Post by johnmwhite on Nov 30, 2011 21:51:17 GMT -5
--The setting? A church. An old-fashioned, old-world type of church. A Catholic church, replete with golden decorations and enormous statues depicting passion and pain, struggle and ecstasy, death and glory. It stands empty, as so many of them do these days, and on the black and white tiled floor rests a simple box on simple wooden stands. It is a coffin.--
--The organ strikes up, its mournful tune ringing round the cold walls of the old stone building. Those stones have sat there for two hundred years, more than any lifetime they have seen come and go. They will likely stand longer still. The people that have passed between them, ferrying their souls to and from the world from baptism to funeral, are blips barely worth observation. Now another box sits there still, with no one left to mourn whatever sad soul has passed beyond this veil of tears.--
Click, click.
--Footsteps approach, gleaming red Prada heels strikingly dissimilar to the rest of the monochrome get-up. It is a nun, in black and white, who kneels to the altar as she passes the coffin by. She steps up to the pulpit, tracing her fingers across the pages of a dusty book. Her face, should anyone be watching, may appear familiar--
Sister Andrea: There now follows a reading from the book of John:
And behold, on the day of November the 1st, in the year of our Lord 2007, Blake Worship did win his first REW World Championship. But circumstance intervened, and Worship was forced to relinquish the title, which came into the hands of the demon DreamKiller on November the 8th. The reign lasted just 7 days.
And behold, on the day of November the 30th, in the year of our Lord 2008, Blake Worship did meet his match in the man from the Clouds... but in the end, he began his second reign.
And then, on the fourth day of April, in the year of our Lord 2009, Blake Worship did meet at The Brawl a man by the name of Johnny... and lost.
Yea, he lost unto Johnny Corrigan, and his title was forfeit. The belt found its way back into the hands of the Better Prophet Blake Worship by May 2nd, beginning the third reign. It was ended by a man from the land of Limes, Christopher York, on September 4th, 2009.
And a great rumour was spread through the land, a pestilential lie that ensnared all poor souls it met - the lie that Blake Worship had held the REW World Championship for six months uninterrupted. The lie that Blake Worship was the longest reigning REW World Champion in history. Yet what is written is written, what is done is done, and what is true is that John Michael White, the immaculate ringer, has held that golden title for five months and fifteen days in his previous reign, and five months and five days in his current. And they say of the serpent... he is above all Standards.
--The nun closes the book, slamming it with finality.--
Sister Andrea: Today's sermon is on endings. Endings come when something is too old, too slow, too unwieldy to adapt. Death is the Darwinian arbiter, keeping the watch that is the world ticking on. Death is natural, death is inevitable, and death has come to REW. We know it, for we see the shambling corpses and grimacing spectres that haunt its halls. These old ghosts learn not the lessons of history, of humility. They, like old lions, roar their loudest to try to shoo away the night now that they are kings without a pride. They are too old to adapt, too stubborn to change. They bring death upon themselves, as we all do in the end.
--Andrea scoops up a silver chalice from the altar. Before her, as though stirred by her voice, the coffin begins to... thump.--
Sister Andrea: And that is why they fail. That is why they have brought the end upon themselves.
--Andrea descends the stairs; the thumping grows louder, like the hammer of a fearful heart. The pseudonun traces her finger across the top of the box, lingering on the engraved letters of a brass plaque. It reads: Samantha E. Worship--
Sister Andrea: Dust to dust...
--There is screaming now, muffled by the wood. Andrea pours the sacramental wine, splashing scarlet liquid over the top of the coffin.--
Voice: Let me out of here! HELP! BLAKE!
--The nun flicks out a matchbook from somewhere in the recesses of her robes. She strikes one, its searing hiss whispering dark things in the gloomy church.--
Sister Andrea: Ashes to ashes.
--Andrea tosses the match at the alcohol-soaked lump of kindling. She walks away, out of the church, letting it burn.--
