Note: Each word with a small number next to it, will have a notation at the bottom of the page. This will have a very short reference to a life event. To understand how and why it’s written in this manner, go here
I was on the canvas, I saw through bloodied, sweaty eyes the referee and Mark Johnson 111 (the third) standing over me.
MJ3 was ginormous.
An urgent question began to form.
What am I doing in the ring with MJ3 and how do I get out of here?
The referee was up to four on the count. Between four and five an eternity passed.
I scanned the audience, ringside. There was my girlfriend Sharn ¹. She was mouthing something at me:
use the micro ring taser, it’s in your trunks!
The referee was up to six on the count.
It all came flooding back. I felt in my trunks and there was a ring attached by a thread.
The referee must have had trouble with math at school because he went from six to eight.
I was up on my feet and MJ3 was looking the victor, about to finish me off.
I knew he would let me have a few jabs before coming in hard.
Wind Back: Someone spiked my Kombucha with a fightball — a fightball, is a precise dose of amylnitrate, cocaine, methamphetamine, and captagon, producing a psychotic need to engage in combat. Capatagon is the drug of choice for Isis warriors and Russian combat psychos.
Sharn and I were drinking Kombucha with Dirty Dallow ² — known locally as DD, a lowlife, anything hustler. He sold heroin from his hospital bed (it was said). He told us how he had once driven a car that only went into third gear, all across town to get a hit, he was clean now — to me, that was human ingenuity and endurance put to its lowest pitch.
My meditation teacher ³ lectured me about hanging with bad company. It’s a rub off, karma by association, he said. Sharn and DD were related that’s the only reason he was with us at all.
I went to put money in the parking meter, that’s when DD put the powder in my drink. Kombucha has an odd fizzy and unpredictable taste. Hence, all I noted was a strong piquant flavor.
The rest was a blur of insane sequences, flashes, DD instructing me on technique, giving me the micro taser and:
Just touch him with it, in a jab, he’ll buckle — uppercut — lights out for MJ3
It was as if I was possessed by some fractured persona of my psyche, from adolescence when I was an aggressive little shit. ⁴
Was Sharne complicit? Have I been set up and betrayed by my lover?
Wind Forward: The ring itself was skin colored, invisible to the referee or anyone else. I thrust a quick hard jab to MJ3’s massive chest. As predicted he buckled, no wonder technology is the new God, don’t you think? — Even science is a magical activity.
I followed with an uppercut, as instructed; all over.
I was in the hospital for three days with terrible bruising damage to my innards.
Dirty Dallow, had put $5,000 on me to win.
It was all about money.
I had to laugh about this (later, after pain and shame passed)blaming the school principal. ⁶
Sharne was not complicit, her ringside coaching was about my survival, it was a desperate situation, and she responded to save my ass.
Sharne doesn’t see Dirty Dallow anymore. We share a unit by the seaside brewing cultured organic Kombucha and importing microring lasers for fun and profit. Our love knows no bounds.
Footnotes: (1)Sharne, was my first real school crush. I adored that sweet, blonde-haired, ever so quiet girl. Her quietness was an immense suppression of her being. She was bullied and harassed by an asshole teacher. I would try to protect her in class by deflecting his attention to me. In breaks, I would say funny things to her to try to make her life easier, but always at a distance. I didn’t want her to think I liked her, that would not be cool.
(2) DirtyDallow is based on a character I never met but only heard about. I never wanted to meet him either. I just liked hearing about his low-mark life. The driving in 3rd gear (impressive by any standard) and dealing from his hospital bed are true events.
(3)meditation teacher represents all the spiritual advice and influences (which are very important to me) given through my life.
(4) aggressive little shit,in my teens I became very aggressive and often feel remorse for this.
(5) fake twitter generator can be a bit of fun for fiction writers.
(6)Principal I was once taken to task for using ‘principal’ instead of ‘principle’.
Photo by Martin Kníže on Unsplash