Lost Without You

Chun Li tapped her white-booted foot repeatedly while crossing her arms, impatience bubbling inside her. She didn’t want to be down in this bunker. She wanted to be out there in the field lightning kicking Bison’s head off. She wanted to hear the sounds of bones crunching against her boots as she performed her Spinning Bird Kick. She wanted to hear Bison scream in agony as her fireball scorched and crisped his skin. Those sounds would have been more heavenly to listen to than a classical Mozart symphony. After all those lonely nights without her now murdered father, Chun Li believed she wasn’t asking too much in return. She just then noticed her jaw was aching from clamping down too hard.

If there was one thing that could distract her from her own impatience and the darkness of the bunker, it was seeing young Cammy White resting peacefully on a soft enough mattress. Waiting for her to wake up and give away Bison’s location would have eaten away at Chun Li since time was a factor. But there was something about Cammy’s beauty that extended beyond the surface level. Anybody could look good in a green legless leotard and black combat boots. Even Chun Li had her own moments with her blue kung fu dress, also legless. But Cammy had an air of mystery about her. She had a softness to her that Chun Li always liked in the company of women.

Crush on her later. You have a job to do once she wakes up, Chun Li thought to herself. And just like that, her sweet smile disappeared and gave way to tight-jawed intensity. She knew it wouldn’t be right to flirt with Cammy anyways. The poor girl had been through a lot, which was why she was taken to this bunker to begin with. And then, her eyes slowly flickered open, adjusting to whatever light was left. Chun Li rushed over and sat on the mattress next to her.

Don’t mess this up. You’ve got one chance to get the most out of her…

Still groggy and dazed, Cammy languidly reached out her hand and cupped it in Chun Li’s, prompting the latter’s face to go slightly pink. Even after lecturing herself about the importance of finding and destroying Bison’s Shadowloo base, Chun Li made no effort to pull her hand away. The touch was too smooth and too warm to just let go so easily. And then it became clear why Cammy was reaching out in the first place. “Bison…is that you?”

“I…no, it isn’t, Cammy.” Chun Li knew her charge was out of it, but was still hit with a pang of disappointment.

Cammy pulled her hand away ever so slowly. “I’m sorry. I…I don’t know what I was…I mean…”

“It’s okay, Cammy. Don’t worry about it. I don’t mind. Are you able to sit up? That might help you reorient yourself.”

She did indeed sit up, but not without slouching her head over like she was about to pass out again. “Where’s Bison?”

“That’s what I was hoping you’d know. You were closer to him than anybody else we’ve rescued so far. Do you remember where his Shadowloo hideout is?”

“I…I can’t remember much…Everything’s a blur…” Failing to compose herself, Cammy slumped over to the side and (unknowingly) rested her head on Chun Li’s shoulder, prompting an even darker shade of pink to scrawl across her face. “Am I doing that again?”

“Cammy, it’s okay. I don’t mind, really. You’ve been through a lot. It’s okay to feel sleepy after all of that. Do…do you seriously not remember where Bison is hiding out?”

“I…I don’t remember much of anything lately…”

Chun Li grabbed Cammy by her shoulders and lifted her into an upright position, steeling herself for the gravity of what she was about to say. Cammy’s head still slouched over, but hopefully Chun Li’s message got through. “Listen to me…this won’t be easy to hear, but…we believe you’ve been brainwashed by Bison into becoming one of his soldiers. The effects are just now wearing off and that’s probably why you don’t remember much about your past.”

“…Who’s we? Who are you, anyways?”

“I’m from Interpol and we’ve been building a case against Bison for years now. He has entire governments in his back pocket and has been using his influence as part of a campaign for world domination. Anybody who stands in his way or even mildly disagrees with him is promptly murdered or incarcerated. To put it in shorter terms, he’s a dictator and he’s getting too powerful for our liking.”

Cammy lifted her head as if to give some kind of hopeful answer. But…”I’m sorry. I don’t remember anything. I want to help you, but I can’t.”

And just like that, the best lead Chun Li had turned out to be a dead end. Lord knew what Bison had done to this poor girl prior to the amnesia. The possible answers, even the darkest kind, swirled in Chun Li’s head and angered her to where she unintentionally squeezed Cammy’s shoulders too hard. After a hiss of pain from her charge, Chun Li apologized and dusted her own kung fu dress off (despite there being no dust).

The two of them just sat there on the mattress together awkwardly staring into space. If Cammy really was as amnesic as she claimed to be, then what else was there to do? The logical answer would be to take her to the Interpol medical wing, but if that was a viable option, they wouldn’t be in this bunker in the first place. They needed to hide out for a while. They needed to strategize. They needed to…spring to life on their feet as soon as a crashing sound erupted at the front entrance.

The steel door came loose after a few hard punches and tumbled down the stairs into the bunker’s common area. Emerging from the chaos was exactly what Chun Li feared this whole time: Shadowloo warriors. The punches obviously came from Balrog, the ultra-muscular boxer with a ripped bare chest and baggy purple shorts. Flanking him was the steel masked Spanish ninja Vega, bearing a claw that could tear off limbs with a single stroke. While Chun Li prepared for battle with her kung fu stance, Cammy looked dumbstruck as her bare legs quivered.

Balrog pointed his boxing glove at Cammy and said, “I believe you have something that belongs to Shadowloo.”

Chun Li’s normally soft voice had extra mustard behind it. “That ‘something’ has a name, you dumb bastard. She’s not an object for Bison to play with. She’s a living, breathing human fucking being!”

Balrog and Vega laughed their heads off. Vega removed his mask and licked his claw in a sensual, creepy way. “She may be a human fucking being…but living and breathing? Ha…that’s debatable!”

“Don’t you lay a finger on her!”

“Or what?” snapped Balrog. Not wasting any more time smack talking, he initiated the battle with a rush punch aimed at Chun Li’s head.

Staying close to Cammy, who was still frozen with amnesic fear, Chun Li dodged and ducked every punch Balrog threw at her. She counted with a sweep kick, but his legs wouldn’t budge. Instead, Balrog grabbed the sweeping bare leg and squeezed it like the pervert he was, toothless grin on his face the whole time. Chun Li threw a Kioken fireball from her laying position and almost singed Balrog’s disgusting face. Once she was free, she nipped up, wanting to go in for the kill with a Spinning Bird Kick.

In doing so, she left Cammy wide open for Vega to swan dive and suplex her into the bed. This distracted Chun Li long enough for Balrog to throw a dashing uppercut, flipping her upside down and dazing her senses. He continued the punishment by picking her up and head butting her repeatedly in the chest. Every time his cannonball noggin struck her sternum, her heart skipped a few beats. She faded in and out of consciousness the whole time, but mustered enough strength to throw another fireball, forcing Balrog to let go.

That fireball proved to be her last hoorah. It bought her enough time and enough conscious energy to see something disgusting unfold before her eyes. Vega had Cammy’s arms pinned to the bed and with his mask off, he began licking his claw like he wanted to butcher her. Chun Li wanted to help. She wanted to stay conscious long enough to Lightning Kick his head off. Her wish was only half granted as the anger burning in her gut kept her awake this whole time. And then…

Just as Vega leaned down to try to give Cammy a kiss, the latter sprang to life like she wasn’t crippled with amnesic fear just a few minutes ago. She punched Vega in the face and split him open. He screamed and held his broken nose, bemoaning the fact that his “handsome” features were ruined by this “bitch”. He swan dived towards her again, but was met with a spiral kick called the Cannon Drill. Off the bed and ready to rock and roll, Cammy hit a thrust kick to Vega’s ball sack and ruined his face even further with a spinning knuckle. She never let up, just kept pounding and pounding him like a fighting machine was awakened inside of her. There may have been hope in finding Bison after all.

This newfound hope gave Chun Li enough energy to pull herself to her feet and dodge another oncoming rush punch from the now recovered Balrog. Awake and alive, she threw multiple Lightning Kicks around Balrog’s sternum, listening to his ribs crackle and pop. He backed off a little bit and spit out some blood, but ultimately shrugged off the pain like it was nothing. Boxers were used to this kind of pain, after all. Then again, so were kung fu masters and British soldiers. Chun Li winked at Cammy, who stood over Vega’s broken body with confidence and anger etched in her battle stance.

Balrog stormed in with another rush punch, but was met with a double team move from Chun Li and Cammy. Cammy went low with her Cannon Drill and Chun Li went high with the move she’d been itching to use on Bison this whole time, the Spinning Bird Kick. Bones crunched, cracked, and shattered underneath the boots of these two badass women. With a distorted face and ribs puncturing his lungs, Balrog dropped to the ground twitching and coughing up blood, which only aggravated his rib injuries even further. Cammy finished him off with a hard stomp to the balls. Balrog’s face contorted even further before he fell backwards and slipped into the dark side.

Bruised, but not broken, Cammy and Chun Li breathed heavily after their hard-earned victory and sat back down on the bed together full of piss and vinegar. If anybody else wanted to come through that doorway, they too would be beaten within an inch of their lives.

After a while of huffing and puffing, Cammy finally spoke in a tone unlike her dazed and confused persona from earlier. “I know where Bison’s hideout is…I know what he did to me…He erased my memories…Made me his slave…I want to kill him…I want to burn him alive….”

“Listen to me, Cammy…I’m glad you remember where Bison’s base is, even if it was triggered under the worst circumstances. But I’m afraid I can’t let you have that kill. Interpol will take care of everything. The important thing is that you cooperate.”

“Oh, I’ll cooperate alright. And to think, Bison thought I was in love with him. Truth is…I don’t even like men.”

Chun Li’s face reddened once again, but for more reasons than being in a brutal fight. “You…you don’t?”

“I’ve always preferred women. I don’t go around advertising my sexuality to people, so I’d appreciate it if you kept quiet too.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Cammy. Bison may think there’s something wrong with it, but I don’t. In fact…I like women too.” That last sentence was punctuated with a tiny smile.

The two of them looked in each other’s eyes, but ultimately thought nothing of it. Cammy said, “I’m not sure if I can…you know…not right now anyways. I have to wash the stench of Bison off of me before I can do anything serious…”

“I understand, Cammy. Maybe we’ll just have to settle for a nice cup of tea together.”

Cammy’s eyes widened in disbelief. “What?”

“I, uh…sorry, I don’t know where that came from.”

After a while of awkward silence, Cammy’s hand met Chun Li’s. “Sure, I’d love to get tea with you sometime. Maybe when this Shadowloo bullshit is over, though.”

“Of course…once it’s all over…”

“Hey…thank you. Thanks for everything…” Cammy kissed Chun Li’s forehead and made her blush. “Come on, let’s get out of this bunker before anybody else finds us and wants to brawl.”

Chun Li just now remembered that she had a job to do this whole time. It was easy to get lost in Cammy even after all of that. It was easy to feel…lost without her.

Incelbordination, Chapter 9

When the Monday morning sunshine burst through his window, Oswald Crow contemplated taking the day off. He could tell Valerie Sand that he had come down with food poisoning or something. Then again, if he pulled that sneaky trick, the C- would become a D+ in no time at all. He wasn’t sick, but he’d have to take his medicine anyways. He pounded his fists into the pillow as he dragged himself out of bed to get ready for class. Why did Monday mornings have to exist in the first place, especially when Sunday mornings were days when Incelbordination “went to war”. The thought of their hate speech made Oswald feel as though he had worms crawling in his stomach.

What would be on his MP3 player today? Something to relax him? Something to hype him up? A band to share his sadness with? Nah, he didn’t feel like music today. He just put on his trench coat and fucked off to English class. With Incelbordination clouding every corner of his mind, he didn’t feel like he could concentrate on music. If that was the case, what made him think he could concentrate on schoolwork? Maybe he should have taken the day off and smoked a shit ton of weed. Eh, maybe not.

Oswald’s posture drooped over as he headed to class, barely paying attention to the sets of shoes around him. Some of the “Stacys” had worn sandals and shorts on this fine spring day, but he didn’t give a damn anymore, not after Valerie gave him shit about it this past Friday. Oh crap, he actually had to see her and had very little time to get there. He kept telling himself to turn around and take a personal day, but his zombie body pushed him forward nonetheless.

The only thing bombastic enough to awaken him was the sound of an explosion followed by van engines and young men screaming incoherent slogans about not getting laid. Oswald had just unknowingly stumbled upon a terrorist attack and watched in horror as masked men went around beating the shit out of other students. Some of them whipped “Stacys” with belts. Some of them punched “Chads” with brass knuckles. Those who were driving the vans mowed down both “Chads” and “Stacys” like human bowling pins, though the terrorists would clearly dispute the human part of that analogy.

“Oh no…Oh my fucking lord…” Oswald said to himself as he knelt down and held his head in his hands. He believed he was powerless to stop this madness even with his superior boxing skills. So many masked men…so many weapons…so many vans…and here was this dwarf just waiting to get his ass kicked or even worse. He believed wholeheartedly that he brought this upon himself. He should have told Detective Barry about this when he had the chance.

“Help!” shouted a terrified feminine voice muffled by a glass door. Oswald collected himself and noticed his one true crush Nikita Johnson banging on the glass door of his English class begging for a rescue. “Someone help me! Please!” she shouted over and over again.

One more dead Stacy doesn’t matter, an intrusive inner voice told Oswald. No. It does matter. It has to matter. This madness had to stop. Cracking his knuckles and both sides of his neck, Oswald bolted towards the glass door and shouted, “Nikita, hang on!” He rolled up his trench coat sleeves and started punching the shit out of the glass door. This was no doubt tough material that left his knuckles bleeding and his hands calloused. But one crack in the glass turned into two. Two turned into four. Just a few more pain wracking punches that sent shockwaves through his numbed out arm. And then the glass door shattered and Nikita was free.

Before she could taste freedom, a heavyset man wearing a black mask hand-gagged her  and pulled her backwards kicking and screaming. “Get your fucking mitts off of her, you sick prick!” shouted Oswald before punching the terrorist in the knee and buckling him. The dwarf ignored the pain now shooting up to his shoulders as he threw a few more heavy rights and lefts until the terrorist’s knee was completely blown out. Letting go of Nikita, the fat man collapsed to the ground crying like a bitch while Oswald’s hands bled some more.

Nikita leaned down and quickly examined the dwarf’s knuckles. She said, “Come on, let’s get you out of here! My car’s in the parking lot. Let’s go!” She gave Oswald a piggy-back ride and bolted out of the classroom, zig-zagging between various masked men pummeling their prey. Even in Birkenstocks, Nikita ran with the coordination of an athlete. Oswald had little time to admire her physicality as his knuckles bled all over her blue T-shirt. There were probably pieces of glass stuck in them.

Another heavyweight terrorist grabbed Nikita by her arm as she trashed and yelled, “Get your hands off of me, you pervert!” Not wanting to further injure his hands, Oswald leapt onto the jerk and head-butted him until blood soaked the man’s mask. The world around the dwarf seemed to spin like an amusement park ride after so many head strikes. Nikita had to pull him off the thug and piggy-back him some more.

The duo finally made it to Nikita’s car, though the angry voices behind them grew even more vicious the more she fumbled with her keys. She eventually found the right one, but was so jittery that she had trouble fitting it in the door. Another thug had jumped on top of the car wielding a crowbar and that was enough to knock both Nikita and Oswald backwards in fright. The thug chanted over and over again, “Love is black!” while raising his weapon in the air.

“Don’t hurt us! Leave us alone, you coward!” begged Nikita as she curled into the fetal position. The thug jumped down from the roof and raised his weapon like he was going to strike any second. Oswald was still fading in and out of clarity, but even with minimal equilibrium, he kicked the thug in the ankle and had him hopping up and down. After he dropped the crowbar, Oswald grabbed his other ankle and with one hard tug tripped him to the ground, making sure he hit his head on the roof.

Once the thug was KO’ed, Oswald struggled so much to help Nikita to her feet that he nearly blacked out. She hurried and fit the key in the door successfully this time before situating the dwarf in the passenger seat. He was so out of it that he didn’t bother to fasten his seatbelt. Nikita wasted no time in getting in the driver’s seat and getting the engine going, peeling out of there like a bat out of hell. She had to run over another thug in order to obtain a clear path to freedom, but she did and kept going.

“I need to take you to a hospital, you’re hurt!” sobbed Nikita.

“No! The hospital’s going to be backed up. Take me back to my dorm room. I’ve got medical shit we can use there. I just hope the cops can come in time to stop this BS.”

Oswald started to drift into darkness, but Nikita kept shaking his shoulder and saying, “Stay with me, little guy! This isn’t over yet! I’ll get you back to your dorm in no time at all!”

The dwarf’s speech began to slur as he talked nonsense for the rest of the ride to the dorm. “That C- is going to kill humanity…she’s going to steal the world’s pot and…”

“Oswald, what the hell are you talking about?!” No response. “Oswald, please wake up!” Still no response. “Oswald! No!” Nikita shook him harder and harder, but he still wouldn’t snap out of his concussion wonderland, if a concussion was what he indeed had. A psychiatrist might lean towards PTSD, a disease which got thrown around a lot on campus, but was completely justified this time around. What the dwarf would give for some pot right at that moment. Beautiful, mind-numbing, pain-dulling pot that made mundane clouds look like vanilla ice cream.

Nah, he couldn’t very well pull a ready roll out in this strange woman’s car. Come to think of it, even in his head-butt induced darkness, he seemed to remember her sharing an English assignment with the class about her straightedge beliefs. Maybe inviting her back to the dorm was a bad idea since that was where all of the magic medicine was kept. Then again, Oswald had nowhere else to go to, both to escape Incelbordination and to find permanence in life.

At this moment, Nikita Johnson was the closest thing to a godsend he had. Even though he was perfectly capable of sprinting long distances, she gave him a piggyback ride to safety after seeing his hands bleeding. Bloody hands weren’t unusual for a boxer at Oswald’s level, but never had it warranted a piggyback ride. Maybe the massive blood loss was making his mind go berserk. Then again, maybe it was the general loveliness of Nikita even though she was in hysterics. Before he finally drifted into the subconscious theater, Oswald had a tiny smile on his face knowing the two of them would finally be alone together.

Incelbordination, Chapter 3

Even though he was only three feet tall and south of a hundred pounds, Oswald Crow sent tremors throughout the punching bag like he was Mike fucking Tyson. The boxing gloves looked ridiculously large on his little hands, and for some it was a source of cheap entertainment. Whatever laughs he received at the gym were drowned out by the sounds of Phil Anselmo screaming “Bedroom Destroyer” in his ears. There was something euphoric about heavy metal strengthening Oswald’s punches against the sandbag.

He wasn’t just punching sand for the sake of it. He actually utilized decent footwork like all boxers should have done. He came at that thing from multiple angles and didn’t go too fast for fear of gassing himself out. The fact that Oswald had to learn these brutal techniques to begin with said a lot about why he would need them in life. Maybe that was why Antero was so keen on bringing him into Incelbordination. Heh, Antero. What a joke. He became a bigger joke when Oswald imagined the Matrix nut’s face superimposed on the punching bag.

The little warrior was so lost in his exercise routine that he failed to notice even the slightest chuckle behind him. He went for an overhead rabbit punch and his headsets accidentally slid off his dome. That was when the laughs became more obvious than a forest fire. Speaking of flames, Oswald’s face glowed bright red when he collected his MP3 player, turned around, and saw the source of the southern yuk-yuks. Of course, who else would it be? It was none other than muscle-headed high school tormentor Wacey Judge, who happened to be filming Oswald this whole time on his phone.

Watching his former bully laugh his ass off brought Oswald back to those old times when he was being stuffed in a locker, pushed over, held upside-down by the ankles, and called a litany of insults. If there was ever a time for that sweet green medicine, this would have been it, if for nothing else other than stamping the lit roll out in Wacey’s face. To Oswald’s way of thinking, such a red hot scar would be an improvement to his face.

“Hey, moron!” shouted Oswald. “This ain’t high school anymore! You’ve got to grow the fuck up! Put away the goddamn phone and fuck off!”

“Grow up?” Wacey chuckled. “Isn’t that what I should be telling you? You looked like a baby back then and you look like one now! Goddamn, Infinite Elgintensity’s going to roast the shit out of you tonight!”

“I don’t think so, you fucking retard!” belted Oswald as he threw his gloves to the ground and stomped towards his bully, not a hint of fear in the dwarf’s eyes. “Give me the goddamn phone!” He tried to reach up for it, but Wacey kept pulling it higher out of reach, prompting laughs from the “innocent bystanders”.

Patting Oswald on the head, the bully said, “Don’t worry, little guy, I’m sure there’s a ladder around here somewhere. Anybody got a step stool this guy can use? How about a stripper’s pole? How about an elevator?” The bystanders got even louder laughs out of Wacey’s “comedy” and a singular tear formed in Oswald’s red puffy eyes. “What, are you going to cry, little baby? Should I give you my thumb to suck on?”

Sure enough, Wacey held out his thumb and made a mockingly sorrowful face at his little victim while the entire gym watched and did nothing. Another tear rolled down Oswald’s cheek, but this wasn’t out of sadness. This was out of pure white hot rage stemming from years of abuse from someone who didn’t deserve to be as gigantic as he was. Why couldn’t Oswald have muscles like that? Why couldn’t he be a chick magnet too? All the jealousy, all the trauma, all the sickness, they led to a do-or-die situation for the little warrior.

“Fuck you, Wacey!” shouted Oswald with more lung power than he was capable of. He then hauled back and punched his bully right in the dick, doubling the giant over and causing the audience to gasp in horror. The dwarf’s next punch was an uppercut to Wacey’s square jaw, hurting his hand in the process, but make no mistake about it, the bully got the worst of that exchange. The muscle head squatted backwards against the wall dizzy and stunned.

“Fuck yeah! You just got your ass kicked by a midget! How does that shit feel, Wacey?! I said how does that fucking feel?! This shit’s been a long time coming! Woo!” screamed Oswald triumphantly while holding his bruised knuckles in the air.

“What the hell’s going on around here?!” said an equally muscular gym teacher, who burst into the room with his hands on his hips. “I’ll be damned.”

Pointing an accusatory finger at the teacher, Oswald laid into him with, “Nice of you to show up, Spongebob Square Jaw. It’s funny how you were nowhere to be seen when this jackass was having a laugh at me. Story of my life, isn’t it?!”

The gym teacher stomped towards Oswald, knelt down, and grabbed him harshly by the shoulders. “Listen up, you sick bastard. I don’t care what names you were called as a teenager. I don’t care how rough you’ve had it. The minute you attack another gym member is when I have to step in and call the shots. You beat the holy hell out of Mr. Judge here. I have to do something about it.”

“What are you going to do, ban me for life?”

“Damn right I’m going to ban you for life! Get your violent ass out of my gym!” ordered the gym teacher while standing up and pointing towards the door.

“That’s fine with me, you six foot dip shit!” snapped Oswald. “I wasn’t planning on coming back anyways! You’re harboring this piece of shit and turning your gym into a fucking Black Site! I’d be better off at Planet Fitness eating pizza until I have a heart attack! You hear that everyone? Don’t come to this gym anymore! I heard pedophiles like to hang out in the shower areas!”

“Get out of here, you twerp!” commanded the teacher.

“And don’t eat at their smoothie bar either! There’s a big fucking rat’s nest in the kitchen!”

“Are you going to leave or do I have to toss you out of here myself?!”

Waving him off, Oswald said, “Don’t worry, Lex Luger, I’ll be out of here in a second. I just want to make sure Wacey here is awake when someone tells him that his name rhymes with Stacy.” That earned a collective gasp from the crowd and a sullen expression from the gym teacher.

The pugilist dwarf raised his bruised middle finger to the sky as he trudged out of the gym. He closed the door behind him and ran out of there as fast as he could, as if the adrenaline would be the least bit effective at masking his tear-stained face. He looked like a badass in that gym, but he felt like the little baby Wacey accused him of being this whole time.

Oswald stopped running and collected his breath in the common area near an empty stone table. The tears wouldn’t stop coming. His mask of toughness was melting like ice cream in this goddamned heat. He didn’t bother to look up to see if anybody was watching him and he didn’t care at this point. First Antero Magnus, then Valerie Sand, and now Wacey Judge could be added to the list of shit-heels who made his college career a miserable one.

The little person pulled himself onto the stone bench and laid his face in his tiny arms. If he earned any laughs from the other students, it would have been a testament to their ignorance, he was convinced. What kind of song on his MP3 player could heal his blues? The better question for him to ask was what kind of green drug was more powerful than the most emotional Pink Floyd song?

Oswald reached in his trench coat pocket and pulled out another ready roll of Mary-Jane. He smiled and wiped away his tears at the sight of this beautiful medicine he was fortunate enough to have a prescription for. He frisked himself in search of his lighter, but goddamn it, he left it in his dorm room for the second time in a row.

He pounded the stone table in frustration and let even more tears pour down his bearded face. He secretly wished this whole college would burn to the ground just so he could have something to light his ready roll with. And then a familiar voice asked him a familiar question from the night before…

“Need a light?”

The Ballad of Gravedigger Jane

Gravedigger Jane stewed in the middle row next to the aisle of the college auditorium, a place that was nearly packed with hee-hawers and pot smokers. She wished she could have some pot to soothe her boiling anger, but if she tested positive for it, it could mean the end of her college boxing career. Instead she pulled a metal flask out of her hooded vest and took a swig of booze. She shook her head at the hypocrisy of allowing alcohol but banning marijuana. What the fuck was that all about? No matter what her drug of choice was, hopefully it would get her through this god-awful performance.

As Jane relaxed in her seat with her sneakered feet on the empty chair in front of her, the madness was about to begin. Royal trumpets blasted over the sound system and almost gave her a migraine. While holding her ears with her taped hands, she turned around to see why such ludicrous music was playing at an obnoxious volume. There he was in all of his nose-in-the-air arrogance: Chris Duncan riding a horse while wearing a musketeer outfit: a blue tunic with a crucifix on it, black leather pants, knee-high brown boots, and a fedora with a feather in it. His bloated neckless bodyguards were also dressed in musketeer garb.

Chris swung his thin blade and pointed it at Jane before giving her a saucy smile and a wink. Jane responded with a shake of her head and a bruised middle finger, to which Mr. Duncan gave a royal belly laugh. The audience around her didn’t know whether to cheer or boo, so they just sat in wide-eyed silence. Then again, that could have been the pot talking. Jane took another swig of booze as Chris dismounted his horse and slapped it on the ass to send it trotting out of the theater. The speaker took the center of the stage with his bouncers standing at the edge, arms folded and attitudes in check.

The speaker adjusted the mini-microphone on his tunic and said, “Testing, testing, one, two, three.” Sure enough, everybody could hear him loud and clear as evidenced by the mixture of cheers and boos. The initial shock of Chris Duncan coming down in a musketeer outfit war off in a big fucking hurry once they figured out what he really came to talk about. Knowing that time was near, Gravedigger Jane took yet another swig and let out a monstrous burp.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” opened Mr. Duncan. “You’re probably wondering why I’m out here dressed as a musketeer. Two reasons: one, the musketeer has always been a symbol of loyalty to king and country. I’m loyal to my country and I would like to make it great again, if you know what I mean!” The mixed reaction blasted through the arena once again, but Gravedigger Jane sat still and clicked her knuckles.

Pacing around the stage and swinging his saber, Chris said, “The other reason I’m wearing this outfit is because it doesn’t look anywhere near as ridiculous as the dresses men put on to pass as women. You’ve got big ass men with neck beards going down to their knees walking into women’s bathrooms and locker rooms and this university doesn’t do a damn thing about it! It’s time we scrubbed this politically correct filth from college campuses everywhere! Political correctness is a threat to our free speech rights in the same way these so called transgender students are a threat to our purity! And while we’re at it, let’s get rid of the rest of the fag population!”

While the auditorium unleashed a firestorm of half-cheers and half-boos, Gravedigger Jane’s muscles were bulging in red hot anger. Her teeth were clamped tightly enough to make her granite jaw ache. She popped both of her wrists while staring bullets into Chris Duncan. The sick prick pointed his musketeer sword at her and she knew it was time to get her violence on, but not just yet.

“You see that man slash woman over there? Boxing fans might know that person as Gravedigger Jane. But I know him as Kevin Ferguson!” snapped Chris. The combination of hearing her old name along with the catcalling of the crowd caused the blood vessels in Jane’s eyes to pop like hot air balloons.

Chris had only begun his verbal assault. “Thanks to your school’s lenient policy on gay crap, Kevin over here can waltz into a woman’s locker room without so much as a bat of the eye! He can swing his dick around like a baseball bat and let his nuts hang down to his feet in front of all those poor women! Not only that, but he can punch out women legally and split their skulls down the middle! You call this equality?! I call it bullshit! You’re a fucking man, Kevin! You will always be a man!”

The guffaws of laughter, the screaming, the vulgarity of Chris Duncan’s speech, they all led to the tightly-muscled, predatory-faced, and stone-fisted Gravedigger Jane to pop out of her seat and storm down the aisle towards the stage. The fat bouncers formed a blockade between Chris and Jane while the former dropped his saber and backed off, screaming, “Whoa!” multiple times in rapid fire succession. Jane breathed heavily and punched her fists together while the students chanted, “Fight!” repeatedly.

“Easy there, Kimbo Slice!” shouted Chris. “You’re not going to do a damn thing to me! This is America and I’ve got free speech until the day I die! Nobody’s making you be here! Go run off to your safe space, little boy!” To add spice to his already flaming rhetoric, Chris stood on the edge of the stage and pointed his chin out to the crowd. “You want to hit me so badly, go right ahead! I’ll sue the shit out of you and have you blackballed from the sport! Come on, tough nuts! Throw a big one! Knock my ass out!”

“I’d love to knock your ass out, you little turd biscuit!” shouted Gravedigger Jane. Despite the raucous noise of the crowd, she was as audible as every news pundit who liked to turn it up to eleven. She even threw her hood back and revealed her corn-rowed hair and rolled back demonic eyes. Chris’s own eyes were wide with horror as he slowly backed away while Jane gave her oratory.

Jane continued with, “I paid for my tuition by beating people up! I’ll punch you so fucking hard you’ll be shitting teeth for two weeks straight!” Using her taped hand for visual references, she gritted her own teeth and throatily bellowed, “Your nose will be stapled to the back of your head! Your eyes will explode like little hand grenades! Your brain will splatter like a bucket of paint! I’m not even sure you’ll have a fucking head by the time I’m done with you!”

Chris slipped on his ass and convulsed in terror as the students chanted, “Fight!” some more. Gravedigger Jane looked like one of her punches could tear this whole building down. She looked like a simple left jab could turn these bouncers into protoplasmic jelly. She was ready to start swinging and show why she was a multiple time boxing champion.

But then a tear rolled down her cheek and her bear trap jaw trembled and ached with sorrow. Once that one tear rolled down, several more followed. The levies in her eyes broke in the same way her heart did. With a shaky voice, she said, “You’re right about one thing, though: if I punch you or your bouncers out…I could lose my career. I could lose my scholarship. I could lose everything. You’re not worth it. You’re loud and stupid as hell, but you’re not worth it. I…I…um…”

The avalanche of tears interrupted her passionate speech to where all she could do was storm out of the theater with half of the students chanting, “Get a job!” in succession. She slammed the door behind her and plopped backwards against the brick wall. The tears wouldn’t stop coming. They raged on and on while all Gravedigger Jane could do was punch the bricks behind her and scream with no audience…except for the horse.

“What are you looking at? Huh?” asked Jane with trembling lips, the same trembling lips that took yet another swig of booze. And another. And another. The horse gazed at her with innocent puppy dog eyes and Jane said, “Aw, fuck it, you can have some too.” She gently poured some booze into the horse’s mouth and watched it drink the last of the liquid courage. “That’s some strong shit, isn’t it. It’s not doing a damn thing for me right now, but oh well.”

As Jane tucked the flask in her vest, the horse started shaking its head and neighing in a thunderous voice. The transgender boxer watched the erratic behavior turn into violent galloping and said, “What the hell?” More neighing and more galloping ensued before the lightweight drunken horse stormed inside the theater to the sounds of horrified screams.

Jane placed her ear against the door and heard even more heavenly sounds: furniture being destroyed, bones shattering, even Chris Duncan and his bouncers couldn’t help but cry like bitches in pain and terror. She even heard Chris yell, “Why, sweet god, why?!” The next “Why?” he let out was more like a child’s whine and less like a brave and mighty musketeer. This put a smile on Jane’s face as she wiped away the tears.

She was nearly bowled over as students flooded all exists in an attempt to escape the drunken horse’s mad kicking. Soon enough the horse itself chased after a winded bouncer and toppled him before stomping the shit out of the poor bastard. Jane’s smile was even bigger than before and her rainy tears were all but gone.

As soon as the doorway was cleared, she peeked inside and saw broken bodies of students and bouncers lying about in total agony while theater chairs were splintered into nothing. Chris Duncan huddled in the fetal position while holding his groin and coughing up blood. He cried like a baby as he met Jane’s warrior gaze.

“For the record,” Jane shouted. “I didn’t lay a finger on you! Your stupid horse did! I guess the horse won’t have a boxing career after all! Maybe that big ass thing shouldn’t be trotting into women’s locker rooms with his saber sticking out! Adios, amigo!” Gravedigger Jane blew Chris Duncan a kiss before shutting the door behind her and leaving her haters covered in blood and darkness. Freedom of speech wasn’t free. In fact, the price was higher than Chris’s new soprano voice.

Talk to the Wind

***TALK TO THE WIND***

I’ve said many times in the past that Martin Kesici (KIZ-uh-chee) is one of the most underrated rock stars in the world today. He’s got charisma, he’s got a voice of gold, and he knows how to get heavy when it counts. But if his Wikipedia stub is anything to go by, he doesn’t get the fame and fortune that he deserves. Yes, I know that any dumb-ass can edit a Wikipedia page and without proper sources those pages are unreliable. There are even rock musicians today that don’t have their own Wikipedia page at all, I get that. But if I say the name Martin Kesici to you, what do you associate that with? Exactly. Try finding him on iTunes, by the way, see how far you’ll go.

I can tell you firsthand that Mr. Kesici deserves more recognition because his 2005 album “So What?” and his “My Heart Beats Pain” EP can tug at the heartstrings while rocking your ass out at the same time. I know I’m beating a dead horse when I talk about my lonely WWU days, but Martin Kesici’s music was one of the things that got me through it all. From the moment I heard his duet with Tarja Turunen called “Leaving You For Me”, I knew I had to have the “So What?” album. On that same album is a song called “Talk to the Wind”, which invokes imagery of heartwarming romantic love. Lord knows I’ve had plenty of crushes in college, so thinking about them with this song playing in my headsets was pure heaven. As long as I had this song, I never had to feel lonely or depressed ever again. Here are the lyrics:

VERSE 1

In a little wooden church with stained glass windows

You came walking down the aisle with your perfect smile

Ever since that precious day, we’ve always been together

And we’ve had our ups and downs, but we’ll always come around

CHORUS

I talk to the wind when there’s nothing left to say

It gets rough sometimes, but I know we’ll be okay

Just a whisper in my ear is enough to bring me back

To when you gave yourself to me in the church by the sea

I talk to the wind

VERSE 2

People say we’ll never last, that it happened way too fast

Yes, we’ve had our share of fights and lonely nights

But I knew it when I saw you, your big brown eyes

That no matter what we go through, we will always get by

CHORUS

I talk to the wind when there’s nothing left to say

It gets rough sometimes, but I know we’ll be okay

Just a whisper in my ear is enough to bring me back

To when you gave yourself to me in the church by the sea

I talk to the wind

BRIDGE

When it feels like the end of our journey

All we need is to keep the wheel turning

No matter what comes our way

CHORUS

I talk to the wind when there’s nothing left to say

It gets rough sometimes, but I know we’ll be okay

Just a whisper in my ear is enough to bring me back

To when you gave yourself to me in the church by the sea

I talk to the wind

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

It’s a brand new week at the WSS and it’s time for a new story, this time with the prompt suggestion of “teeth”. There are lots of things an author or poet can do with teeth, but here’s what I’d like to do. It’s called “The Ballad of Gravedigger Jane” and it goes like this:

CHARACTERS:

1. Chris Duncan, Political Pundit
2. Gravedigger Jane, Transgender Boxing Champion

PROMPT CONFORMITY: Gravedigger Jane has loosened her opponents’ teeth many times during her boxing career. The same fate could befall Chris Duncan if he keeps running his mouth.

SYNOPSIS: Chris Duncan is a guest speaker at Beachside University and his topic of choice is running down the LGBT community. He gets an equal amount of cheers and boos from the student audience, but things get heated when he singles out Gravedigger Jane for wanting to use female bathrooms and locker rooms and for fighting other female competitors. Instead of taking another minute of abuse, Jane storms down the aisle in an attempt to beat the holy hell out of Chris. The only things keeping her from doing so are the heavy security detail and potentially being blackballed from college boxing if she goes through with it. The more Chris taunts her, the more punchable his face becomes.

FUN FACTS: This story has two sources of inspiration: the MMA community’s bigoted reaction to Fallon Fox in 2013 and Milo Yiannopoulos’s visit to a college campus where he bullied a transgender student in front of the audience. As you can tell, this story is going to push more buttons than an old school arcade game cabinet.

***MASHUP IDEAS***

In a moment of sheer boredom, I came up with ideas for mashup songs. I have no idea how to make a mashup song, but if one of my readers out there does, here are some suggestions you can try:

1. Five Finger Death Punch vs. TNA: “Under and Over Feedback”
2. Limp Bizkit vs. Spice One: “Born 2 Truth”
3. Linkin Park vs. From Ashes to New: “Breaking In the End”
4. Linkin Park vs. Street Fighter Alpha 3: “The Faint Road”
5. Seether vs. Martin Kesici and Tarja Turunen: “I’m Fine with Leaving You For Me Again”
6. Tribe Called Quest vs. Earthbound: “Weird Butter”

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

Ever since I’ve started writing sci-fi and fantasy stories for the WSS once again, I’ve had more ideas for drawings. The latest in this series will be Lux, the control engineer behind Kobra’s illusions in the short story “I Am Death”. She’ll probably look vastly different from how I’ve described her in the canon, but I’ll try my hardest to be at least somewhat faithful to her white dress, black boots, and black mask outfit.

***TELEVISION QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“Who are some of your favorite bands? I like the Various Artists.”

-Adrian Monk-

Dreams About Fighting Criminals

I haven’t been in a fight since 2003. I’m not talking about a pitty-patty slap fest, I’m talking about a real, down in the dirt, drag-out brawl. In 2003 when I had my last fight, I punched my opponent in the face and then he ended up dragging me to the floor and returning the favor tenfold. Ever since then, I’ve thought about getting in more fights, but I’ve never actually done it. It could be that I’ve developed allergies to a jail cell and the people who occupy it. But lord knows there were plenty of people in my life worth kicking the shit out of. I could do it too if I put my mind to it. This must be the reason why I keep having dreams at night about getting in fights with criminals. Not just anybody, but criminals. High school bullies, street thugs, people who think they’re street thugs, and just plain guys from Seattle: in my dream’s theater, they all want a piece of me. Every time they look for a battle with me, they always lose. I’ve done everything in these subconscious battles from twisting them into submission holds to breaking their necks to just plain delivering punches and kicks. Hell, there was even one dream where I collected the scalps of everybody I fought. What exactly do these dreams mean? Do they mean that it’s time to kick some ass again? I’d like to think so, but again, I’m not looking forward to a life in prison. That reminds me of a little trope about growing up. When you’re a kid and you get in a fight, you get a time out. When you’re a pre-teen, you get a one day vacation from school. When you’re a full-blown teenager, you get a five day vacation from school. But when you’re an adult, that vacation can last anywhere from a short-lived night to a 25-year sentence behind bars. The lesson here is that the older you get, the worse the punishment. If you have people to beat up, do it before you’re old enough to go to prison for a life sentence. This is especially important if you come from a poor family. Matt Taibbi wrote an entire book about how poor people are punished worse than rich people. If you’re a working class black lady and you slap your cheating boyfriend, you’ll go to jail for a long, long time. If you’re a rich white cocksucker who molested his children, the judge will give you probation because rich people “don’t do well in prison”. No wonder I have so many dreams about fighting people: there are lots of people to fight and lots of anger to go around. But this is just the dream world. In the real world, I do all my fighting through my short stories. I have characters who fight for their lives, for justice, for love, and for honor. They don’t always do it with an AK-47 and a Sherman tank. Sometimes they just scream with all their soul power and that’s often enough.

　

***FACE BOOK POST OF THE DAY***

“If Mike Tyson asks permission to do something, is it wrong to tell him to knock himself out?”

-Me-