Post by Jack Levy on Sept 14, 2016 15:50:33 GMT
Remember when I turned the ‘Free Will’ setting on? About that… I shut it off after Jack volunteered to wrestle for a third consecutive night. You can be upset with me for that if you want, but he’s going to get himself killed. Or, I guess more realistically, hurt badly so he cannot compete. And, he’s already wasted the first three or four months of his professional career just wandering around and taking up space. So, for the moment, I’ve got him under my control. At least until Taco Tuesday is over with.
Let’s talk about some things that I brushed the surface on last time we spoke, Constant Reader. I would suggest grabbing yourself a beer, or a coffee, or something to sip on while I take you into my reality. You may want to bring a ball of yarn to drop on the ground so you can follow the string back to your own world. But that’s up to you. I’m just being cautious in the case that you do get lost in my universe. Are we ready? I certainly hope so.
I said I was a god—that’s not all that special, though. Anyone can be a god. Every writer is a god, for example. In Jack Levy’s universe, that’s the case. I’m simply a disgruntled factory maintenance man who likes to write and create my own universe with my own people, and monsters. Yes, monsters. Does it not make you wonder who your god is, Constant Reader? Are we not just the image of some goofball’s imagination brought to life? It really makes you think, does it not?
So I’m a god, we’ve established that. Now it’s time to get all sci-fi on you fuckers, again. And, I guess it would be easier not to tell you, but to show you. Got your ball of yarn ready? No yarn? Well, then, I’m not responsible for what happens if you can’t find your way back. Fair warning.
Jack stands at the edge of one universe, about to step back into his. He doesn’t know that, but that’s what’s happening. Between the universes, a crack, as one might find in a sidewalk, only a little wider, zig-zags its way as far as the eye can see in either direction. Within these cracks, several sets of eyes glare up. The eyes belong to the monsters who have been lost between realities, living in the black, and waiting to be freed. Somewhere, a magic man is trying to make that happen. The black is where the most fearful of monsters live. But, there are monsters who have slipped through the cracks and who have begun their own stories.
Jack’s universe is a funny place, because it seems to have little slits in its reality, where some of these creatures have made their way through. Oh—don’t get too comfortable in your own reality. Those cracks—or slits, as some may call it, exist there too. The Bermuda Triangle is the real hot spot in your reality. But it’s a vacuum, not two-way opening.
Jack steps across realities, getting the feeling he gets once in a while of temporary vertigo, not realizing that its a side effect of universe hopping. Several eyes become eager as they see the figure cross through their domain. But the figure disappears as quickly as he appeared. Growling echoes in their caves.
It’s August of 2016. Jack is back in the United States—his version of the United States, where he’s stepped out of another version of it. He doesn’t have a ride, and he doesn’t so much mind, because he doesn’t really know where he’s going. He’s hitchhiked before. He doesn’t have a problem doing it now.
When he stands on the side of the on-ramp of I-70, between two towns in central Indiana, he holds out a local newspaper in front of him. It’s dark, but he’s standing beneath a light on the side of the road. He reads a headline and sits down, indian-style, next to his gym bag. On the front page reads
Camper Drowns in Tri-County Lake; Body Not Found
Below it, a picture of a high school girl who would normally look older, actually looks younger, with tears glistening on her cheeks and her face bright red, obviously bawling as a local police officer comforts her. The caption under the picture describes the girl’s state of shock as she told local police that she saw a woman pulling the boy down beneath the surface of the lake. She says he screamed even as his head became submersed into the black water.
Jack chuckles, reading the rest of the story, reported by Julian Jacobs, and then folds the newspaper and sets in on the ground. He stands as a car approaches, thumb out as he always did in the past. The car puts on its blinkers and stops a few feet in front of him. He never got a ride on the very first try before. His lucky night. He grabs his gym bag and slings it over his shoulder as he steps over to the passenger side door and leans into the open window. The driver looks straight ahead silently.
“Trying to get as far west as you’ll take me.”
“Hop in, pal.”
He seems friendly enough, so Jack does as he’s told, first shoving his gym bag into the back seat, then climbing into the passenger seat and shutting the door behind him. The car takes off and Jack is amused when he looks at the glove compartment and sees the Buick emblem on it. The man continues to look straight ahead, sitting stiffly in the driver’s seat. A black hat shadows his face, and a black leather jacket covers his arms—or is it like a trenchcoat? That would be odd attire. It’s August anyway, why would he be wearing a jacket?
He suddenly realizes how cold it is inside this car. It’s like an icebox. He scans for the A/C controls but the interior lights aren’t bright enough to display much. As the car enters the interstate, Jack feels that temporary vertigo and even thinks he hears faint whispering—briefly. Goosebumps cover his arms as he starts to shiver.
“Blanket in the backseat, stranger.”
Jack looks over his shoulder, spotting the blanket the driver is talking about. He has a strange voice, Jack notices. Raspy. Gravelly. He takes the blanket and covers up.
“Taco?”
Thin fingers stretch out of the leather jacket (or trenchcoat, Jack can’t see below the man’s waist, nor does he care enough to try) holding a taco that drips with
grease?
sauce and cheese. Jack stares at it for a long time.
“No thanks. I’m good.”
The strange man pulls the taco away slowly and brings it up to his mouth. He makes a very bizarre noise, it sounds almost like sucking, and the taco disappears from his fingers into his mouth. Jack stares again, this time trying to imagine what this guy’s house probably looks like, based on his manners. He imagines carpet with a lot of stains. Maybe a few Coke cans, some empty, some not, sitting on various surfaces throughout the house. He leans his head against the passenger side window and drifts off to sleep.
Outside a hotel room, Cal Freese holds a bottle of wine (intended for a woman who wasn’t his wife) in one hand and his keycard in the other. He swipes it in and then out of the slot for it in his hotel room door and the card reader makes a high-pitched beeping before the yellow lights turn green and unlocks the door. He steps into the room to a woman half his age lying on the bed, brown hair hanging down to her shoulders, wearing light blue lingerie that Cal had bought for her.
He scans her body slowly, eager as a schoolboy to get down to business, then strides across the room to grab the wine glasses he had packed on his ‘road trip’ where he was supposed to be scouting new wrestling talent. He sets the glasses on the table next to the television, and uses this nifty little battery-operated corkscrew to uncork the bottle, then pours the dark red wine into each glass. All the while, the brunette shifts and moves her legs along the sheets of the bed.
He takes both glasses, handing one off to her. As he takes a sip from his own glass, his cell phone rings. He sighs in annoyance as he pulls his cell phone from the clip on his belt and looks at the caller on the screen. He shows the girl on the bed the caller and she nods, making a motion with her finger across her lips, as though she were zipping them closed. He swipes his phone and brings it up to his ear, answering his wife’s call.
Now, as far as Jack’s match goes on Tuesday, I have the sneaking suspicion that The Outliers may be from alternate realities themselves. I’ve been watching them. I wonder just how dark their god is. They’re bizarre gentlemen themselves. I don’t really know about Matt Acid though. Guilty by association?
And just what in the hell is a taco deathmatch anyway?
The gentleman in the Buick taking Jack west in the United States, but northeast in a parallel universe claims to know. But, you can’t believe anything that he says. I’m not sure how to break the news to Jack that the taco sauce dripping from that taco was actually not sauce at all but the last hitchhiker’s blood. What sort of god am I, anyway?
…there’s nothing worse than a god who is infatuated by horror and sci fi, plus has the dark sense of humor of Randall Flagg—uh, Flagg is a character who appears in several Stephen King stories. He’s sometimes perceived as the devil himself. And it is a man quite similar to him in my universe who is trying to use magic to release those creatures in the cracks between realities.
What does this have to do with wrestling, though?
I don’t know, honestly. That’s just what Jack wants to do. Because that’s what I’ve always wanted to do. Right, we went through all that last time we spoke, didn’t we?
I certainly hope you found your way back and your yarn didn’t break when Jack shut his door on it. That would be unfortunate. Until next time, Constant Reader, I bid thee farewell.
Let’s talk about some things that I brushed the surface on last time we spoke, Constant Reader. I would suggest grabbing yourself a beer, or a coffee, or something to sip on while I take you into my reality. You may want to bring a ball of yarn to drop on the ground so you can follow the string back to your own world. But that’s up to you. I’m just being cautious in the case that you do get lost in my universe. Are we ready? I certainly hope so.
I said I was a god—that’s not all that special, though. Anyone can be a god. Every writer is a god, for example. In Jack Levy’s universe, that’s the case. I’m simply a disgruntled factory maintenance man who likes to write and create my own universe with my own people, and monsters. Yes, monsters. Does it not make you wonder who your god is, Constant Reader? Are we not just the image of some goofball’s imagination brought to life? It really makes you think, does it not?
So I’m a god, we’ve established that. Now it’s time to get all sci-fi on you fuckers, again. And, I guess it would be easier not to tell you, but to show you. Got your ball of yarn ready? No yarn? Well, then, I’m not responsible for what happens if you can’t find your way back. Fair warning.
Jack stands at the edge of one universe, about to step back into his. He doesn’t know that, but that’s what’s happening. Between the universes, a crack, as one might find in a sidewalk, only a little wider, zig-zags its way as far as the eye can see in either direction. Within these cracks, several sets of eyes glare up. The eyes belong to the monsters who have been lost between realities, living in the black, and waiting to be freed. Somewhere, a magic man is trying to make that happen. The black is where the most fearful of monsters live. But, there are monsters who have slipped through the cracks and who have begun their own stories.
Jack’s universe is a funny place, because it seems to have little slits in its reality, where some of these creatures have made their way through. Oh—don’t get too comfortable in your own reality. Those cracks—or slits, as some may call it, exist there too. The Bermuda Triangle is the real hot spot in your reality. But it’s a vacuum, not two-way opening.
Jack steps across realities, getting the feeling he gets once in a while of temporary vertigo, not realizing that its a side effect of universe hopping. Several eyes become eager as they see the figure cross through their domain. But the figure disappears as quickly as he appeared. Growling echoes in their caves.
It’s August of 2016. Jack is back in the United States—his version of the United States, where he’s stepped out of another version of it. He doesn’t have a ride, and he doesn’t so much mind, because he doesn’t really know where he’s going. He’s hitchhiked before. He doesn’t have a problem doing it now.
When he stands on the side of the on-ramp of I-70, between two towns in central Indiana, he holds out a local newspaper in front of him. It’s dark, but he’s standing beneath a light on the side of the road. He reads a headline and sits down, indian-style, next to his gym bag. On the front page reads
Camper Drowns in Tri-County Lake; Body Not Found
Below it, a picture of a high school girl who would normally look older, actually looks younger, with tears glistening on her cheeks and her face bright red, obviously bawling as a local police officer comforts her. The caption under the picture describes the girl’s state of shock as she told local police that she saw a woman pulling the boy down beneath the surface of the lake. She says he screamed even as his head became submersed into the black water.
Jack chuckles, reading the rest of the story, reported by Julian Jacobs, and then folds the newspaper and sets in on the ground. He stands as a car approaches, thumb out as he always did in the past. The car puts on its blinkers and stops a few feet in front of him. He never got a ride on the very first try before. His lucky night. He grabs his gym bag and slings it over his shoulder as he steps over to the passenger side door and leans into the open window. The driver looks straight ahead silently.
“Trying to get as far west as you’ll take me.”
“Hop in, pal.”
He seems friendly enough, so Jack does as he’s told, first shoving his gym bag into the back seat, then climbing into the passenger seat and shutting the door behind him. The car takes off and Jack is amused when he looks at the glove compartment and sees the Buick emblem on it. The man continues to look straight ahead, sitting stiffly in the driver’s seat. A black hat shadows his face, and a black leather jacket covers his arms—or is it like a trenchcoat? That would be odd attire. It’s August anyway, why would he be wearing a jacket?
He suddenly realizes how cold it is inside this car. It’s like an icebox. He scans for the A/C controls but the interior lights aren’t bright enough to display much. As the car enters the interstate, Jack feels that temporary vertigo and even thinks he hears faint whispering—briefly. Goosebumps cover his arms as he starts to shiver.
“Blanket in the backseat, stranger.”
Jack looks over his shoulder, spotting the blanket the driver is talking about. He has a strange voice, Jack notices. Raspy. Gravelly. He takes the blanket and covers up.
“Taco?”
Thin fingers stretch out of the leather jacket (or trenchcoat, Jack can’t see below the man’s waist, nor does he care enough to try) holding a taco that drips with
grease?
sauce and cheese. Jack stares at it for a long time.
“No thanks. I’m good.”
The strange man pulls the taco away slowly and brings it up to his mouth. He makes a very bizarre noise, it sounds almost like sucking, and the taco disappears from his fingers into his mouth. Jack stares again, this time trying to imagine what this guy’s house probably looks like, based on his manners. He imagines carpet with a lot of stains. Maybe a few Coke cans, some empty, some not, sitting on various surfaces throughout the house. He leans his head against the passenger side window and drifts off to sleep.
Outside a hotel room, Cal Freese holds a bottle of wine (intended for a woman who wasn’t his wife) in one hand and his keycard in the other. He swipes it in and then out of the slot for it in his hotel room door and the card reader makes a high-pitched beeping before the yellow lights turn green and unlocks the door. He steps into the room to a woman half his age lying on the bed, brown hair hanging down to her shoulders, wearing light blue lingerie that Cal had bought for her.
He scans her body slowly, eager as a schoolboy to get down to business, then strides across the room to grab the wine glasses he had packed on his ‘road trip’ where he was supposed to be scouting new wrestling talent. He sets the glasses on the table next to the television, and uses this nifty little battery-operated corkscrew to uncork the bottle, then pours the dark red wine into each glass. All the while, the brunette shifts and moves her legs along the sheets of the bed.
He takes both glasses, handing one off to her. As he takes a sip from his own glass, his cell phone rings. He sighs in annoyance as he pulls his cell phone from the clip on his belt and looks at the caller on the screen. He shows the girl on the bed the caller and she nods, making a motion with her finger across her lips, as though she were zipping them closed. He swipes his phone and brings it up to his ear, answering his wife’s call.
Now, as far as Jack’s match goes on Tuesday, I have the sneaking suspicion that The Outliers may be from alternate realities themselves. I’ve been watching them. I wonder just how dark their god is. They’re bizarre gentlemen themselves. I don’t really know about Matt Acid though. Guilty by association?
And just what in the hell is a taco deathmatch anyway?
The gentleman in the Buick taking Jack west in the United States, but northeast in a parallel universe claims to know. But, you can’t believe anything that he says. I’m not sure how to break the news to Jack that the taco sauce dripping from that taco was actually not sauce at all but the last hitchhiker’s blood. What sort of god am I, anyway?
…there’s nothing worse than a god who is infatuated by horror and sci fi, plus has the dark sense of humor of Randall Flagg—uh, Flagg is a character who appears in several Stephen King stories. He’s sometimes perceived as the devil himself. And it is a man quite similar to him in my universe who is trying to use magic to release those creatures in the cracks between realities.
What does this have to do with wrestling, though?
I don’t know, honestly. That’s just what Jack wants to do. Because that’s what I’ve always wanted to do. Right, we went through all that last time we spoke, didn’t we?
I certainly hope you found your way back and your yarn didn’t break when Jack shut his door on it. That would be unfortunate. Until next time, Constant Reader, I bid thee farewell.