As Long As It Takes

[synn]

You're the sin that I've been waitin' for

The hands around my throat

It's all I can think about

The smell of sweat and blood

As she inhaled the frigid Canadian air, the cold biting her throat and nostrils like a cobra latched on to its prey, all she could think about was how glad she was to be out of Florida. She missed being home in rural Alaska, and was still overwhelmed by how quickly her entire life had been flipped on its ear. Just a few short weeks ago, she was trading in cans and bottles for change at the local store in Anchorage, and now she was on one of the biggest shows of the year in one of the most prestigious wrestling companies on the planet. Going for a shot at a belt, no less!

Juniper Grace Leavitt sat a cafe in Alberta, both hands around her warm chai latte. She enjoyed people watching, it was a hobby for her. Humans were interesting creatures and she often found herself wondering why they do what they do. What they say, what they think, how they taste….

Errr……

She took another sip of the latte, chalking it up to her just being tired. It was a long flight from the Florida Keys after a hard fought match. Sure, she didn’t pin Bourbon, but a win over B.O.B is a win any day in her eyes!

Trying to direct her thoughts elsewhere so as to not let SYNN take over her mind in public,, she wondered how she had grown to have an affinity for face paint. It is certainly unique, it sets her apart, but everything starts somewhere. She takes another sip, and swallows with a satisfying “ahh”. Looking out at the town around her, the bustling afternoon unfolding before her, she let herself drift into nostalgia.

SEVERAL YEARS AGO OR SOMETHING

Her family didn’t leave Alaska often, and the only time Juniper had been to the American mainland before today was the last time she visited her cousin in Pullman, Washington. The families were close, split up by a bad divorce, and every so often Juniper’s mother would drive them down to Washington State to see “that side of the family”.

Her cousin Ashton was a decent enough person, and he took great pleasure in showing his cousin all around the town. The nice, the not so nice, the suburban and the rural. The two hopped on their bikes in the morning and came home when the street lights turned off. They lived free, and to be honest, it reminded her a lot of home.

This particular trip, they were going to go to a local fair in town. All of the kids were going to be there. Juniper didn’t much care for other kids–she much preferred being alone. She trusted Ashton to take care of her, though, and when she gave him the hand signal that she was overstimulated and needed to leave, he was the first one to escort her back to her Aunt’s. On this ride, however, Ashton was quieter than usual.

“Everything okay Ash?”

He sighed, nodding.

That meant it wasn't, she knew her cousin well enough.

It was a nice summer day, sunny and 70 or so. A calm breeze which fluttered her hair that stuck out from under her bike helmet. His eyes stayed straight ahead, occasionally darting to the side of the road as if he expected someone to be standing there.

Nobody was.

Nobody ever was. 

When they reached the place they were going, they parked their bikes. It was a small fair of sorts, with local vendors and artists, in a small park on the north side of town. There were woods all around the small park, and a playground area down by the tree line. Ashton seemed nervous, and wrung his hands sheepishly. He had never been like this on an adventure before. Something was off.

“I guess…uh…let’s go get a soda or something.”

This was odd, even for her. Their adventures were usually to abandoned buildings or graffiti-laden bridges. They made their own fun. This was too……people-y.

Being the good cousin she was, she went along with it. Every step or so he seemed to be side-eyeing something. Someone. Like he was trying to avoid them, or it. If you’re trying not to be seen, why come to such a public place?

They were about 100 feet from the soda stand when a voice cut through the crowd, and made Ashton stop dead in his tracks, a small quiver engulfed him and a squeak left his lips.

"Yo A.....you got some nerve coming here! Where's my money!"

Wyatt Thomas, the local bully, and three of his cronies stepped into view.

"I told you, I had to spend it on my mom's medicine" he said, almost inaudibly. "I am sorry, I don't have it right now." The latter was audible.

“Well….that just doesn’t work now, does it?”

Wyatt was a large kid. Red hair, pudgy, with freckles. If he didn’t have such a mean demeanor you may mistake him for a good old Irish boy.

He was an Irish bastard.

Juniper nudged her cousin in the ribs with her elbow, talking out of the side of her mouth.

"What is he talking about?"

"He loaned me like 20 bucks a few weeks ago when we had a school dance. I wanted to treat Shelby to some food first but my moms medicine, I ju--"

The bullies were right up on them now.

"I like you, A, I really do.....but I did something nice for you and you're being rather rude to not return the favor."

One of the bullies shoved him from behind. He bounced against Wyatt's stomach. He Irish bastard shoved him back.

"Maybe, I should show you what happens when people are rude. Give ya a lesson for when you're older."

"Your parents have money, Wyatt. Mine don't. I needed to pay for my mom's medicine. You know this."

"What I KNOW is that I did something nice for you and--"

Juniper stepped in.

"How long are you going to keep saying the same thing?"

He looked at her and smiled. "As long as it takes."

Certainly, they weren’t going to rumble right here. With all these people around?. What was the point? And why would Ashton even think to come here knowing that Wyatt was lurk—

The boy hauled off and slugged her cousin, knocking him onto his back with blood pouring out of his nose. Two of them grabbed her around the arms, and pinned them behind her. She yelled out for help but nobody came. Nobody cared.

Wyatt got on top and began to pummel Ashton, delivering blows to all parts of his face and head.

When he decided he was done, her cousin was damn near comatose. He reached down and snatched the chain with the pendant that Ashton wore around his neck, something his mother had given to him.

"Tell mamma I said hi."

The boys laughed, letting go of Juniper. Nobody helped. It was as if they didn't exist in broad daylight. Nobody wanted to challenge the Clover family--their social status and influence on the town. Their money.

Later that night Juniper seethed as his Aunt cleaned the wounds with alcohol and a cloth. Nobody was going to hurt them again, if she had any say in it.

"As long as it takes" she said under her breath. 

“How did I get so lucky to be put in a match with a top five name in this company? Did I punish Charlie Nickels that much? Match number three and I already have an opportunity for a title shot. Have I earned the right or is this a big show and our talent pool is more shallow than a Betta fish cup? I am taking the latter. When you turn on OCW TV, Dylan Thomas is a name you hear rather frequently around these parts. I am not sure if this is a demotion for you, Dyl, or a promotion for me. These hard working people in Alberta, a place rich with wrestling history, get to watch you step into the ring with a newbie and puff your chest out like it's an accomplishment. They get to watch you pontificate and promise them that this show will be something different.

But will it be different, Dylan?

Your cavalier attitude and supercilious demeanor tells me that you never learn. You said it yourself, you haven’t won a match in a while. Why is that? Is it because you don’t have the talent, or is it because deeeeeeep down in the left ventricle you’ve stopped believing in yourself? You realize that the talent here has caught up to you, that the illusion you lived for so long has finally begun to fade. Or maybe, you’re in it for the wrong reasons? Fame, fortune, movie roles? Hell, you could be a busboy in Anaheim and get lucky enough to do that if the right person came along….why wrestle? Why put your body through such arduous conditions night in and night out? The A-lister. The gatekeeper. The heart and soul. Perfection, personified. All names, self-given, that show just how much of a scared little boy you truly are. A real Hollywood story, of pain and anguish, and self-loathing. A personality that is dogmatically shoved upon us like it’s avant-garde, but in reality–because yes, we are dealing with reality here–it is about as tired of a cliché as the shy, awkward, average guy getting the hot girl, that ‘one last case before retirement’, or hacking into the Pentagon in three minutes. Difference is, you aren’t the super cool high school kid with the world in his palm for four years that matter to no-one, you’re more like Zac Efron if he had Down syndrome and a paint huffing addiction. You’re too cliché to be considered cliché, so I guess that makes you ‘cool’. What do I know? I’m an outcast from Alaska who likes to paint my face and dance around my living room to macabre showtunes. I’ll never be as cool or as awe-inspiring as Dylan Thomas.

You told us back in March that some of the new faces were the ‘future’ of OCW after eight straight losses. You had the viewers on the edge of their seats, not a dry eye in the room. Even delivered the line “I’m not blaming anyone but myself. It’s me that got myself into this mess and it’s going to be me that pulls myself out of it” with a dramatic flare that had the Oscar committee saving your phone number to their speed dial. I watched OCW back then, hell, it’s on basic cable, and I even began to melt. How do you repay us for eating out of your palm? You turn around and say “....for all of those that no longer believe in Dylan Thomas, for all of you who no longer look at Dylan Thomas as a hero and with respect? FUCK YOU.”

Such harsh language for a man who calls himself the Heart and Soul of OCW. Such a terrible twist for someone who was staring mediocrity in the face–such anger behind your words. The REAL Dylan Thomas came out right then….the one who makes excuses (15 years in wrestling laddy daaa), the one who isn’t accountable for his own mistakes, the one who went from A-lister in a Malibu Mansion to B movie extra in a studio apartment quicker than “ACTION!”

Cut. Scene. Fin.

December 28th, 2022. You’re back at it again in all of your posturing glory. Back to tell us all how good you are. The man who was given a Craze Shot by Marcus Welch, and FAILED. A man who was gift-wrapped a shot at the TransAtlantic Championship, and FAILED. A man who had a chance to knock off PIC and retain the Savage Title, but FAILED. Are you picking up what I’m putting down here? You’re so quick to tell us about all the things you USED to do, all the success you USED to have……you say it with such conviction! Like you’re trying to believe what is spewing from your lips…..I hope you do, because nobody else does.

LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE!

You don’t believe it, and if you do, well, then maybe you should focus on someone other than yourself, mmm? You don’t know where I am? You don’t know if I’ll show up? I just won the biggest match of my life over Donnie Harris and Bobby Bourbon, but you didn’t watch Piledriver because you weren’t on it. You haven’t changed, you’re still the same arrogant fathead you’ve always been. Ring general? With your resume? Well, I guess in war, there is a general who loses……

Let’s get down to brass tacks, mmkay?

Mmkay.

At the Pay Per View, you are going to do what you do best, you’re spot on. You’re going to disappoint everyone. You’re going to overlook me and I am going to break the egg on your face so hard that you could make an omelet. Extra cheese. You’re going to go home and kiss your beautiful wife on the lips, but it won’t be heartfelt. She’ll tell you its okay and she still loves you, but her tolerance for her steadily declining dip in reputation is waning like an Alaskan moon. She’ll sleep in the same bed, but her back will be to you. I mean, do you blame her? You have the face of a 12 year old that painted on a beard for Halloween and is just SO proud of their coloring skills–just like you are SO proud of all the other minor achievements in your life. Stay galivanting around the Hollywood Hills and leave professional wrestling to those who give a crap. Go live your Brad Pitt lifestyle. Buy your wife that new car, that diamond necklace she’s been ogling. Go to your fancy dinner parties and get litty off overpriced liquor then come home three sheets to the wind and tell each other you hate each other. Wake up and do it all over again. Live the life you want, and let me live the life I want. Stick to what you’re good at because Dyl, this wrestling thing has long since left you for dead.”

I would feed you all my pleasures

Just to drown in all of yours

Have you heard of me?

Are you hurting me?

SYNN is a different creature altogether. SYNN cannot be controlled, nor can she be predicted. SYNN is the normality and the psychosis, the delusion and the balance. When SYNN wants something, she takes it. When she believes in something, she'll die for it. When SYNN yearns to quench her thirst, she usually turns to blood.

When the sirens began to blare and the blue and red lights filled the night sky, the mass of people running from the establishment as the flames tore through the infrastructure, Juniper was truly lost. She wasn't the humble girl from rural Alaska anymore, she was SYNN. The feelings inside that she had been trying to control, beat back, stifle--you pick the verb--had finally consumed her very being and eaten her from within.

As she walked calmly from the blaze, she wondered if SYNN was good or evil. SHE wondered, the only piece of her left was pondering the meaning of her own existence---oh god, was this truly the end?

No.

It was just the beginning.

She licked her lips as she looked in a car mirror, she could get used to this look.

You'd think she would stand out like a Yao Ming at a--well, anywhere really, hard to not stand out when you're damn near 8 feet tall--but it seemed to be the opposite. As twisted as mangled as this world is, she actually fits into the shadows better than she ever did as a "normal" girl. Nobody wanted to talk to her now. Out of fear? Intimidation?

She was so sweet!

But SYNN scared people. SYNN worried people. SYNN.......helped people.

The voice of the voiceless, the face of the faceless, the hero they never asked for and the martyr they never wanted.

Let me savor what I'm waiting for

A chance to make me choke

You're all I can think about

The taste is red in rust

She didn't mean to take it that far but that man.....he was just so EERUGH.....repulsive. Made her skin crawl. He thought he was above her, above everyone, and because he drove a fancy car and had a big house in the keys that she'd want to sleep with him. All she wanted to do was go out to the local Gentleman's Club after her victory at Piledriver. She liked to watch the girls, she enjoyed the music, the atmosphere, the freedom of it.

The men that go into those places are men like Dylan Thomas. Money to throw around, fancy cars and houses, and an ego bigger than their manhood. 

Men like Dylan have the world in their palm, but its never enough. They are unhappy. Unhappy at home, unhappy at work, unhappy with themselves. Their only happiness is being cruel to others in order to pacify that need. Men like Dylan Thomas NEED people to pay attention to them, to compliment them, to verbally jerk them off because it makes them feel like less of a monster.

She smiled into the car's mirror again, ear to ear.

EMBRACE THE MONSTER

Lissandra had such a pretty face…..it's a shame he doesn’t let anyone taste it.

SYNN hoped she was at the show. Hoped she accompanied him to the ring. Hope she showered and moisturized and—

She asked the man in the club just how long he was going to leave his hand on her leg, how long he was going to close-talk and tell her how beautiful she was in whiskey slurred words.

"As long as it takes" he stumbled out. That is when she felt her eye twitch, she felt the lava rising from within. That is when the monster took over. That is when SYNN finally broke the chains and burned reality to rubble.

All the words for retribution

Only add up to revenge

Overpower me

And devour me

"Dylan, you may be able to pull the wool over everyone's eyes....even this poor girl. She may watch you on television and not understand how toxic you are. I do. I am here to clean the OCW from toxins, to make it wholesome and pleasant again. I am here to 'fix' the OCW, and my sights are set on B.O.B. Quick detour, I make a pit stop in Alberta. I am going to humble you on New Years Eve, and I am going to make jolly well sure that Dylan Thomas never hurts anyone again.

I am focused, determined, and ruthless. I will fight you until the last breath leaves my body, until the final drop of blood pours out on the canvas. You can't use your status against me, I don't care about your image. I don't care about your material possessions. I don't care about your history or what titles you've held. All I care about is cleansing you of your sins, and delivering you to a life of purity.

I am going to see you Saturday Night, Dylan. I am going to fix you."

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