It was an always awkward feeling; one of anticipation, nerves, and doubt. Confidence had never been a concern, that much was certain. It was just the initial introduction, the first leap from the high dive, that was always the worst. Once he made a splash, all the worries would be out of his system and he'd be free to take his next leap.
He had to get the ball rolling.
He had been away from wrestling for a couple of years now.
Actually, that's not particularly true. He had not been wrestling for a couple of years. He still, however, watched with moderate interest as the sport he shed blood for took a nosedive in popularity and in quality. He stood in the shadows as faux superheroes and masked badmen trampled a sport he helped, in some small and almost insignificant way, contribute to. Ratings, for the most part, had been terrible. Popularity was waining, and there was nothing he could do but stand by and watch it happen.
Now, he was poised to reenter a profession that had never really left him in the first place.
(Before.)
ELLIOTT ROLLINS, a sixty-five year old trapped in a twenty-six year old professional wrestler's body, sits patiently waiting for mass transit. His cold green eyes watch jealously as car after car goes streaking past him. Occasionally he rubs a hand through his lengthy black hair, or stops to straighten out his loose black slacks. A gray tee shirt adorning the name of a metal band wraps tightly around his toned upper body.
As he sat waiting for the bus, he read the novels worth of graffiti lining the Plexiglas walls of the waiting station.
These five words clung to him, though, even as he rode the bus through the streets of Orlando, as he walked to his apartment complex, and as he slipped the key in to the deadbolt. They still clung to him as he sat in front of his television and mindlessly filtered through the endless channels of unintelligent stage shows passing as 'quality' entertainment. He showered, hoping to wash the words off of him and send them swirling down the drain, but they still clawed and grasped their way in to his mind somehow.
As he sat at the edge of his bed, tracing the narrow scars that lined his chest, he rubbed the water from his hair. He mentally repeated what he read hours before.
There was something about the words, staring him dauntingly in the face, mocking him...
It allowed his mind time to wander. The quietness of the room is what got him most. His cold gray eyes scanned the ground; the ground offered no answers. It was mockingly silent. As simple as the words were, he never thought about it before. Everything he had been taught could have very easily been tainted by history, and for some reason unknown to him, this scared him.
If only he had someone to talk to...
(Now.)
“And how did that make you feel?”
His eyes close.
He wipes sweat from his brow.
Though not exerting any effort, Elliott Rollins manages to amount to nothing but a pile of sweat and bones that seep through the cracks of a brown leather sofa. His head back, his black hair draped over the arm rest, he takes this as a time to relax, a time he was not afforded very often these days. His tee shirt, drenched, is mostly obscured by the pale flesh of his arms as he crosses them across his chest.
The room is relatively dark. Only a small desk lamp illuminates the surroundings, giving a more creepy than calming atmosphere to the engagement. The corners of the room drift off in to complete darkness, but from what little light there is we can see a desk with plaques adorning the walls behind it. Next to the desk, a black leather chair is currently being occupied by a female, DR. THAPES. She is ripely aged and sitting more professionally than she is comfortably.
He rubs at his eyes.
Where am I?
“This is my office, Mr. Rollins,” she says in a monotone voice that they must teach in school. She pushes her wire-framed glasses up with the end of her pen, a death-grip on her notepad in the other hand.
Did I say that out loud?
“You did, Mr. Rollins,” she confirms. He pushes himself up, reluctantly forcing his eyes open.
“Is it hot in here?” Elliott inquires.
“It's comfortable.”
“For you,” he says, wiping sweat from his brow. He rubs at the bridge of his nose with a thumb and index finger. Sweat pours profusely down his face, oozing its way in to his bright green, bloodshot eyes.
“What did you say?” he asks, sounding confused.
“I said it's comfortable,” she confirms.
“Before that.”
“I asked you how that made you feel,” she repeats.
I hate that question.
“Could I burden you to be a little more specific?” he asks, adopting a tone that sounds slightly stand-offish.
“You were telling me about the words written on the wall,” she says in return, the tone of her voice never changing. It must have taken years of practice to show no emotion, and years she had an abundance of. Elliott took note of this. “I was,” he says, matter-of-factly.
“You were,” she says.
Echo...
This was going nowhere. He sinks back down in to the leather.
“Well how does that make you feel?” he asks, turning the mirror in the opposite direction.
“That's my question,” she says. She shall now be ceremoniously dubbed the Master of Dry Sarcasm.
“But maybe it'd help me out,” he says, closing his eyes again. She clears her throat, sitting up even more rigidly than before. She adjusts her glasses, looking slightly uncomfortable from being put on the spot. It was usually her who got to play the interrogator, and now that she wasn't, she had difficulty coming up with a reply.
It would later dawn on her that nobody asked about her, and even fewer cared about the answers to these unasked questions.
Do psychiatrists have psychiatrists?
“Well...” she begins, pushing the rambling thoughts from her already crowded head space. “It's a rather nihilistic viewpoint, that much is certain.”
“That doesn't make it any less true,” he states.
She nods. “Well, there are certain truths that make it an invalid statement. Not everything you know is wrong. You know that the sky is blue, you know that water is good for you, you know that death is inevitable. These are all truths, and cannot be disputed.”
He sighs.
“Maybe it's a matter of perception...”
“It isn't, though,” she says, demeaning his thought before it could even be finished. “Call me a realist, but these things are not subjective. I know, for a fact, that the sky is blue.”
“Maybe you're colorblind.” He lets out a faint smirk here. This quiets her for a moment. He makes a half-hearted effort to change the subject.
“Look, I really don't feel like talking about it anymore.”
“But isn't that why you're here?” she asks.
“To be honest,” he says, shifting in his seat, “I'm not exactly sure why I'm here.” He does, however, know exactly why he is here. Money is important enough that it can buy you company, and Doctor Thapes is one of Elliott's only friends; a rental friend whom he will have to return when their time was up.
“Well, it's a good thing our time is up then,” she replies, looking at her wristwatch.
Shit.
He stands to leave.
“Mr. Rollins, may I --”
“I'd prefer it if you called me Elliott,” he interjects.
“Okay, Elliott --” Notice the emphasis? “May I ask you something?”
“I thought therapists were supposed to have the answers,” he says, another faint smirk creeping around the corners of his mouth. There is silence; she appears unamused. Elliott scowls.
“Go ahead.”
“It appears to me,” she says, adjusting her glasses, “that it's not a few simple words that are what's bothering you. It's something more.”
He shrugs.
“That wasn't really a question.”
Thus, it goes unanswered.
His eyes flicker like the halogen bulbs glowing in the street lamp above him.
The world around him is breathing. He can hear it, sense it; or, maybe it was merely his own breathing he noticed. The chilled November air hits his lungs. It was cold for Florida, but he was glad. He had grown up in the north, and anything that brought him closer to home was a welcome comfort.
Elliott Rollins sits, waiting for the bus. This was a conscious choice; he feared the world would do its best to drown him out if he didn't do his best to prevent it, so instead of polluting the air he currently brought in to his lungs, he opted for mass transit.
Unfortunately, this also brings with it waiting. Constant waiting.
From here, he will board the bus, where an awkward silence will overcome the small group of night owls perched on their bus seats. His presence alone was enough to silence a crowd; ironic for a man with a profession such as his. He will sit in the back row, his eyes catching reflections in the window of uncomfortable stares cast in his direction. He would keep his ear buds in even though he wasn't listening to music, instead eavesdropping on the hushed conversations had around and about him.
The freaks do indeed come out at night.
But now, he sits in the terminal, his eyes skimming the calligraphy etched by street artists looking for a canvas. This time, only two words catch his attention.
As the bus pulls up to the curb in front of him, he stands, slinging a blue duffel bag over his left shoulder. It was time to head to Georgia, where he had the first match of his professional career in almost four years.
It was time to get the ball rolling.