??? He tried to move his arms in the chair he was bound to, but they remained still. The leather bindings made it so he couldn’t clench his wrist, never mind moving an arm from the uncomfortable position he unexpectedly found himself in.

How DID he end up like this, anyway?! 

Think, Arthur. THINK.

Did he owe money to some bookie? Not likely. He may have dabbled in all sorts of illegal activities throughout his complicated life, but neither sports nor sports gambling ever appealed to him.

Was it another drunken escapade? One so alcohol-fueled that it would send a certain, very angry, very mountainous Russian all the way from his gorgeous Arkhangelsk home into Arthur’s nightmarish Las Vegas apartment once again? Perhaps even more unsettling, to further put him in danger of falling out of Starshy Praporshchik’s good graces?

There was no clue about where he was or who he was listening to.

Was he even... himself?

Did you get yourself kidnapped?

Did you die after Max stalked you? 

Is this all— wait a minute!

As he looked down, the leather bindings metamorphosed into grayish-blue serpent scales.

Directly across from Arthur was a full-length mirror. The room itself was pretty nondescript but dimly lit.

No. Not this. Please. I don’t even have a safe word! 

Arthur stared at himself– completely naked and in the most vulnerable state one could imagine themselves in. It was that Indiana Jones effect where the floor and everything else were rife with bugs. Lots of bugs. At first, he thought the floor was moving, but no, it squirmed and writhed with life; insects of all shapes and sizes crawled over each other. Spindly spiders and fat, pulpy grubs slithered and rolled amongst one another. Fuzzy, cobalt blue tarantulas crawled up Arthur’s naked legs, and soon, all manner of unspeakable horrors followed the tarantulas' lead.

There was a beat of silence, and then a voice cut through the air.

“Is this what you want, Arthur? To be THE Nightmare?” called out the distorted voice. The voice was unnatural as if masked artificially to disguise their true identity. Pleasant said nothing and continued to sit in the chair, frozen in fear.

"Stop," Arthur called out to the pestering voice.

“You can stop it,” persisted the voice hidden behind the obscure distortion of anonymity.

“YOU can stop it!” Pleasant demanded.

Wake up, baby! I think you’re having a n-

Arthur’s eyes opened, and he immediately grabbed someone’s wrist. It took a moment for his bearings to come back, but he slowly remembered taking a skinny black stripper named Dahlia back to his hotel room after a lengthy visit to a local titty bar named ‘The Skeet Seat’. She was a fine, light-skinned, African American Goddess that enjoyed shaking her ass as much as Arthur enjoyed watching her do it.

“W-What was I saying?!” he blurted out with labored breaths, trying to make sense of his sudden reemergence to reality.

Dahlia’s eyes went wide, unsure of what was happening.

Holding his head, Pleasant squeezed tightly. Looking up into the ceiling of his hotel room, Arthur stammered to get the words out.

“War is coming,” he said, lowering his voice to a whisper. “And I am its weapon.”

“Huh?” was all that Dahlia could get out.

Pleasant looked over at his newfound companion and smiled. Unnervingly so.

“Never mind, dear. Go back to sleep.”

☭

Somewhere in Beantown - Undisclosed Location (02.19.2024) “I’m a bad person, Doc.”

He couldn’t remember the last time he felt so vulnerable. It was like becoming a war-bitten hyena lost from its pack, limping into the desert to die from its wounds. It sounded terrible, but that’s precisely what Arthur Pleasant had been feeling lately.

From the second-story sash window, he stared wistfully into the sodden front yard of a beautiful Victorian-style home. Deep in thought, he traced, with a bony finger, the rain trails left behind on the glass like they were labyrinthine byways that led him to a maze's center.

“Why do you think you are a bad person, Fred?” said a feminine voice from the other side of the room.

It was Dr. Yvonne Adler, PsyD, as it read on her name badge. She was quite an attractive woman who cast the mold for all other doctors. She wore a black and gold pantsuit with cat-style eyeglasses and a freshly cut bob. As she was affectionately called by so many of her patients and colleagues, Doc sat on a cushioned swivel chair with her legs crossed and a clipboard in hand.

In complete contrast to her sexy get-up, Arthur wore a pair of dirty, unwashed jeans and a plain black T-shirt with the words “THIS IS A T-SHIRT” written on the front in white. His hair was longer and fuller than we last saw, making him even more feral-looking than usual.

“I don’t think I’m a bad person, Doc. I know I’m a bad person.”

Arthur Pleasant turned from the window and looked around the therapist’s study. Her workspace was a cozy and inviting space. An impressive-looking bookshelf filled with volumes of psychology books for immediate reference stood behind Dr. Adler, with calming artwork on the walls to further promote a harmonious atmosphere. A lone peace lily sat on the corner of her desk, bringing a touch of nature indoors, further contributing to the placatory ambiance.

With the calming scent of lavender lingering in the air, the entire troposphere provided organic tranquility for the therapist and patient to engage in a meaningful conversation. Calming artwork had been sprawled out on the back perimeter in giant frames opposite the bookshelves far on the other side of the room. The picture in one of the larger pieces stuck out to Arthur more than the others. Was it a lighthouse? A monument? Something subliminally phallic?

“Fred,” Dr. Adler continued, breaking Arthur Pleasant’s concentration in the process, “Is there a specific reason ‘you know’ you’re a bad person?”

Turning away from the abstract phallicism–undoubtedly a Murakami piece– he finally looked directly at Dr. Adler.

“Well, yeah. Obviously. But I can’t get into that right now,” he said, thinking about his next words, “That’s a discussion for another session. If I do decide to come back here, obviously. The fact is, I’m not in Boston very often. As of right now, I’m only here for work.”

Dr. Adler immediately steered the conversation in another direction.

“Fred, what do you do for a living?” she asked innocuously.

Arthur thought about it for a moment. Should he tell her the truth or leave it to the ordinary whims of a customer service job?  

Fuck it.

“I’m a wrestler,” he blurted out, waiting for the other shoe to drop from Dr. Adler. “Pretty fucking good one, too.”

“Oh, really?” she said, without eliciting any emotion from Arthur’s answer that brimmed with unmatched confidence.

“Yes. Pro,” he paused, “I’m in PRIME Wrestling. Currently undefeated at one and zero!” Arthur said, amused with himself for his mischievous script-flipping.

“Beat something called a Swanny a few weeks ago, and if I can beat this blood pervert with a predisposition for violence named Arthur Pleasant at our next show, then I’m pretty sure I’m in line for a shot at a title. It’s the unwritten rule.”

Arthur plopped himself onto the Remington Chesterfield leather couch. Clasping his fingers together behind his head, he bent a knee upwards and placed his other leg on top of it. For the first time since entering Dr. Adler’s office, he felt comfortable enough to lie down and speak his mind.

“Five-Star. Uni. Whatever. I’m not a hard man to please. Anyone who conquers the Worst Nightmare of PRIME always seems to etch their names into the history books, so I won’t be picky when the time for championship gold inevitably comes.”

Dr. Adler continued writing notes on her clipboard as Pleasant continued to swap identities and stories with his upcoming opponent, unbeknownst to her. It was doubtful she knew anything about PRIME from her less-than-sunny disposition as he referenced pro wrestling and his job within.

She turned a corner rather precipitously, seeing as Arthur was having too much fun at the expense of something as important as a first session between them.

“Let’s pivot for a second, Fred. Tell me about your family.”

Arthur’s eyes bugged out for a moment.

Damn. She’s good. 

Pleasant gave it some thought. Nearly a whole minute passed before he realized a few important things.

One, his memories remained intact, for the most part, regarding what he could still see of her when he closed his eyes. Hearing, though? No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t hear his Mother’s voice anymore. At thirty years old, it had all metamorphosed into an indistinct white noise.

BANG! It wasn’t that pro-wrestling company, but the sound of a single gunshot. The sound of the bullet leaving the chamber actually made him jump in real-time. Memories often lose their aural distinction over time, he understood. Or so he was told many times before while in sessions at Western State Hospital. So, why did he just elicit a sign of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome?

What the fuck WAS that?!

“Why do you want me to talk about my Mom?” Arthur shot back indignantly.

Dr. Adler scribbled some notes down on her clipboard. The pen scratching on paper calmed him, oddly enough. But still, he remained visibly annoyed by the question. Before Arthur could say anything more, Dr. Adler cleared her throat and sat forward a bit, obviously keen on digging deeper into the rabbit hole.

“I never said I wanted to talk about your Mom, Fred. I simply asked you to tell me about your family,” she smoothly reminded him, “I find it interesting that you immediately went to your Mother, though. Very interesting, indeed.”

“I… uh,” he stammered, “I don’t know why I went straight to Mom. Bitch has been dead for a long fucking time. That’s all you need to know about her.”

Dr. Adler’s eyes betrayed her as they seemed aghast at Arthur’s vitriolic response to her line of questioning regarding his mother.

“How did she die, Fred?”

Pleasant could feel his pupils narrowing at the question. She seemed hellbent on entering some very dark and dangerous territory.

“Another fucking time. Seriously. Don’t go there with me. Not right now,” he snapped back.

Such were the vicissitudes of a man with as murky of a past as he.

An alarm blared. It came from Dr. Adler’s purse that she kept on the desk of her workspace.

“Let me guess… time’s up?” Arthur asked with a deflated demeanor about him.

“Indeed,” she said, nodding.

Pleasant quickly sat up on the couch.

“Hate to break it to ya, Doc,” Pleasant said with mischievous eyes, “but you’ll probably never see me again. Unless you subscribe to the ACE Network, of course!”

Cheap plug? Shame on you. Die.

The thought of her watching him perform in the ring aroused him.

“Well, it’s a shame you’re only in town for your wrestling tour,” she said.

“Yeah. It really is. I liked where this was going, Doc.”

Dr. Adler put her clipboard on her desk and stood up from the swivel chair.

“Please, call me Yvonne,” she said as she walked towards Pleasant by the Remington Chesterfield.

He imagined what her long brunette hair looked like outside of the bun she kept it in.

“Fred, there’s one thing I’d like you to do for me. Or, more importantly, for yourself. Even if we don’t meet again, I think it would be a good mental exercise for you.”

Pleasant’s eyes narrowed a bit.

“Mental exercise? Are we talking flashcards with wavy lines or a match game?”

Yvonne chuckled as she placed her hand gently–even perhaps playfully–across Arthur’s shoulder.

“I want you to grab a pen and some paper and write to yourself,” she said tentatively, worried he may not have been ready for such a humanizing task.

“You mean like a letter?! Or a blog?!”

His voice seemed a bit more concerned than she had heard up until that point. “It’s whatever you want it to be. Just so that you find yourself writing to Fred Dick. Expressing yourself by conveying your thoughts into a piece of writing directed AT yourself,” she elaborated.

“You do realize I can’t really spell or do fucking grammar at all, right? I never went to college or finished high school in some top-class percentile. I mean, fuck, I might as well be the King of all Commoners, lady. So, writing? Yeah. I’ve never been good at this writing bullshit you want me to do,” Pleasant said in a disheartened manner.

Dr. Adler chuckled. Whatever images she conjured up inside that big brain of hers undoubtedly amused her. Oh, how he wished he could see the thought bubble.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said plainly, “I don’t care about any sort of errors or even typos if you decide to type it up. Just... write me something. Write for yourself and to yourself! Now, if you’ll excuse me, Mr. Dick, and I don’t mean to rush you out of here, but I do have another patient waiting. It’s been a pleasure getting to know you. I look forward to continuing these sessions down the line!”

Like fucking hell, we will.

“Sure. I’d like that,” Arthur responded dejectedly before he headed out of the office, passing by a tanned and muscular dudebro on his way out of the waiting room en route to the exit.

Looking back, Pleasant wondered if he had seen the dudebro before.

In Boston? Unlikely.

☭

Boston Lodge and Suites (02.20.2024)

This is bullshit.

“How the fuck am I supposed to do this?!”

This is definitely some bullshit.

“Write to myself? Write… to myself. Heh.”

This is seriously THE most bullshit EVER.

Arthur smacked a near-empty plain white mug of black coffee from the hotel table he sat at in his single-queen room to the floor behind him. Not even turning his head a single inch upon hearing it shatter against the hotel room’s wall, Pleasant arched his back until it cracked in a perfect trifecta of snap, crackle, and pop. With his legs crisscrossed on the bed ringer as opposed to a more conventional cushioned chair, he looked down at the sheet of notebook paper that he held a pen and sighed.

There were pages after pages of thoughts, random insight, and retrospection of the past ten years, up to and including his year-long odyssey in PRIME. Documenting it, moment by moment, he had nearly sapped the ink out of his black ballpoint pen.

This was even before getting to the Mommy issues.

Dropping the pen, he slapped himself in the face to keep himself awake.

“You know what? I’ve got a BETTER idea…” he said out loud.

Reaching for his phone, Pleasant hit a few spots on the touchscreen interface. It rang three times before the voice on the other end had picked up. “Yeah, it’s me,” (...), “Well, put it to the side for now. Culture Shock is on the horizon, but ReVival 44 is up next,” (...), “Fan-fucking-tastic. I’ll send it to you through snail mail,” (...), “Yep. Be on the lookout for it! Thanks, Arliss."

Click.

☭

The Windy City - The Law Offices of Peter, Peters, and Pumpkeinneiter (02.21.2024) Arliss stopped typing on the old school typewriter and tried to process everything he just threw down on the onionskin paper, which itself was stacked on top of the piece of carbon paper. He found the process of transcribing Arthur Pleasant’s written words– even with equipment as old and obsolete as a typewriter– something of an artistic endeavor. Not that Pleasant saw it that way, as he just liked making Arliss’ life that much harder by trying to track down a pristine condition typewriter with all its pieces still functioning flawlessly.

Looking down, he collected several pages of what he had transcribed. Arliss held them up vertically, tapped them twice onto his desk to align them properly, and sat back with his feet on his desk.

Leaning back in his Rockefeller leather executive chair, he read everything with Arthur’s words flowing through his brain.

I don’t even know why I’m writing this. I loathe “exercises” like this. Hell, I fucking hate the people who write in them even MORE. Why are those who write their feelings and experiences down like this always the best spellers and most grammatically correct people in existence? God knows I can’t spell for shit. I think I’ll have Arliss– THE GREATEST LAWYER IN THE WORLD! CALL ME, I MEAN HIM, AT 555-977-5595 IF YOU NEED LEGAL COUNSEL– just take a look-see and fix everything. Worth every penny, that one.

Arliss chuckled, proud of himself for adding his own element to advertising that would’ve made Saul Goodman’s brow moist with pride.

Honestly, now. I’m not sure people want to see what’s happening inside my head. Not even conveyed in a manner like this.

They barely tolerate me as a wrestler, never mind as an actual person. I have to admit; that one hurts. To have zero respect from your peers.

Whatever.

Yet here I am, writing fucking gibberish to me, myself, and I like the merriest bunch of pen pals in the entire fucking world.

But… alright. I get it.

I prey on the weak.

I take pleasure in making those same peers of mine who DON’T deserve any respect reciprocated back to them bleed like a sieve.

But I’m just the batshit edgelord when I speak and show up at all the ReVivals. Right?

Yeah. Maybe.

Tell that to Ivan, who decided I was worthy enough to be taken under his wing.

Tell that to Jonathan Christopher-Hall, who decided I was worthy enough to be included as part of his team for WarGames.

Tell that to all my detractors who waste their time on Jabber all day instead of taking the time to put in the work.

What is the point of this, though? Am I letting these fucko’s get to me? More importantly, is that why I haven’t been able to win a single goddamn match since the fall of 2023?

Hey. Maybe we’re getting somewhere now.

Once again, Arliss took a beat to stop reading and made sure he’d dotted the t’s and crossed the i’s enough for the typewritten transcription.

It’s not like I’m resistant to the idea of sharing my past with people. But, in a dog-eat-dog environment, I can’t help but be a little reticent in sharing it with everyone.

When Ivan slapped the taste out of my mouth, I felt like my whole world came crashing down, and it really, really hurt. And yet, I know he meant well. ‎Starchy Praporshchik Stanislav would not have accosted me as he did without looking at the bigger picture. This is why he is our unblighted leader and the perfect father figure in one’s life.

The bigger picture is this: I’m a weapon that’s been broken for far too long. But despite this, someone has decided to fix me.

They’ve cleaned the hammer, so there are no more misfires coming from the barrel. They’ve tightened the trigger guard and mechanism, so there’s no hesitation. Someone has made sure I’ve been reconstructed into the most dangerous version of myself that I can be.

So when I catch that short stack of grease and pig shit in the center of that ring on March 1st, it’s not going to be pretty. When I catch him with a Muay-Thai elbow and the ring splish-splashes every step with cheese drippings and Chicago-style pizza sauce, I’m going to show the entire WORLD that Arthur Pleasant is not only ready for ReVival 44, but he’s ready for everyone to fuck around and find out with at WarGames, too.

I don’t know if this is what you wanted, Yvonne. But this is what you got.

This… is me. Arthur Henry Pleasant.

You are inside the mind of a predator in his natural habitat as he leaves behind blood, bones, and crime scene tape in his destructive, violent wake.

Hey. You know what?

This exercise actually does make me feel a little better!

Thanks, Doc.

Maybe we will see each other again after all.

Arliss finished reading the hard copy of Arthur’s forced psychobabble and sighed. He was done, thank the heavens. Arliss poured over every detail within the newly typed document and could finally rest easy knowing he completed the task given to him.

He hit line one on the telephone, and a dial tone emerged. Then he pressed the page button that had been labeled "Erin" for his long-time secretary.

“Yes, sir?”

“Erin, I need a scan, copy, and fax for a set of documents I have here for Doctor Adler.”

"Doctor Adler? I don't remember us communicating with a Doctor Adler," Erin keenly responded.

Arliss chuckled.

"Yeah. Well, it's... a long story."

Click.