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Posts : 4
Join date : 2023-07-11
 |  Subject: The Book of Deuteranomaly  Sat Aug 05, 2023 10:52 pm | |
| “When can we expect to close on this?”Zack stirred from his daydream, turning away from the oceanfront view, the sun creating a lens flare obscuring the horizon.“We have a team pulling some funds together as we speak.”The timeshare developer nodded, unsure, as Zack turned his attention to the camera at hand.“Matt, you’ve insisted you stopped counting the zeros on your paycheck a long time ago and Damian is acting like $250 grand is a paltry sum of money, so I suppose neither of you will mind if I skim a little off the top.”Fantana smiled rashly, having counted the zeros himself.“That begs the question, however, if neither of you are in this tournament for the money, why the fuck are you here? To lionize yourself alongside someone you openly despise?”Zack narrowed his eyes on the lens, unable to choke that kind of rationale down.“You cannot convince me that you can’t live without this sport after walking away on your own volition for three fucking years. No, Damian, what you can’t live with is fading into obscurity. For three years, your name has lived on in rumors and gossip and maybe to the layman that feels like a certain level of celebrity. Never has someone gotten so many miles out of flaking on a contracted appearance, truthfully, but I think what you’ve discovered in those quiet three years inside your own head is that eventually whispers aren’t enough for someone of your reputation. You want your name to ring out in this world, Prestigious Damian Mordeau,” Zack said, half-mocking the cadence of a professional wrestling announcer. “It’s a bit on the nose, no?”“All the same, that’s why you made your grandiose return to wrestling in Prestige Championship Wrestling. Things didn’t necessarily go your way that first night, so, desperately, you lashed out. I don’t know if the target mattered. Matt Miles was likely a victim of circumstance. In truth, you were going to attack whoever was in the ring under that spotlight at the end of the night. And so you did, and in one night, you deconstructed the mystique of the Gaijin Ghost. The rumor-mongering stopped and the questions subsided and for once, silence. There was nothing left to say, not even a whisper. The truth was clear as day. You tried to prove to the world that you’re bigger than pro wrestling and you folded. You’re no enigma. You’re a man like any other, just as desperate and frantic as the rest of us to prove his place in this business, and the fact that you haven’t reconciled with that fact is precisely what makes you dangerous, not just to me or Azumi, but to your own partner.”“See, Matt makes for as easy of a target as any. He’s the kind of guy that makes me feel better about my partner becoming nonverbal. Always the first to talk and the last to listen, he’d never even question if it was something he said to offend you, but rather what. That’s a man who’s downloaded more than one Notes app apology template onto his phone, a professional to a fault. He afforded you far more grace than you deserved in that moment and maybe that’s what blind faith is supposed to be. Maybe I’m missing the entire spirit of this tournament. Maybe I’m supposed to ignore all those red flags with my partner because I’m fucking colorblind.”Zack stared wistfully into the middle distance, romanticizing the kind of partner who’d kick him in the skull or just in general have a pulse.“Will your investment partner be available to speak to today?” the developer asked, reminding Zack that he had a partner of his own in this endeavor.“Azumi?” Zack stirred from his daydream once again. She could be dead at the bottom of a bog somewhere for all he knew. He didn’t care. “Oh, she’s more of a silent partner.”A quizzical glance from the developer beckoned Zack to withdraw his phone from his pocket.“Alright, hold on.”Fantana lazily scrolled through his contacts to perform an ersatz wellness check, all the while continuing his monologue.“$3,000 couldn’t keep you from Matt Miles, Damian, and I kind of find that romantic in its own way. Sometimes I wish I had that kind of partner that I could count on like that. But maybe what I’ve got is better,” Zack said, summoning back his announcing inflection, “because who I’ve got in my corner is the multi-time World champion, 2015 RISE Grand Prix Winner, the last OWA Queen of the Ring, the two-time Tokyo Sports Joshi Grand Prize Award winner, from the OWA Hall of Fame class of 2021 - the QUEEN OF THE CELESTIALS.”Zack cued up the Queen of the Celestials on his cellular device.“Tell ‘em, Azumi.”" We're sorry. You have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and try your call again.” Fantana slowly ended the call with his thumb, all the while staring at the camera with lifeless eyes.“We’re cooking with blind faith now.”Zack once again dialed the number on his cell, greeted with the dreaded triple beep. “We’re sorry--”“And I will drag Azumi Goto’s bloated corpse across the finish line if I have to.”“If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and try your call again.” | |
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