A Night of Thought (Braxxx)

[DoF Archive]

Date: 7/27/1998 1:06 AM Central Daylight Time
From: Bob Braxxx

It hadn't gone as planned but things in life so very rarely did for anyone that he took it as a natural act. Part of the great play of life in which he believed he was a key player. He had been beaten humiliated and was now sore and tired, yes indeed it had been one hell of a night.

There had been no fan fare, no trumpets, and no loud cheers from the crowd at his return. He was willing to bet that not even half the room recognized who in the hell he was. Yet there was some odd fascination in that. The feeling that he didn't have to recreate who he was. Just another mindless shmoe with nothing better to do then to get his face punched in because he couldn't get a date on a Wednesday night. There were those few who
recognized his rolling gate and feebly bad sense of social grace. Those few hearty souls simply treated him like he had never left. To Robert their glassy-eyed looks and small half smiles seemed dangerously close to those soldiers who had been in the lead of one too many frontal assaults on enemy lines. The determination was there but the spirit was a flickering flame at best.

There had been no rush to see how he was, no vicious hand shaking or pats on the back. All there really was, was this sort of undefined amusement that he had come back despite his promise never to walk the dark halls of the place to begin with. A victim of the famous retirement curse, you know the one. It is similar to the phrase “Quit while you are ahead,” or “The house always wins” or maybe even “When the going gets tough, the tough get weird.”
But why not perpetuate the same selfless shame that he had watched so many others be a part of? Hell, if it was good enough for 80% of RhyDin it would be good enough for him.

The place had changed a little, the mood was different. It went from being a night club to a sweat shop. A place where folks toiled and shared a few cheap jokes but the main focus was to get the job done with mindless efficiency. Folks barely took breaks anymore. They didn't seem to tire, they proceeded from one duel to the next with all the intent of the Blitzkrieg forces of Germany. The business of the Duel of Fists was
business now and the business was to win as many duels as you could in as short a time span as you could. Hell the Q closed a whole 15 minutes early. If you had a quick moving opponent that could mean another 2 or 3 duels. Enough to bust you over the hump for a lustrous piece of jewelry that you would attach to your body like a vital organ, important to have, but it's true function and presence were often lost in the desire to enjoy the
more pleasurable senses.

So what the hell *was* he doing here? And why, after such drab analogy, would any human being with the sense of a guinea pig subject himself to the mind numbing process of nights filled with almost no banter, a decided lack of booze (at least from what he saw and enjoyed), and gross physical pain that most men, women, children, and small puppies would consider flagrantly obscene? The first conclusion was obviously mental instability.
The fact was that his brain had become so hammered with brutal attack and the wash of illusion catching booze, that it was no longer functioning in what could be considered any normal human capacity. The big gasket had finally blown and like a salmon he had returned to spawn in the only place his mind could direct him to with any accuracy. The second option was almost as sad as the first. The stark realization that he had somehow become a part of
this whole horror filled process that he could not exercise the demons of the unholy trinity long enough to find peace in something sociable like buying a goat farm and moving to Ukia.

The insanity of it all was it was the sports own desire to self-destruct that probably drew him back. The desire for the sport to find some way to fold on itself and make it some pastime that only very few of RhyDin's population could enjoy without becoming instantly nauseated. It would appear in the annals of some dusty RhyDin textbook: "DOF- Sport in the 90z very popular amongst brawler types. Finally disbanded for lack of interest and
any meaningful creativity." But just when it looked all lost, and that someone if not everyone in the free lands of the place was ready to close the books on the damn thing and go back to doing something worthwhile, the damn thing soared like a Phoenix out of it's own ashes. It sparked new life to people who would carry the torch only to find months later that they had been involved in some sort of cosmic sham that had sucked them dry and left
them tired. Like a sweet wine cooler with all the pleasing aspects of offering you a mind numbing high, only to drink half a vat of the damn stuff and learn that it had no real effect at all. If he had been an educated man he might call it the "placebo effect." Then these same tired, strung out, dueling junkies would still be one of the first ones to rush to the scene to start all over again when the embers began to be stoked again. It was just
damn sad to be a part of it all, know how horrid it was, yet be one of the same soldiers to march to the bugle call again only to be cut down by the saber of despair when it all turned to crap again.

He stood there and looked out at the crowd. Who would be the next person to pick up the banner and rally the troops? In all honesty it looked like slim pickings. Most were either to dense to realize the dream and the other half were to damn smart to allow themselves to be caught up in the tidal waves of emotion that came with the hope that they could make it all right one day. It was the same function that he had learned about democracy.
Half the population didn't know what the hell the system meant and the other half were to scared by the possibility that they were electing some foul creature to run their lives they both took the same course of action...they made a real effort to keep from making any effort at all. Robert placed himself in that grim infected crowd that thought they could make a difference. One of the real ninnies of the world that thought effort, perseverance,
hope, trust and all that happy crap made a real difference. Wait...didn't he just chalk up half the world to one thing and the other half to another? Don’t two half's make a whole? Ahh what the hell...math was never all that important anyway.

He had dueled Rannos...he never thought losing could be such a good feeling in all his life. He loved to win and was a piss poor loser in every way but losing to Rann had been good in a way. Maybe it was just Rann was a member of the old guard, someone that he could actually pick out of a police line up for stealing grapefruit for the underground guerrilla movement. But he was a firm believer that it had more to do with the fact that Rann was
somebody he had for a long time had personal conflict with. It wasn't just a duel between them, it was the idea that whomever won, their personality and philosophy of life had carried the day. It would be one more needle in the war between right and wrong good and evil. Whoever was on what side didn't make a damn bit of difference. Robert was firmly convinced that he would choose white if Rann championed black or he would defend that his beer mug
was in fact the Holy Grail if Rann dared challenge him on it. Robert really had no clue what the hell Rann thought on the issue. For all chances in the world Rann was completely oblivious to this and was actually an intelligent forth right guy who was forced to deal with Robert's vast insanity any way possible to keep the frothing loon at bay. Christ...wouldn't that be ironic...

But Rann had torn him open and laid him bleeding like a rabbit in the hot sun. It had actually been closer but his moves had been so slow and out of date that Rann was probably doing him a kindness by ripping him to shreds and then dangling his manhood around his neck like a pair of stones. It had been a good fight though. A classic example of all the fantastic possibilities that the Duel of Fists could hold but only for those who dared to put
their hearts and asses on
the line and scream something more original at their opponent then "YOU SUCK!". The physical battle was only the foreplay but it was the lash of word and wit that was always the real deed. The frolic of words that joined in the merry
dance that always said "Anything you can do I can do better." There were few of these artists left and even those had lost their lightning stroke. Even as Robert worked he glanced around his gallery to see if he was creating new images that would illuminate the hall or merely gross reproductions of old master pieces that would have been better left to die in the old vanguard of savants.

Maybe it was the new tune that should be played now? Maybe by letting tired old preachers of the "Way of right" who, by the mere fact they had existed long enough, were now considered the heralds of the true gospel. Those whose tired, ringing message was not the voice of hope and truth but merely a dull ache to the senses. Words that were full of accusation and demand ... but words that were never headed by those who spoke
them. That supremely fatalistic approach to not only dueling but to life. The idea that the populace needed to be whipped into a frenzy by such over stated and tasteless acts of destruction brought the bile to his throat every time he thought about it. This attitude now seemed to be the rule of the day. An opal was gone now because of this ... a bright flash of light and a hasty decision on how to sway the world into the path of right. No
remorse over the loss to what was supposed to be the hopeful future for others. No continued hope that despite the emptiness and lack of opportunity that others failed to capitalize on that no other person would one day come and make something out of the nothingness. Perhaps he believed in people too much, perhaps his old mind had become inundated with the hope for a Messiah ... the hope that one person could strike a spark and get that Phoenix to
fly one last time. Maybe he was sadly foolish and unconnected, but in his mind it was better to rally round what was seemingly a hopeless dream then to never dream at all.

Again those halves of the world failed to agree with him. The Diamond now lay dormant. It had been made impotent by the very parties that screamed for it's power to be full and absolute. Rather then accept the daunting task of making this place, this dream, something more then the empty rank it was claimed to be ... it was hucked aside like a piece of garbage. Then many private conversations were held and into the night people asked "Why? How
... could this happen?" "Why are we not great!?" Perhaps it is our own bitter refusal to take up that gauntlet of greatness. It is the fear that we do not want to be associated with those leaders who failed us in the past or the staunch fear that we will never be as great as the greatest that at one time walked among us. But that too was a hallow dream much like the Camelot that Swan lived in. A building dedicated to a dream that never really
happened. A loaded perception of the way should be, but in fact, never really was.

Robert came very close to tasting what that was all about. To knowing what it meant to bear the burden of it all. Even the thought of it had been awesome, the fact he would be held to the highest standard and then a standard beyond that. Perhaps that was what caused him to fail so miserably in his attempt.

Hefty thoughts on a nervous night after dueling. Expansive thoughts from a man who swore he was so disconnected from it all. Robert had learned he was not a good politician. He had learned that his desire to lead, in the political system that was the RDI, was not his taste. He had turned the reins over to another man. He did his best to stay silent and let things go beyond him. He let the world spin swiftly without his ramblings and
disjointed thoughts. But even on the days when his body was many miles away and his mind was wrapped in other attentions, his soul still lurked in these cursed halls he left behind. He wasn't the heart of it all ... he would never encourage anyone to believe the way he thought, one reason was because, well frankly he barely ever understood what he meant himself and the other was, well the other really wasn't all that important.

He realized that the duels didn't need him. The machine ground on for better or worse and lord knows everyone had an opinion on how the grindstone was working. He came to understand that it was he that needed the duels, not in the life sustaining way that it had been before. But perhaps only for the reason that this was the life that he came closest to understanding. He had failed in love and in business pursuits, in creativity and
devotions. Here within these four walls was the only place where the world made any type of sense. The only place where a tired old solider could call home. A place to find a cause to champion even if the battle was doomed from the start.

((Authors Note: I am reposting this again because it seems both were pulled previously for double posting even though that is an AOL glitch. I apologize if this inconviences anyone. I would however like my effort and creativity to be able to appear here and not disappear for no reason at all.))