Post by Easton Alexander on May 26, 2023 22:26:46 GMT -5
Monday the 22nd of May.
Ten days away from Access Denied 2.
The leaky faucet drips…
Drips…
Drips…
Into the Dragon house drain, from a just shut off shower. Blood flowing on the tile floor. Easton Alexander dunks his fists into a bucket of cold shower water, shivering from the chill that stabs through the cut on his knuckle.
Lou: “Hand alright Kid?” Louis Phol’s cheap dress shoes click echoing against the shower walls.
Easton: “Just a cut, it’ll heal.”
“Stronger than ever.”
Lou chuckles, as does Easton.
“I'm good Lou, I'll be out in a minute.”
The fluorescent light flickers against the white walls, giving a rhythm to Lou’s shoes this time leaving the room. He's heard saying something as he exists.
“He’s okay, it's just a cut…”
Head hanging low, just giving time to think. It isn't a feeling Easton often gets. He pulls his hand out of a bucket of now red water.
“Fucking… stings.”
He stands up from the bench, pouring the bucket into the drain. He pushes the swinging door entering into the main room, two rings are the main attraction of the brand new facility. The eyes of the trainees track Easton to his locker, unlocking and taking out some wrist tape. Wrapping some around his fist.
Jamie:”Sorry coach”
“Don’t worry about it Jamie, it happens all the time.”
Jamie puts her head down, another student pats Jamie's shoulder.
“The elbows are a sharp part of the body. Use them, and use them often. Because stuff like this…” Easton holds up his hand, some red showing through the tape. “Is what can happen to your opponent. Class dismissed.”
The students start to gather their things and clear out, as they leave through the front door Easton addresses them.
“Don't forget, I sent a link to an old school match, check your emails. I want a one page, double space about Scott Syren's style. If you don't write anything it's ten chops!”
They groan as they say their goodbyes, Lou and Easton stand by the door chatting. The final group clears out and as they do Easton's expression drops into that of misery. He sulks over to the trophy case, which once held Moonlight Rose’s Paradigm Championship, or at least a replica. The side plate smashed from when she slammed it on the parking lot asphalt.
“Too proud to let her go?” Lou looks at Easton through the reflection.
“Let her go? She's not dead Lou, just conflicted. I just don't know why.”
Lou places his hand on Eastons shoulder.
“Kid… in my experience, you can do your best to guide them, to make them ready for the real world. But if they think they don't need you anymore there is nothing stopping them from leaving you.”
Easton can tell Lou is still hurting, but the subject doesn't get long to marinate. As a doorbell rings.
“Ah! Fucking finally.” Lou claps, making his way to the front door, Eason looks on confused.
“Lou don't let them in, we're closed.”
“No it's fine, these are my guys.”
What occurs next can only be considered pure chaos, 20 men and women in black and headsets, set up lighting kits and cameras. The shouting from the people setting up a cart with computers and assorted technology.
“Hey Lou! What the fuck?” Easton starts wandering through the set, random lights start sparking on illuminating the gym in a completely different tone. Just barley missing getting barreled over by a horde of people. A woman with a clipboard walks over to Easton.
“Mr. Alexander, I'm Brenda, I'm the producer.”
“Producer of what?”
Brenda looks at Easton and smiles a sly smile.
“Your show.”
~~~
A voice over plays while B-roll of Dragon House and Easton play in the background.
“The next generation of Professional Wrestlers.”
Shots students lifting weights, and Easton giving a lesson.
“Are built right under our very noses.”
Brenda, the woman from earlier slowly walking away from the gym.
“The breeding ground for the greatest sport in the world. To be a wrestler it takes sacrifice, sweat and blood. So you'll be surprised to know that these extraordinary people are being trained… by your average guy.”
Smash cut to Easton, perfectly lit in a chair.
“I don't know, I wouldn't say I'm average. I run the biggest wrestling academy in Toronto, I'm on Tv almost every week. If I'm ordinary I would like to see the extraordinary.”
“I hope you don't take offence to it Mr. Alexander, we don't mean anything by it. It's just there isn't a lot of history to go off.”
“No history? How about a PPV debut at 21, 8 match winning streak in the middle part of my ROOKIE year. and opening up the greatest wrestling academy in the world all before I couldn't even think about a grey hair.”
“Excuse me but… in my research I never saw any title history.”
Easton stands, tossing the chair across the floor, almost knocking over a light.
“Title history!? Is that all anybody gives a damn about? These gold trinkets that we carry around in our luggage, next to our shoes and dirty gear. God, I could care less about a world title. I just want people like you to know that I exist, that to some kids out there I meant something, maybe I could inspire a generation of wrestlers. To do things by the book. All i ever wanted to be was somebody, and now that i am i'm not gonna let some bitch from TV tell me I aint shit.”
Easton leans over the host, anger deep within his heart. And as the host smiles, the lights go out.
“This the result you wanted Louis?”
Lou steps out from the crowd and walks over to the host, as she stands from her chair he gives her a kiss.
“Pretty much exactly what i asked for Barbs.”
“Will you call?”
“... Maybe.”
He slaps her on the butt as he takes his seat across from where Easton is standing.
“You always feel like that kid?”
“No, not until a month ago. Sometimes a mans gotta know when he's out of his depth, i'm fine with just being a measuring stick, a guy people will compare the new kids on the block too, Synn is figure me out, buried alive... all this spooky shit... is her domain not mine.”
Lou tilts his head.
“With all due respect Easty my boy. That's a crock of shit. Synn is just like any other wrestler, except she's got some tricks… but so do you.”
Lou stands, putting both arms on his shoulders.
“You wanna be somebody? You gotta change your outlook on this world title thing. Wednesday… go out there and look her in the eye, and tell me that shes any different from the 17 other wrestlers you got the better of.”
Easton raises his posture, and as Lou takes his hands off.
~~~
Piledriver.
Post show.
Easton walks backstage, tombstone tucked under his arm, looking Lou in his eye.
“So?...”
Easton chuckles which breaks out into full laughter. Lou almost steps back, not scared but just cautious.
Easton speaks.
“... I'm gonna win the OCW World Championship. I’m gonna FUCKING be somebody.”
~~~
Easton stands above an empty tomb, in a graveyard cluttered with broken gravestones. a hole dug so PIC could bury what he had started.
“This place has become like a second home, I've been waiting for something that could finish the landscape. Complete this garden of lost souls. SYNN I may not be what you would have wanted as a first defence. I'm not PIC, nor am I somebody like Bifford… but I'm what's standing directly in front of you, and you either take me seriously or you end up like some of the people in my graveyard. I saw how you looked at me, how I was third place to Charlie and Jenny. You saw a scared kid, looking for an advantage and you think I didn't see anything. The tomb stone, the eyes. Its neat man but its not anything I haven't seen before.”
Easton starts unwrapping the cloth of this mystery object. dust whirling into the air, causing Easton to cover his mouth
“Year ago we all got trapped on an island in what we thought was Australia. And it changed a lot of us, the Straders especially, there was a girl… or at least i think, named Sadie and Sadie was an honest to god ghost. She would infect my head, putting visions of awful nightmares and making my life hell… trapping me in the woods, trying to drown my girlfriend. You're not like her… you are scarier than her, because I knew for whatever reason Sadie had to beat me in a wrestling contest. But you don't have to pin me, no submitting. What you have to do is bury me under 6 feet of dirt and soot, until all the air leaves my lungs and either I die or somebody saves my life… and i don't know if you've noticed but other than Lou… I don't have anybody anymore.”
The cloth comes off revealing the tombstone that was given to him by SYNN.
“Every single grave is an opponent that has either beaten me or I have beaten, this is a different situation.”
Easton plants the tombstone in the ground.
“This will be a grave for me SYNN… The man I used to be will die on the 31st, and what will rise from this grave is not a Dragon, but a glorious Phoenix, gold covered and spearing into this new era.”
Easton pulls back from the grave. Revealing the full lettering on the Headstone.
It reads.
“Here lies The Canadian Dragon. The New Champion of the World.”
Easton grabs a shovel planted in the dirt beside the stone, and begins to dig six feet deep.
Fade to black.
Ten days away from Access Denied 2.
The leaky faucet drips…
Drips…
Drips…
Into the Dragon house drain, from a just shut off shower. Blood flowing on the tile floor. Easton Alexander dunks his fists into a bucket of cold shower water, shivering from the chill that stabs through the cut on his knuckle.
Lou: “Hand alright Kid?” Louis Phol’s cheap dress shoes click echoing against the shower walls.
Easton: “Just a cut, it’ll heal.”
“Stronger than ever.”
Lou chuckles, as does Easton.
“I'm good Lou, I'll be out in a minute.”
The fluorescent light flickers against the white walls, giving a rhythm to Lou’s shoes this time leaving the room. He's heard saying something as he exists.
“He’s okay, it's just a cut…”
Head hanging low, just giving time to think. It isn't a feeling Easton often gets. He pulls his hand out of a bucket of now red water.
“Fucking… stings.”
He stands up from the bench, pouring the bucket into the drain. He pushes the swinging door entering into the main room, two rings are the main attraction of the brand new facility. The eyes of the trainees track Easton to his locker, unlocking and taking out some wrist tape. Wrapping some around his fist.
Jamie:”Sorry coach”
“Don’t worry about it Jamie, it happens all the time.”
Jamie puts her head down, another student pats Jamie's shoulder.
“The elbows are a sharp part of the body. Use them, and use them often. Because stuff like this…” Easton holds up his hand, some red showing through the tape. “Is what can happen to your opponent. Class dismissed.”
The students start to gather their things and clear out, as they leave through the front door Easton addresses them.
“Don't forget, I sent a link to an old school match, check your emails. I want a one page, double space about Scott Syren's style. If you don't write anything it's ten chops!”
They groan as they say their goodbyes, Lou and Easton stand by the door chatting. The final group clears out and as they do Easton's expression drops into that of misery. He sulks over to the trophy case, which once held Moonlight Rose’s Paradigm Championship, or at least a replica. The side plate smashed from when she slammed it on the parking lot asphalt.
“Too proud to let her go?” Lou looks at Easton through the reflection.
“Let her go? She's not dead Lou, just conflicted. I just don't know why.”
Lou places his hand on Eastons shoulder.
“Kid… in my experience, you can do your best to guide them, to make them ready for the real world. But if they think they don't need you anymore there is nothing stopping them from leaving you.”
Easton can tell Lou is still hurting, but the subject doesn't get long to marinate. As a doorbell rings.
“Ah! Fucking finally.” Lou claps, making his way to the front door, Eason looks on confused.
“Lou don't let them in, we're closed.”
“No it's fine, these are my guys.”
What occurs next can only be considered pure chaos, 20 men and women in black and headsets, set up lighting kits and cameras. The shouting from the people setting up a cart with computers and assorted technology.
“Hey Lou! What the fuck?” Easton starts wandering through the set, random lights start sparking on illuminating the gym in a completely different tone. Just barley missing getting barreled over by a horde of people. A woman with a clipboard walks over to Easton.
“Mr. Alexander, I'm Brenda, I'm the producer.”
“Producer of what?”
Brenda looks at Easton and smiles a sly smile.
“Your show.”
~~~
A voice over plays while B-roll of Dragon House and Easton play in the background.
“The next generation of Professional Wrestlers.”
Shots students lifting weights, and Easton giving a lesson.
“Are built right under our very noses.”
Brenda, the woman from earlier slowly walking away from the gym.
“The breeding ground for the greatest sport in the world. To be a wrestler it takes sacrifice, sweat and blood. So you'll be surprised to know that these extraordinary people are being trained… by your average guy.”
Smash cut to Easton, perfectly lit in a chair.
“I don't know, I wouldn't say I'm average. I run the biggest wrestling academy in Toronto, I'm on Tv almost every week. If I'm ordinary I would like to see the extraordinary.”
“I hope you don't take offence to it Mr. Alexander, we don't mean anything by it. It's just there isn't a lot of history to go off.”
“No history? How about a PPV debut at 21, 8 match winning streak in the middle part of my ROOKIE year. and opening up the greatest wrestling academy in the world all before I couldn't even think about a grey hair.”
“Excuse me but… in my research I never saw any title history.”
Easton stands, tossing the chair across the floor, almost knocking over a light.
“Title history!? Is that all anybody gives a damn about? These gold trinkets that we carry around in our luggage, next to our shoes and dirty gear. God, I could care less about a world title. I just want people like you to know that I exist, that to some kids out there I meant something, maybe I could inspire a generation of wrestlers. To do things by the book. All i ever wanted to be was somebody, and now that i am i'm not gonna let some bitch from TV tell me I aint shit.”
Easton leans over the host, anger deep within his heart. And as the host smiles, the lights go out.
“This the result you wanted Louis?”
Lou steps out from the crowd and walks over to the host, as she stands from her chair he gives her a kiss.
“Pretty much exactly what i asked for Barbs.”
“Will you call?”
“... Maybe.”
He slaps her on the butt as he takes his seat across from where Easton is standing.
“You always feel like that kid?”
“No, not until a month ago. Sometimes a mans gotta know when he's out of his depth, i'm fine with just being a measuring stick, a guy people will compare the new kids on the block too, Synn is figure me out, buried alive... all this spooky shit... is her domain not mine.”
Lou tilts his head.
“With all due respect Easty my boy. That's a crock of shit. Synn is just like any other wrestler, except she's got some tricks… but so do you.”
Lou stands, putting both arms on his shoulders.
“You wanna be somebody? You gotta change your outlook on this world title thing. Wednesday… go out there and look her in the eye, and tell me that shes any different from the 17 other wrestlers you got the better of.”
Easton raises his posture, and as Lou takes his hands off.
~~~
Piledriver.
Post show.
Easton walks backstage, tombstone tucked under his arm, looking Lou in his eye.
“So?...”
Easton chuckles which breaks out into full laughter. Lou almost steps back, not scared but just cautious.
Easton speaks.
“... I'm gonna win the OCW World Championship. I’m gonna FUCKING be somebody.”
~~~
Easton stands above an empty tomb, in a graveyard cluttered with broken gravestones. a hole dug so PIC could bury what he had started.
“This place has become like a second home, I've been waiting for something that could finish the landscape. Complete this garden of lost souls. SYNN I may not be what you would have wanted as a first defence. I'm not PIC, nor am I somebody like Bifford… but I'm what's standing directly in front of you, and you either take me seriously or you end up like some of the people in my graveyard. I saw how you looked at me, how I was third place to Charlie and Jenny. You saw a scared kid, looking for an advantage and you think I didn't see anything. The tomb stone, the eyes. Its neat man but its not anything I haven't seen before.”
Easton starts unwrapping the cloth of this mystery object. dust whirling into the air, causing Easton to cover his mouth
“Year ago we all got trapped on an island in what we thought was Australia. And it changed a lot of us, the Straders especially, there was a girl… or at least i think, named Sadie and Sadie was an honest to god ghost. She would infect my head, putting visions of awful nightmares and making my life hell… trapping me in the woods, trying to drown my girlfriend. You're not like her… you are scarier than her, because I knew for whatever reason Sadie had to beat me in a wrestling contest. But you don't have to pin me, no submitting. What you have to do is bury me under 6 feet of dirt and soot, until all the air leaves my lungs and either I die or somebody saves my life… and i don't know if you've noticed but other than Lou… I don't have anybody anymore.”
The cloth comes off revealing the tombstone that was given to him by SYNN.
“Every single grave is an opponent that has either beaten me or I have beaten, this is a different situation.”
Easton plants the tombstone in the ground.
“This will be a grave for me SYNN… The man I used to be will die on the 31st, and what will rise from this grave is not a Dragon, but a glorious Phoenix, gold covered and spearing into this new era.”
Easton pulls back from the grave. Revealing the full lettering on the Headstone.
It reads.
“Here lies The Canadian Dragon. The New Champion of the World.”
Easton grabs a shovel planted in the dirt beside the stone, and begins to dig six feet deep.
Fade to black.