytail and a Star Wars T-shirt barely covering her tremendous features.

While Cody Knox and Brenda Christopher sat at opposite sides of the dinner table with their faces in their hands, Colin McCain, the Dungeon Master, pointed his sausage finger at Beth and said in a hushed, angry voice, “You know full well that I don’t allow texting during D&D sessions! It’s fucking rude! If your internet life is more important to you than playing with your friends, then go the fuck outside and do that shit!”

Tears stained Beth’s jowls and fogged up her glasses. “I’m sorry, Colin. I just…” Before she could finish her sentence, her surprisingly durable smart phone vibrated on the kitchen floor. Instead of honoring her DM’s wishes, she picked up the phone and texted rapidly some more. The tears were really pouring from her eyes at this point.

Colin pulled his ponytail tie out of his hair and with one sweep of his bulky arm brushed the character sheets, rule books, and potato chips off the table to snap Beth out of her trance. Cody yelled, “Hey!” as some of the potato chips ended up in his blue jeans-wearing lap and on his Sepultura T-shirt.

Beth looked up at Colin with pleading, damp eyes and softly said, “I’m sorry! I really am! I have to take care of this or else…”

“Or else what? Your online buddies will have to go without goofy emoticons and poorly-spelled words for ten more seconds?!” shouted Colin while his palms were firmly pressed against the table.

“Come on, Colin, leave her alone! Can’t you see she’s in tears?” said the skinny brunette Brenda, who held her arms in front of Colin like a failed attempt to shield Beth from the DM’s wrath.

“Tears? Tears?!” yelled Colin. “What does this crazy bitch have to be sad about?! The latest edition of Pokemon Go hasn’t come out yet?! The coffee machine is jammed?! Banana Republic ran out of khakis that don’t cut off the circulation to her brain?! You know what?! I’m putting an end to this crap once and for all! Give me that stupid phone!”

A tug-o’-war ensued between Beth and Colin over the former’s phone with Cody and Brenda trying to separate them. The two obese nerds nearly pulled each other across the table as they shouted incoherently over the reasonable-minded Cody and Brenda. One powerful jerk yanked Beth onto the table, which broke in two upon bearing her weight. She cried relentlessly into her arms while Colin scowled down on her with an animalistic fury. Brenda scowled back at him and said, “Now look what you’ve done!”

It was the baldheaded Cody who ended up with the phone in his hands. His expression changed from urgent rage to a saggy frown when he actually read the text message war in front of him.

“Cody!” shouted Colin. “Give me the goddamn phone!”

Mr. Knox held out a hand in front of the GM’s face and somberly said to the gaming group, “Beth’s grandmother just died in the hospital.” Beth continued to flood the broken table with tears and assault the ears of her friends with painful sobs. Cody and Brenda leaned down to pick her up to her knees before engaging in a loving, emotional group hug.

Brenda looked up at the stone-faced Colin and asked, “Are you going to hug her or what? She needs us right now, Colin. For the first time in your life, quit being a selfish ass and be there for your friend!”

Colin solemnly looked down at Brenda, Cody, and Beth and shook his head before walking around them and strolling into the living room. Feeling abandoned, the remaining three friends continued to hug and rub each other’s shoulders while Beth unloaded more tears and snot onto the shattered wooden table. “How can he do this to us?” she asked. “We’ve been his friend since high school. We’ve been through everything together. We rescued him from bullies. And all he cares about is his stupid game!”

The group hug was tighter and the hand-holding was firmer. Cody even planted a gentle kiss on Beth’s forehead. It had nothing to do with romance and everything to do with Beth losing two people in one night: first her grandmother, and then her friend of so many years.

And then the group huggers heard the sound of car keys jingling behind them. The keys belonged to Colin, who told his friends, “If you want a ride to the hospital, the car’s parked out back. We’ll even stop for some McDonald’s along the way. I’m buying.”

All three brokenhearted friends slowly stood up while Beth weakly smiled at Colin and said, “Thank you for understanding. Let’s go.”

Take It Back

***TAKE IT BACK***

There seem to be a lot of stories in the news lately about environmental disasters, the most prominent one being about the North Dakota pipeline that the Standing Rock Indian Nation is protesting. Not only would the pipeline poison their water supply, but it would desecrate sacred burial sites. During these protests, the oil company’s private security beat the protesters and unleashed attack dogs on them. And still the Indian Nation remains stronger than ever. Instead of inserting my own political dialogue into this matter, I’m going to have Pink Floyd do it for me with their 1994 hit “Take It Back”. And no, it’s not about an overly emotional chick. It’s about Mother Nature, an even more emotional chick with the power of geomancy. Look the song up on You Tube. Or you can read these lyrics, one of the two.


VERSE 1
Her love rains down on me as easy as the breeze
I listen to her breathing it, sounds like the waves on the sea
I was thinking all about her, burning with rage and desire
We were spinning into darkness, the earth was on fire

CHORUS
She could take it back, she might take it back some day

VERSE 2
So I spy on her, I lie to her, I make promises I cannot keep
Then I hear her laughter rising, rising from the deep
And I make her prove her love for me, I take all that I can take
And I push her to the limit to see if she will break

CHORUS
She might take it back, she could take it back some day

VERSE 3
Now I have seen the warnings, screaming from all sides
It's easy to ignore them and God knows I've tried
All of this temptation, it turned my faith to lies
Until I couldn't see the danger or hear the rising tide

CHORUS X3
She can take it back, she will take it back some day


***WEEKLY SHORT STORY CONTESTS AND COMPANY***

Once again, the WSS admins use a prompt suggestion of mine (Eagle Eye) and I am eternally grateful. But before I can do my official happy dance, I have to write “Emoticon Artist”, which goes like this:


CHARACTERS:

Colin McCain, Authoritative Dungeon Master
Cody Knox, D&D Warrior
Brenda Christopher, D&D Rogue
Beth Bradshaw, D&D Cleric and Texter

PROMPT CONFORMITY: The D&D characters are searching for a magical gem known as The Eagle Eye of Aragon.

SYNOPSIS: An exciting game of Dungeons & Dragons is taking place in Colin’s kitchen and involves the three players trying to defeat a metallic dragon at a robotic junkyard. Just when the climax of the battle is drawing near, Beth’s phone goes off and she gets in a text-messaging war with one of her relatives. As the Dungeon Master, Colin strictly forbids text messaging and/or crying at his table, but Beth isn’t so easy to comply. This angers Colin to where he dives across the table in an attempt to pry the phone away from Beth while Cody and Brenda are restraining him.


***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

If Cain Gutwrench wasn’t scary enough for you, hopefully G-Pac will be. No, G-Pac doesn’t have much fighting experience beyond barroom brawls, but he’s a Dark Fantasy Warrior anyways due to his uniqueness. It’s not every day you see a hooded monk in a clown mask drumming away to a heavy metal tune. You kind of see that with Slipknot’s Shawn Crahan, but I don’t think Mr. Crahan would appreciate me using his likeness in Demon Axe. Thus, we have G-Pac. Before you ask, yes, G-Pac was named after me, Garrison Kelly, even though I don’t play the drums.


***DEMON AXE***

Now that we’re on the topic of Demon Axe, the torment is far from over for Daniel Mercer a.k.a. the Lord of the Pit. It’s bad enough Detective Shawn Henry asks him a bunch of stupid questions for the sake of fulfilling his “bureaucratic nightmare”. Now he gets a visit in the night from Raven Triscloud, an elf warrior who tries to warn Daniel that Roger Zee is far from finished with him. Of course, being the drugged out dunderhead that he is, Daniel thinks that Raven is full of crap and is just another traumatic hallucination. Is she?


***FACE BOOK STATUS OF THE DAY***

“If you ever get bitten by the world travel bug, it won’t be because you used to play Final Fight 2 for the Super Nintendo. It doesn’t matter what country Haggar, Carlos, and Maki do all of their street fighting in, because the stages look just as ghettoized and impoverished as the first level of the original Final Fight. For Christ’s sake, Holland looks like it had a nuclear bomb dropped on it. If the Mad Gear gang has the funds to travel overseas, you’d think they could get some nicer digs. Then again, getting a spinning piledriver from the top of Big Ben isn’t appealing no matter what your gang’s budget is.”

-Me-

Demon Axe, Chapter 3

The audience at the Black River Arena mumbled somberly to each other while the wrestling ring in the center was dimly lit. They held up signs for their favorite wrestlers, but with weak arms. They “wooed” and cheered, but few did it with them. Some stood up, but the rest of them stayed seated. This audience was more like a graveyard than an arena full of wrestling fans. The sadness in their eyes was obvious as some of them were shedding tears.

And then the grinding sound of Demon Axe’s number one hit “Zombie-Ogre” boomed from the speakers like a cannonball. Any sadness or zombie-like behavior transformed instantly into raucous rage as the audience shot up from their seats and cheered like wild motherfuckers. The throaty chants of, “Vega! Vega! Vega!” echoed off the walls and created a symphony of adrenaline for the seven-foot tall world champion wrestler, Johnny Vega.

With his blood red hair in a ponytail, his beard scraggly, his green overalls fitting snuggly around his muscles, and the golden world title strapped around his waist, Johnny Vega looked out into the crowd and nodded at the love he was getting. He enjoyed the adulation so much that he clapped and cheered along with them as he strutted down to the ring. Once he climbed up on the apron, stepped over the top rope with his gigantic legs, and held his world title in the air, the crowd’s verbal assault hit its crescendo with fire and spunk, highly unlike what they were feeling before.

The minute Johnny Vega grabbed a microphone from the ringside attendant, the chants of his last name continued to put a huge grin on the champion’s face. But even a tough guy giant like him wasn’t immune to the tears in his own eyes. He wiped them away with his thumb and inhaled snot back in his nose much to the clapping approval of the crowd who came to see him.

“Thank you, guys. Thank you so much, you have no idea how much that means to me,” said Johnny into the microphone. “But as much as I love hearing that kind of energy from you guys, tonight is not about me. I know why you guys were in such a sour mood before I came out here. I feel it too. It’s about what happened to my favorite metal band Demon Axe a few days ago.”

The audience booed at Demon Axe’s fate while some of the members reverted back to tears. Johnny said, “I know, it pisses me off too. What in the hell would motivate some asshole to kill off so many people like that? What kind of message is that supposed to send? What are we supposed to learn from all of this?”

He teared up a little bit at that last sentence and then toughened up yet again. “I’ll tell you what we’re supposed to learn! We don’t back down from shit-heads like that! I don’t care how many people this moron kills, because we’re here to put on a fucking show and there’s not a goddamn thing he can do about it!” He received a sonic boom of cheers and raised fists once more. “This is America, baby! America doesn’t negotiate with terrorists! America doesn’t back down every time a tragedy happens! America gets back on their feet, dusts themselves off, and keeps on going until they can’t go anymore!”

Just when the audience was ready to explode with excitement, the sounds of sarcastic clapping into a microphone filled the arena and the boos were as brutal as ever. A man dressed in a purple robe with a hood over his head and a vulture mask over his face entered the arena and put a confused slash angry expression on Johnny Vega’s face. The wrestler said, “You’re not Vulture Man. You’re not G-Pac. You’re not Pig Man, though you are a pig for coming out here and interrupting me. Who the hell do you think you are, little man?!”

The robed figure said with a chorus of boos in the background, “Relax! I’m not here to spoil your fun. I’m just another guy who wants a crack at that championship you’ve got there. Because there’s nothing more manly and gutsy than two muscle-bound men fighting over a belt.”

“Don’t be a smart-ass, pretty boy! And take off that mask, you don’t deserve to wear it! That mask belonged to one of the greatest heavy metal guitarists of all time and you’re running around like you’re God’s greatest gift to professional wrestling! You ain’t shit, motherfucker! I take dumps bigger than you! You want to come out here to run your big mouth and wear that fucking mask like you actually own it, then get your ass in this ring so I can snap your goddamn spine!” shouted Johnny, much to the roaring delight of the fans, who chanted his last name once again.

The hooded figure drew more boos as he cackled into the microphone. “You misunderstand me. This isn’t about a mask or a belt or any other piece of god-awful attire. This is about my mission. This is about my people. This is about the wonderful friends you call Demon Axe parading their disgusting music all over holy ground. That ‘arena’ they played at wasn’t just for show. Whoever built that abortion of a structure was trampling all over my race’s sacred pastures. Yes, the building has been around for years, but I was the only one with the guts to do anything about it. And now here you are disgracing my people once again by speaking highly of these Demon Axe infidels!”

Johnny formed a wicked smile on his face and shook his head before saying, “So you’re the lunatic who carved up all those people at the Demon Axe concert.” The boos grew heavier and heavier, but Johnny held up his hands and said, “Nah, nah, cool it, guys. It’s actually a good thing that this dumb-ass came here in the middle of a wrestling show. Because now, I have a reason to kick his ass!”

The champion wrestler threw down his microphone and belt before jumping over the top rope and bull rushing his way toward the robed figure. Johnny cocked back his sledgehammer-like fist and took a wild, brutal, head-crunching swing. The minute his fist made contact with Vulture Man’s mask, the entire robe collapsed into purple smoke, leaving the audience and Johnny shrugging their shoulders and looking around aimlessly for answers.

The lights in the arena blew out and left everybody in mysterious darkness. The grating sounds of the terrorist laughing drew the loudest boos of the night. Red smoke appeared in the ring and revealed the figures of the machete-wielding elf warrior and a fellow wrestler on her knees with a crown of thorns on her head and a neon red glow in her eyes. The lights came back on and revealed a wide-eyed, shocked expression on Johnny Vega’s face. He shouted, “What the hell did you do to Sonia?!”

The woman everybody knew as Sonia Marquez donned gray MMA shorts, a black sports bra, and a black ponytail behind her head. Her muscular frame, sinister gimmick, and vicious martial arts skills made her a perfect slave for someone like the mysterious elf terrorist. Despite how real and genuine Sonia’s brainwashing looked, everybody in the audience assumed this was part of the show and booed accordingly rather than rushing the ring.

Johnny Vega rushed back up to the ring, leaped over the top rope, and reached his hands out in an attempt to strangle the elf terrorist until his head burst like a pustule. Mr. Vega was met with a kick to the liver by Sonia after she jumped up from her kneeling position. Johnny held his ribs tightly and dropped to his own knees before coughing up a liberal amount of blood.

“Don’t be too hard on him, Sonia,” ordered the elf. “We need him to cleanse this earth of anybody who would dare disrespect my people’s heritage. He’s big, strong, and wouldn’t dare resist the power of one of these.” The elf presented a magical crown of thorns to Sonia, who gladly accepted it with a wicked grin on her face. The elf jerked Johnny’s head up by his ponytail while Sonia slipped the brainwashing device over his head. Johnny protested with yells and “No’s”, but it was too late. The crown was already hardwiring his brain by stabbing its prickly thorns into his skull. A few more exhausted breaths later and Johnny slowly stood back up with the same red neon in his eyes as his female counterpart.

Once again, the fans didn’t know if this was part of the show or if this was really happening before their eyes. The elf could have been some asshole in makeup. The neon eyes could have been electrified contact lenses. The crowns of thorns could have been props for a hardcore match. One zealous fan in a Johnny Vega T-shirt and blue jeans jumped over the barricade and rushed the ring with a steel chair in hands. He immediately had his head chopped off by the elf’s machete.

The audience screamed like horrified babies while shooting up from their seats and bolting out of the nearest exits with their arms flailing. The black shirted, big bellied security detail stormed the ring only to be met with slashes from the elf’s machete, big boots and clotheslines from Johnny Vega, and elbow smashes and knee strikes from the MMA enthusiast Sonia Marquez. This didn’t look like “fake shit” anymore. Every slash unleashed a tidal wave of blood from the security detail’s guts and throats. Every clothesline knocked heads off of shoulders and snapped spines like toothpicks. Every MMA strike broke bones so badly that they jutted into vital organs. So many security guards’ corpses filled the ring and left behind a sea of blood and disgust in their wake. The Black River Arena made battlefields and car crashes look mundane.

The elf warrior raised his machete to the sky and yelled, “Nobody disrespects my heritage! Nobody disrespects my nation! Remember the name of Roger Zee! Feel the trauma every time that name is blown up on your TV screens! Know that your heroes and your military are powerless against me! The world will respect my race if I have to chop the heads off of every man, woman, and child on this sick fucking planet!”

Dark Side of the Wall

Every chant of his last name sent a biblical flood of adrenaline through Ryan Warrior’s veins. He stood backstage with his fists clenched tightly by his sides, his painted up face a shield of rage, and his leather jacket a suit of armor for this musical war. The dimly lit stage splashed purple and red on the violent faces of the heavy metal crowd. All that could be heard aside from the crowd’s excitement was the ethereal music created by fast-paced war drums and the haunting wooden flute. As the war drum pounded louder in the ears of all, the shouts and screams became more deafening and more motivating to Ryan Warrior.

With the grinding, heavy sounds of an electric guitar, bass guitar, and drum kit to guide his way, Ryan marched out to the stage and was met with a thunderous ovation. They gave him a battle, he would return with a war. He snatched the microphone off of its stand and shouted, “What’s up, Ghost River Amphitheater?! You want some heavy ass metal?! One! Two! Chainsaw Samurai!”

The drum kit and war drums players dueled with each other. The guitar and bass players banged their long locks and bounced around the stage. The flute player calmly let out another wave of ghost music. And Ryan? He jumped up and down along with his audience, rowdy as they were.

With a throaty, demonic scream, he shouted, “Forget about your fucking dishonor / And focus on your eventual slaughter / Which one of your limbs must go first? / Your arms, legs, or German bratwurst? / Slice off your head, a mummified trophy / He opens your mouth and says, “Blow me!” / A bloodbath is coming from the Rising Sun / Violence and gore became a shit-load of fun!”

The raw passion of the outdoor crowd could be seen with every shove, every throw, every drop of blood, and every bruise. To get out of this mosh pit alive and well would be a miracle rivaling Jesus Christ himself. It was all fun and games until Ryan Warrior stopped bouncing and head banging. He looked out into certain areas of the crowd with disgust on his face, like he had just smelled raw sewage. “Stop the music! Stop the goddamn music! Guys, enough! I got something to say!”

Once the band discontinued their music, the crowd erupted into a fiery roar with volcanic passion and their bruised fists in the skies. Ryan’s disgusted face turned to a deathly scowl as he shouted into the microphone, “Are you guys fucking stupid or what?!” Like the bunch of idiots they were, the audience cheered at that rhetorical question.

“I look around at this crowd and I don’t see metal heads. I see grown ass men groping teenaged girls. I see little kids getting their heads smashed in. Hell, I just caught one of you assholes shooting off a rocket at my guitarist! You nearly hit him in the fucking face! What is wrong with you people?!” No more fiery passion from the crowd, only boos. Whether those boos were directed at the sociopathic audience members or Ryan Warrior was unknown, but the oratory continued.

“You know what? I’m starting to understand why Roger Waters built the wall! I trust you all know who the hell he is! He was the driving force behind a band called Pink Floyd, a band I have a lot of respect for! And right now, I feel like building a wall between you guys and my band! Boo all you want, but it ain’t wrong if that’s how I feel! Go ahead! Boo! Boo like a bunch of babies!” Ask and ye shall receive. The flying beer bottle that pinged off of Ryan’s shoulder was a bonus that sent the Native American into a nightmarish frenzy.

“Where the hell are the goddamn bouncers?!” he screamed. “How come nobody is trying to remove these guys?! I see neo-Nazis over here doing their thing! I see a teenaged girl trying to get away from you morons! Seriously, where the hell is security?! Where the hell is alcohol enforcement?! Why are the goddamn cops just sitting around munching on donuts?! I’ll tell you what, dip shits! If you keep this crap up, you’re not getting a show tonight! You haven’t shown me that you deserved one! You know what? To hell with it! I’m going backstage and I’m going to have a banana daiquiri! Screw you bastards! Screw this show! I don’t need this crap! I’m out of here!”

Ryan dropped his microphone with a resounding thud and walked backstage with his brethren, flipping off the booing crowd as he exited. The tour bus was in the back parking lot ready to roll on to the next town, which was hopefully less criminal-minded than this one at the Ghost River Amphitheater. The boos and reckless behavior out in the crowd caused Ryan to clutch his head in pain as he took a seat next to the mini-fridge. While his band mates disappeared behind the dressing room door, Mr. Warrior pulled a banana daiquiri out of the fridge and formed a small smile on his face knowing his night would at least end on a high note.

“Ryan! What the hell are you doing?! You’ve got a show to play, damn it! Don’t do this to me!” shouted his manager, a pudgy, balding, olive-skinned fellow in a gray suit who was flailing his arms as he shouted.

The singer tossed aside his bottle and stood up to look his manager square in the eyes. “Do you not see what’s going on out there? They’re acting like animals! I’ve played rowdy crowds before, but these guys are turning this concert into a goddamn prison riot! Where the hell are the bouncers? Do they not give a damn what’s going on out there?!”

Pointing a sausage finger at him, the manager said, “So that’s it? You’re going to give up on your dream because you don’t like what’s going on out there? Yes, you’ve played wild crowds before, but this ain’t no small piss-ant nightclub! This is the big time! You can’t back down from a crowd that size just because the security detail doesn’t swoop in right away! They’re not the Justice League, for Christ’s sake! Hell, they’re probably busy with parts of the crowd you can’t even see from the front stage!”

“Is that really what being a rock star is all about? Hanging around with a bunch of criminals? Having people shoot fireworks at you? What a bunch of crap!” said Ryan.

“You’re right! It is crap! But it also comes with the territory! Yes, there are a bunch of wild and crazy idiots right now who are probably being dragged away in handcuffs! But there are even more people out there who paid good money to see you perform! By walking off stage, you’re not only spiting the drunken jerks, but you’re also slapping the faces of the true fans! Do you want your true fans to remember you as the guy who quit in the face of criticism? If they think you’re getting soft for one minute, that’s the end of your career, buddy! And it’s a career that barely got off the ground! It’ll be over before it begins! Welcome to heavy metal, Ryan! Or I could welcome you to the unemployment line, how about that? It’s up to you, big guy. What’s it going to be?”

Breathing deeply and shakily, the seething Ryan Warrior glared into the eyes of his manager and said, “If that’s your way of psyching me up and getting me to earn my paycheck…” Mid-speech, he pulled a feathered hatchet out of his leather jacket and grinned at it like a psychopath. “I’m going to collect interest from these motherfuckers!”

In a calm and collected manner, the manager asked in a semi-whiny voice, “Ryan? What are you doing with that thing?”

Leaning his slasher villain face into the manager’s, Ryan said, “You’ll see. You think I’m soft? You think I’m cowardly enough to run away from the biggest dream I’ve ever had?” He shouted, “Do you think I’m stupid enough to walk away from a big payday?! Do you?! You can put all the stipulations in the contract you want, but no matter who the record label is, this is my show and I’m going to burn it to the ground!”

The manager backpedaled in pants-wetting fear as he shakily sat next to the mini-fridge. Ryan grinned and shouted at the dressing room in a feral voice, “Guys! We’re going to give the audience our…special treat!” The band mates exited the dressing room laughing viciously and sending the manager into even more violent shivers. The entire band walked passed him with villainous grins on their faces while the manager weakly asked, “What’s the hatchet for?”

The audience cheered and roared like bloodthirsty lions at the reappearance of Ryan Warrior and his band. As the lead singer slowly picked up his microphone and breathed in a raspy voice into the device, he swirled his tongue around his lips as he saw the undesirables being dragged away by security and law enforcement. Neo-Nazis were being pulled out of the arena by their legs. Child molesters were being dragged by their thick hairy arms. Drunkards staggered and fell on their way to the bus stop. While there may be some cretins left behind, the unmistakable chants of Ryan’s last name were music to his ears.

Ryan glared at the hatchet in his hand and said in a monstrous voice, “You see this? I carry this into battle with me every damn day of the week. It brings me more than just good luck. It brings me pleasure. It brings me pain. It brings me…bloodlust!” On that last line, he licked the flat end of his blade like it was his lover. “But if you think I’m so pissed off that I’m going to carve up a bunch of drunken idiots and join them in prison, you’re dead wrong. I’m not throwing away anything for those assholes, certainly not my dream, certainly not my life. Instead…I have a message from a little band from Iowa called Slipknot.”

The “true fans” shouted their approval at the name drop and raised their bloodied fists to the skies. Ryan continued his demonic speech with, “Mr. Corey Taylor couldn’t make it tonight. He sends his apologies. He also sends a very poignant message to everybody here who ruined your evenings by acting like mindless thugs. Nah, I take that back. Your evenings are far from ruined by those jerks. Our night of heavy metal is just getting started. It’s going to continue with a little Slipknot song that everybody here can relate to. It’s called…People = Shit!” With the fans riled up and ready to rock, the stage pyrotechnics burst into flames and the music was far from dead. Heavy metal will never die.