Post by Arcadia on Nov 6, 2011 3:30:40 GMT -4
It’s three a.m. on the East Coast of America, that strange time in between the early hours of the morning and what most people still consider the night. The birds are still sleeping, and the crickets are out in full force. The stars don’t do much to light up the sky in this part of the world, not like they do in the clean open air of the country. Here, on Long Island, there is enough pollution from the lights of Manhattan, the smoke from New Jersey, and the chemicals from the Connecticut nuclear power plant to dim them significantly, blocking most from view completely, and only the brightest stars in the sky are strong enough to push through the hovering gray atmosphere and offer a twinkle to those who may still bother to look up every now and again. The chill in the air is biting cold. Winter has leapfrogged its little brother of the seasons, Autumn, and looks to be settling in quite nicely as the year’s biggest bully between forty two and forty four degrees latitude. Despite all of Autumn’s dirty looks and comments of “Hey! No cutting!”, there is an early frost coating the still-green grass, and on top of every pile of colorful leaves there are the leftover remnants of the rare October snowfall that blanketed New York just over a week ago, waiting for the sun to break out of it’s sullen depression, stop hiding, and come melt it away.
Sitting upon the sand at Smith Point Beach, a small woman watches the black surf roll onto the shore breaking in white foam caps along the sandbar. The seagulls ignore her and the deer give her wide berth, this anomaly among their usual nocturnal routine. While one could almost be lost in the natural beauty of the stretch of sand, Katrina “Arcadia” Olivetti looks as out of place as a penguin at a pole dancing party. She is wearing a winter hat, a hooded sweatshirt, and a fleece parka, all wrapped up in a bulky quilt. Her trademark purple, ghost flame mask appears pitch black in the night and even her skin takes on a bluish quality in the moonlight, though that might be attributed to the low temperatures. She takes in a deep breath, smelling the snow on the wind, and lets it out in a visible puff, watching the tendrils curl out in front of her just before they vanish as the breeze off of the Atlantic Ocean whips them away. Deep in thought, she starts speaking aloud to herself, her voice all but swallowed by the sound of the ocean waves undulating incessantly at the shore.
“ ‘She used to be a woman of integrity’. As in, now I’m not.” Scoffing and shaking her head, she says, “That actually makes me sad. I have plenty of integrity. It just no longer aligns with what everyone believes I should stand for. The fans cheer me no matter what, apparently. How’s that for a good show of integrity? Should I model myself after them? How about the Red Shield Mafia? They assaulted me backstage just to make me soft for a match they weren’t even a part of, or rather, in the hopes that I wouldn’t show up for the match at all. Is that integrity? Should I try to be more like them? Or maybe I should place Chris Cyrus on a pedestal, standing for something like “True Wrestling Skill” without gimmicks or weapons, but then at every turn go back on my words and grab a weapon when the boss waggles his little finger at me. ‘Oh, only in a title defense, Jeff. Only because you are forcing me to play on your terms, Jeff. Only if I have to, Jeff.’ Is that what he meant by having integrity?”
Arcadia shakes her head, still running with her external monologue. She wraps her quilt closer to her body and mumbles, “No, what Cyrus meant was he wants me to go back to my old ways. He wants me to stand up for something that he also believes in. The whole ‘be the bigger person’ route.
“I did that for years. My whole life has been made up of standing up for other people, for someone’s beliefs even if they weren’t my own just because that person needed to have a voice, standing up for a cause because someone needed a champion. I was following in my parent’s footsteps, taking on the world’s problems as my own, or rather, being dragged around the world and made to stand with them.”
She sighs out a cloud of breath that dissipates in the cold night air around her and brings her legs up, wrapping her arms around her knees. “The problem with integrity is that it goes unrecognized until it’s gone. Did anyone help me when I was being attacked and set on fire? Or when the Church of Kaos beat me unconscious and left me maskless in the middle of the ring? Did anyone jump in and defend my ‘integrity’ when Michael Lively carved his name into my hand with a razor blade?” She turns her left hand palm up and pauses, tracing the outline of the white scars that spell JESUS in her flesh. She shakes off the memory and tucks her arm back under her right elbow and whispers, “Did anyone stand up for me once, just once, as I’ve been called a slut, a whore, a tramp, ugly, deformed, insignificant, or just laughed off as inconsequential without even an ‘I’m better than her’ from my opponent?” She hardens her voice and that edge of steel is back in it as she says, “Of course not. Why should they? I had my ‘integrity’. And the only other problem with integrity is that those who have the brand Chris Cyrus wants me to have usually stand alone.”
She stares out at the water again, just watching for a while as the very edge of the sky lightens to a deep dull grey. She parts her lips, and sounds amused with herself as she says, “I’ve made mistake after mistake, all because of that very integrity I used to bandy about me like a fucking sword. I allied myself with all the wrong people, too naïve to realize who they really were in their core. Too full of ‘integrity’ to believe anything other than what they said their intentions were. I was too trusting of the face value of people to realize that their shining hearts of gold were really just empty tin cans with a coat or two of yellow spray paint over them. I made enemies I thought were friends. I lost friends I never knew I had in the first place and worst of all,” Katrina becomes pensive and casts her eyes down in shame, “I lost myself.” She blinks after a pregnant pause and chuckles at her thoughts, stating, “Hell, I even tried to take Lively’s mom under my wing!
“Yet here I am, alone. I have nothing to show for all that so called integrity Cyrus claims I have lost but a couple of short title reigns, two crummy APW 2008 Year End Awards, and a stack of medical bills so high I need a belay rope to reach the top.” She watches thoughtfully as a gull swoops down to the beach and starts scavenging for scraps.
“I was so busy concerning myself with standing for others, that there was never any time to stand for myself. There was certainly no one else who stood up for me, and still I am here. I never needed anyone else at all to take up the mantle for me. I may stand alone, but I still stand, G-d damn it! Who is left that has gone against me in the past that can say that? Not Kenny. Not the Church. Not Lively. Not the Blackwells or Tabitha. Certainly not the E-Starr, or Royce, or Link, or Fyreangel. Not many left at all. I faced each and every one of them, sometimes time and time again. I didn’t always win, but I always stayed and put up a good showing. And I may not have ended all of their careers, but they slunk off just the same. I never did. I keep coming back, I keep standing, and I keep fighting, still! How is this not integrity? Now I just stand for me, without the bullshit slogans, the lines, the causes, the ‘comrades in arms’. The distractions.
“Cyrus may have shown me a lot of respect in his interview, but that one line is the real hook,” The Hardcora Luchadora nods, “He just doesn’t like what he thinks I’ve become, as so must quantify it to himself as me losing a quality he respects in people. But how could I possibly be more honest than I am now? That’s all integrity really is. It’s saying you’ll do something or be somebody and then following through. It’s representing yourself in a whole and undiminished light, as you are. My morals may have realigned themselves, but that doesn’t mean I have a lack of principles.”
Katrina leans back on her elbows and stares off at the subtle changes in the sky from gray to purple. She says nonchalantly, “I’ve simply changed. And Chris should understand what changing and revamping ones principals are about. Chris Cyrus, Mr. Anti Hardcore, Formerly Known As The Hardcore Kid. We fought against each other in the first ever APW Parking Lot Brawl! He took a crowbar to my face in that match! Where he is today is a far cry from where’s he has been. A complete one eighty I would venture. He understands me far better than he would like to admit. Maybe that scares him. I don’t know. I do know that if anyone ever told Chris to go back to his old ways, he probably would lock them in the Straight to Hell, toss them off a cliff with a flip of his middle finger and never look back. But apparently, he doesn’t believe what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Or perhaps he just isn’t drawing the similarities between us the way I am.”
Katrina “Arcadia” Olivetti stands and shakes out her blanket, tossing the sand back onto the beach where it belongs. The wind stirs her curls around her face and the sky begins to turn pink. She folds up the blanket, talking to herself aloud again, saying, “My integrity is intact. I enter our match on Sunday the same way I leave it; representing myself the way I am, and something else that Chris Cyrus most definitely believes in. The Suicidal Championship. At the one year anniversary of Asylum on Sunday, I will make him be as honest with himself as I have been to everyone else, fans and roster alike, since the moment I stepped foot through that door and signed my contract. If Cyrus has a problem with that, he can take himself, and all that pretty little talking he does, straight to hell. I’ll even personally weave him the hand basket.”
She walks off the beach, leaving the sun to rise unwatched. The tide washes away her footprints as she heads into her title defense, for the first time in days, with a clear head and her eye on the win.
Sitting upon the sand at Smith Point Beach, a small woman watches the black surf roll onto the shore breaking in white foam caps along the sandbar. The seagulls ignore her and the deer give her wide berth, this anomaly among their usual nocturnal routine. While one could almost be lost in the natural beauty of the stretch of sand, Katrina “Arcadia” Olivetti looks as out of place as a penguin at a pole dancing party. She is wearing a winter hat, a hooded sweatshirt, and a fleece parka, all wrapped up in a bulky quilt. Her trademark purple, ghost flame mask appears pitch black in the night and even her skin takes on a bluish quality in the moonlight, though that might be attributed to the low temperatures. She takes in a deep breath, smelling the snow on the wind, and lets it out in a visible puff, watching the tendrils curl out in front of her just before they vanish as the breeze off of the Atlantic Ocean whips them away. Deep in thought, she starts speaking aloud to herself, her voice all but swallowed by the sound of the ocean waves undulating incessantly at the shore.
“ ‘She used to be a woman of integrity’. As in, now I’m not.” Scoffing and shaking her head, she says, “That actually makes me sad. I have plenty of integrity. It just no longer aligns with what everyone believes I should stand for. The fans cheer me no matter what, apparently. How’s that for a good show of integrity? Should I model myself after them? How about the Red Shield Mafia? They assaulted me backstage just to make me soft for a match they weren’t even a part of, or rather, in the hopes that I wouldn’t show up for the match at all. Is that integrity? Should I try to be more like them? Or maybe I should place Chris Cyrus on a pedestal, standing for something like “True Wrestling Skill” without gimmicks or weapons, but then at every turn go back on my words and grab a weapon when the boss waggles his little finger at me. ‘Oh, only in a title defense, Jeff. Only because you are forcing me to play on your terms, Jeff. Only if I have to, Jeff.’ Is that what he meant by having integrity?”
Arcadia shakes her head, still running with her external monologue. She wraps her quilt closer to her body and mumbles, “No, what Cyrus meant was he wants me to go back to my old ways. He wants me to stand up for something that he also believes in. The whole ‘be the bigger person’ route.
“I did that for years. My whole life has been made up of standing up for other people, for someone’s beliefs even if they weren’t my own just because that person needed to have a voice, standing up for a cause because someone needed a champion. I was following in my parent’s footsteps, taking on the world’s problems as my own, or rather, being dragged around the world and made to stand with them.”
She sighs out a cloud of breath that dissipates in the cold night air around her and brings her legs up, wrapping her arms around her knees. “The problem with integrity is that it goes unrecognized until it’s gone. Did anyone help me when I was being attacked and set on fire? Or when the Church of Kaos beat me unconscious and left me maskless in the middle of the ring? Did anyone jump in and defend my ‘integrity’ when Michael Lively carved his name into my hand with a razor blade?” She turns her left hand palm up and pauses, tracing the outline of the white scars that spell JESUS in her flesh. She shakes off the memory and tucks her arm back under her right elbow and whispers, “Did anyone stand up for me once, just once, as I’ve been called a slut, a whore, a tramp, ugly, deformed, insignificant, or just laughed off as inconsequential without even an ‘I’m better than her’ from my opponent?” She hardens her voice and that edge of steel is back in it as she says, “Of course not. Why should they? I had my ‘integrity’. And the only other problem with integrity is that those who have the brand Chris Cyrus wants me to have usually stand alone.”
She stares out at the water again, just watching for a while as the very edge of the sky lightens to a deep dull grey. She parts her lips, and sounds amused with herself as she says, “I’ve made mistake after mistake, all because of that very integrity I used to bandy about me like a fucking sword. I allied myself with all the wrong people, too naïve to realize who they really were in their core. Too full of ‘integrity’ to believe anything other than what they said their intentions were. I was too trusting of the face value of people to realize that their shining hearts of gold were really just empty tin cans with a coat or two of yellow spray paint over them. I made enemies I thought were friends. I lost friends I never knew I had in the first place and worst of all,” Katrina becomes pensive and casts her eyes down in shame, “I lost myself.” She blinks after a pregnant pause and chuckles at her thoughts, stating, “Hell, I even tried to take Lively’s mom under my wing!
“Yet here I am, alone. I have nothing to show for all that so called integrity Cyrus claims I have lost but a couple of short title reigns, two crummy APW 2008 Year End Awards, and a stack of medical bills so high I need a belay rope to reach the top.” She watches thoughtfully as a gull swoops down to the beach and starts scavenging for scraps.
“I was so busy concerning myself with standing for others, that there was never any time to stand for myself. There was certainly no one else who stood up for me, and still I am here. I never needed anyone else at all to take up the mantle for me. I may stand alone, but I still stand, G-d damn it! Who is left that has gone against me in the past that can say that? Not Kenny. Not the Church. Not Lively. Not the Blackwells or Tabitha. Certainly not the E-Starr, or Royce, or Link, or Fyreangel. Not many left at all. I faced each and every one of them, sometimes time and time again. I didn’t always win, but I always stayed and put up a good showing. And I may not have ended all of their careers, but they slunk off just the same. I never did. I keep coming back, I keep standing, and I keep fighting, still! How is this not integrity? Now I just stand for me, without the bullshit slogans, the lines, the causes, the ‘comrades in arms’. The distractions.
“Cyrus may have shown me a lot of respect in his interview, but that one line is the real hook,” The Hardcora Luchadora nods, “He just doesn’t like what he thinks I’ve become, as so must quantify it to himself as me losing a quality he respects in people. But how could I possibly be more honest than I am now? That’s all integrity really is. It’s saying you’ll do something or be somebody and then following through. It’s representing yourself in a whole and undiminished light, as you are. My morals may have realigned themselves, but that doesn’t mean I have a lack of principles.”
Katrina leans back on her elbows and stares off at the subtle changes in the sky from gray to purple. She says nonchalantly, “I’ve simply changed. And Chris should understand what changing and revamping ones principals are about. Chris Cyrus, Mr. Anti Hardcore, Formerly Known As The Hardcore Kid. We fought against each other in the first ever APW Parking Lot Brawl! He took a crowbar to my face in that match! Where he is today is a far cry from where’s he has been. A complete one eighty I would venture. He understands me far better than he would like to admit. Maybe that scares him. I don’t know. I do know that if anyone ever told Chris to go back to his old ways, he probably would lock them in the Straight to Hell, toss them off a cliff with a flip of his middle finger and never look back. But apparently, he doesn’t believe what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Or perhaps he just isn’t drawing the similarities between us the way I am.”
Katrina “Arcadia” Olivetti stands and shakes out her blanket, tossing the sand back onto the beach where it belongs. The wind stirs her curls around her face and the sky begins to turn pink. She folds up the blanket, talking to herself aloud again, saying, “My integrity is intact. I enter our match on Sunday the same way I leave it; representing myself the way I am, and something else that Chris Cyrus most definitely believes in. The Suicidal Championship. At the one year anniversary of Asylum on Sunday, I will make him be as honest with himself as I have been to everyone else, fans and roster alike, since the moment I stepped foot through that door and signed my contract. If Cyrus has a problem with that, he can take himself, and all that pretty little talking he does, straight to hell. I’ll even personally weave him the hand basket.”
She walks off the beach, leaving the sun to rise unwatched. The tide washes away her footprints as she heads into her title defense, for the first time in days, with a clear head and her eye on the win.
