Meltdown XXIII & Fallout 023 (Dec '22).

The unfortunate symphony continued, its maestro, though he held no batons, giddily allowing it to enter its second verse. He was revelling in it, as if he'd forgotten what this sort of adulation felt like and wanted to savour it whilst it lasted. Whether it was due to geographic proximity to his birthplace or her deep unpopularity with the American people, the crowd had picked their horse and was letting him know it. They sang him to the ring, as if he was their hero, and she the monster he'd been sent to slay. She smiled to herself. It would be nice for the monster to win for once.

He climbed into the ring and - from her seated position in the corner, with her head propped up against the second turnbuckle, as was now her custom before a match - her eyes fixed upon the gold adorning his shoulder. It was exactly as she remembered it, although a full year had passed since she'd lost it to Thomas at the end of one of the shortest reigns in FWA history. There was more to do, here. Climbing the mountain twice only to promptly lose her footing on the peak left a bitter taste in her mouth. Twelve months was a long time to wait. But it would be worth it.

The Grand March. Last year, she entered this event alongside Gerald, even though they were due to compete against one another in its main event. In truth, that is where a lot of the problems with Gerald started, even if it had ended well for her. She'd overcome Nova that night to start her ill-fated second reign. Tonight, a year on, she had no idea where Gerald was. That was the case most nights, now.

In that moment, seated in the corner as this handsome champion lifted his handsome belt above his head, Michelle didn't think of any of this. Gerald was far from her mind, as was Nova and Thomas. Even Uncle. She only had eyes for the man in front of her, parading his prize as if the belt was a placeholder for tailfeathers. He turned to face her, a smile on his face and a glint in his eye.

He felt it, too. She knew this to be true.

It had been a long time coming. Almost two years, really. Cat and mouse, and no real way of telling which was which. All leading to this moment, like she knew it would the moment the F1 was announced. Like he thought it would at Back in Business, when he waited in his locker room for the Carnal Contendership, his victory already clear in his mind and ready to be made real. But each turn in the road, each time this encounter was denied them, only served to make this moment more sweet. More perfect. It didn't happen then, but it was happening now. Their ships had repeatedly passed in the night, but the morning had come. She could see clearly.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the following contest is scheduled for one-fall, with a sixty minute time limit… and is for the FWA World Championship!”

As Kurt Harrington boomed out his opening salvo, whipping the crowd up into further frenzy, she reached up and grasped the top rope with her outstretched hands. She closed her eyes. Felt the cable’s tautness. When she opened them again, the man in black and white was collecting the gold from a champion seemingly unwilling to let it out of his sight. She knew the feeling. He sensed that his grip upon the summit was precarious. He wished to elongate the moment. But moments can’t be grasped in the same manner as a ring rope. She pulled herself onto her feet.

“Introducing first, the challenger… representing Cthulhu’s Nephews…”

She couldn’t hear much of the rest of it. The boos began as soon as the moniker of her chosen clan escaped Harrington’s lips. They didn’t let up until he’d finished, the tail end of Horrowitz just barely audible over their settling clamour. Usually, this would be her cue to hurl some obscenities haphazardly into the air, hoping the wind would carry them to as many of the trogs as possible. Tonight, she simply stared ahead of herself. At the man at the end of this long road, which they’d both walked but separately. Alone with everybody.

“And introducing the champion… representing Executive Excellence…”

And he, the handsome man, stared back at her, and she could sense in him the same riptide of emotion. A sense of pending closure, to be enjoyed with uncertainty at the end of the battle to come.

He didn’t move a muscle, even as the roars grew into a tidal wave. It washed over them, and still they remained unmoved.

Finally, the bell rang. It was beginning. It was here.

She began to circle the ring, matching his motions. It was the opening movements of what she hoped would be a long dance. They had waited for years, after all. There was no need to rush.

The opening lock-up was oncoming, the champion looking for a gap in her stance as he came towards her, when a masked figure, clad all in black, rolled into the ring. He stood up, his frame instantly recognisable but causing a ripple of confusion through the packed arena. He looked at the handsome man, and then at Dreamer. The two dancers had paused their foreplay and were backed away from one another, their momentum stayed by this unwelcome interloper.

After what seemed like an eternity but, in ‘reality’, was only a few seconds, the masked man reached into the pocket of his trench coat and pulled out a revolver. He pointed it at the handsome man and, without hesitation, put ten grams of lead through the left size of his skull. The champion was already on the ground before the bullet lodged in his brain, his arm twitching and a pool of blood gathering beneath his head.

The assailant turned on Michelle - who stared up at his large figure with a lack of surprise… a dull, passive acceptance - and fired a second bullet into her stomach.

She fell back into a seated position, her head propped up against the second turnbuckle.

…

…

She awoke to the familiar sight of the inside of her cabin, dull and drab and small, and now with an overhanging odour of stale sweat and spilled whiskey. It was the same musty aroma that she’d come to expect from herself during her time on the boat. She adjusted her position on the narrow bunk, her eyes immediately drawn to the crack - now a fissure, really - on the ceiling of the cabin. She imagined that her whole hand could fit between the gaping, growing jaws hanging above her head. She only imagined this because there was no way she would be checking that theory. The jaws, as she’d come to call the widening chasm that loomed above her bed, seemed particularly hostile that morning. She wasn’t bold enough to run her fingertips along their splintered teeth, as she sometimes would. Instead, she rolled out of bed and pulled on her clothes.

The captain was in the process of docking up, keeping his promise of a dawn arrival in Vienna. She hadn’t enjoyed much of the German voyage. The canal wasn’t really made for a ship like the Sisyphus, and at times she pictured the captain as a modern day Fitzcarraldo, wrestling with his terrain to overcome this mammoth but ultimately silly task he’d assigned himself. She sensed easier passage was to come now that they’d emerged onto the wider Danube, and the casual, comfortable air about the captain this morning suggested he agreed.

"Happy to be in Vienna?" she asked, whilst lighting up her first cigarette of the day. Dawn wasn't far behind them, but her hours had shifted around without pattern as of late. The captain glanced up at her, pausing in his business to flash her a bright grin. The gaps between his teeth only added to its warmth.

"Vienna is a city I knew well," he answered. Although, of course, it wasn't really an answer. "And yourself?"

"First time," Michelle said, whilst sucking at her cigarette and looking over the small dockyard on the eastern edge of the city. She had forty eight hours to acclimatise herself before it would be time to move on again. It was never enough, it was always too much. "Any recommendations?"

"It's been a long time," he answered, his hands returning to the business of fastening the ship to the port. "I doubt many of my old haunts would still be open. And I forget their names. Other than…"

He paused, and Michelle fancied that she detected wistfulness in his tone.

"A place called Café Moritz. I remember it well, though I doubt it remembers me."

"We could go and find out?" Michelle offered. The words fell out of her mouth before she really realised what she's saying, but the idea of spending time off the ship with the old sailor wasn't intolerable. That in itself - to find someone whose company wasn’t to be thought of as a curse - was a rarity. But they had been travelling together for well over a month now, and she'd never seen the man off his own deck. Perhaps that was by design.

"Maybe some other city," the captain offered, elusive as ever. "I'd like my memories of Vienna to stay as they are."

She didn't say anything for a moment, but nodded.

"The crack in your cabin," the captain began. She'd almost forgotten that she'd mentioned it to him, it had been so long since he'd agreed to have one of the crew take a look. It felt strange to hear somebody else speak about it. It had grown into its role as her little secret, a private fear that nestled uneasily amongst all the others. "I had Gert take a look. It's not a significant crack. Nothing for you to worry about."

Easy for Gert to say, she thought to herself.

"Is there another cabin I could use?" she asked.

"Is the aesthetic that bad?" the captain replied, with a playful smile. "There are no more cabins, unless you mean to turf one of us out of ours, which would be a pointless endeavour. They're less extravagant than yours, and have cracks of their own."

"The ship is old," Michelle responded, repeating the captain's words from their dialogue in Köln.

"That's right," he said. His eyes seemed to add, almost as old as me.

She spent the day drinking in whatever bars she could find that were open at the unreasonable hours she expected them to be, and coffee shops when that pursuit was fruitless. In truth, her brooding wasn't befitting of a city like Vienna, which was for beauty and poetry and music. But she forced her surroundings to fit her mood, insisting upon a fog of gloom, even against a backdrop that cried out for sunlight. In a more frivolous mood she may have enjoyed the city, but this was presently an impossible endeavour. The confrontations she'd endured during her uneasy sleep the night prior made sure of that. Just like her Vienna was devoid of music, even her dreams deprived her of the dance that reality had casually and cruelly denied her as well.

It was also an insurmountable task to not allow her mind to follow its natural course: to dwell upon the dance that never was, that perhaps would never be. In truth, that had been the case for much of the European tour. Back in London, she'd relished the idea of not only facing her long-standing white whale - one in what was becoming a whole pod of them - at least once as part of this crumbling tournament, but also earning a chance to right past failures regarding the world championship in the process. Now, only one of those objectives remained to her, and important thought it was, the masked man was not her handsome one.

A half-remembered night more than two years ago, where both had drank themselves into oblivion and their collective memory into submission. A match over nothing in particular, besides a perhaps unearned mutual respect, for another company after her business there with the kaiju had run its course. These were their two interactions of note. It wasn't much, really.

The fact that she was one of the only people alive to know what Alyster Black looked like beneath the mask should've signified a closeness that in reality didn't exist. Her defeat at the man's hands could, under other circumstances, have constituted a crisis for her weak and addled mind. A deficit that could have spawned a vendetta. But it didn't.

She was even almost happy for him, when he triumphed in the battle royale and won the prize that had eluded him so frequently before now. Fifth time’s the charm. Almost, for she knew what any new champion, in the absence of the old one, meant for the dance her heart really longed for.

In truth, she didn't achieve anything useful or of note during her first day in Vienna, save perhaps the discovery of a small coffee shop in the corner of the Old Town. Nestled in-between a bakery and a chocolatier was Café Moritz. It looked old enough to be the one that the captain remembered and briefly mentioned that morning. She ordered a black coffee and a whiskey and sat in the corner, watching the steady stream of Viennese locals and tourists alike going about their Fridays independently but for a communal venture to the café.

A small plaque above the counter explained the store’s name. The building, along with the bakery, the chocolatier, and the small block of flats attached to the three terraced stores, had once been a movie theatre that showed German propaganda films. The cinema was heavily damaged by allied shells in the forties, and a large selection of it was reduced to rubble by the combined efforts of Churchill and Stalin. The legend went that a U.S. marine named Maurice Stoltsberg sat on this pile of stones following the German surrender with a flask of coffee, which he shared out between himself and any local that would talk to him. The Viennese called him Moritz, and soon enough monetized his myth with the creation of this very coffee shop.

The sun retreated early, giving up on the day before it had really found its feet. Michelle did the same, feeling sullen and uninspired.

…

…

[ two ]

"Do you know when you'll be able to wrestle again?" she asked, before sipping her wine and regarding the man in front of her. She had to be careful about doing so too often. She was worried she'd get lost in his handsome features, as she had done on so many nights before, mostly when he didn't even know she was looking.

"I don't know yet," he said, his thick and stubborn New York accent endearing through her rose-tinted glasses. "I see the doctors again this week. We'll have a better picture then."

Michelle stared about herself, at the handsome people in their handsome clothes, eating their expensive, elaborate meals whilst drinking wines she couldn't even pronounce the names of. Perhaps she should've felt out of place, but the man seated across from her, staring back at her with sparkling eyes, was the most exquisite of them all. He belonged here, and - by extension - she belonged, too. At least so long as she was on his arm.

"I'm glad you stuck around," she began, whilst draining another glass and then emptying the remnants of the bottle into it. "But it can't be easy, watching Alyster with your belt."

"He knows it's tarnished," he said, with a shrug. "He knows that he'll have to deal with me, when I'm whole again. But Alyster's not here tonight. And neither are your cronies."

"Yours, either," Michelle said. Danny flashed her another grin. She hadn't eaten, but had made up for it with the wine, which was good and flowed freely. "Although, judging from the place you chose, Jean-Luc is at least here in spirit. I worry that this might've even been his recommendation, which wouldn't sit well."

"Gabrielle's," the handsome man admitted. She felt better about this than the other theory. "You wanna get out of here, Dreamer?"

They emerged into a cold Vienna night, the Danube snaking around them as it meandered eastwards, the city a red carpet rolled out for only them. He lit them both a cigarette and led the way towards the nucleus, but Michelle stopped him at the mouth of the first alley they passed. She pulled him into it, reaching into the front pocket of her long, black coat. She fingered around for her coke, but paused in the wake of his gaze. His eyes, once merely sparkling, were now ablaze, and she sensed a stirring in him which awakened a similar one in her.

The moment, though infinite in itself, was broken by the cocking of a shotgun. Michelle turned to see the masked man emerging from the shadowy recesses of the alleyway, holding the large weapon in both of his hands.

The handsome man was still smoking his cigarette when the first shell found its way into his gut. Michelle didn't know which of the two to face, but neither choice would've made much of a difference. The second shell was unloaded into her shoulder, spinning her around and throwing her down onto the concrete next to the other. He didn't seem so handsome anymore.

…

…

The early morning wind was biting, and she huddled for warmth in her layers on the deck of the ship. The captain didn't want her to smoke below deck, and he'd been liberal enough about her peculiarities for her to follow the meagre restrictions he did place upon her. The dreams had conspired with the jaws on her cabin ceiling to drive her here, away from the false comfort of a dreamless sleep, on the deck of a ship in the biting early morning wind.

The ideas of guilt, complicity, and responsibility were prevalent in her mind as she leant against the front railing of the ship and lit a joint. She hoped it would be enough to rock her gently back to sleep, but her frenetic mind was conspiring to stop that. Accepting that Danny, champion of the world, would not be standing across the ring from her - either as part of the F1 or at the Grand March - wasn't an easy thing. Until now, the primary strategy she'd used to combat this growing disappointment, which would rapidly develop into a sense of being cheated out of a dance she was promised, was to keep her mind and body distracted. As always, that meant intoxicants and wrestling. It was most of the reason she’d entered into a series of pointless tag team matches alongside her tournament commitments. This strategy had worked for a good period of time, but now this bleak, sorry injustice had infiltrated her dreams. The lost dance with Danny Toner attacked her subconsciousness, finding the barriers of her waking hours too stubborn to break through.

She asked herself if she blamed Alyster. Her dreams certainly seemed to suggest that she did, but as she thought about it now - as she was forced to think about it now, by the betrayal of her subconsciousness - in ‘reality’ she concluded that she didn’t. She didn’t know enough about the handsome man’s injury to lay it at Alyster’s feet, and even if the masked one was responsible for it, it would’ve come about between the bells. There was no culpability there, when viewed through a reasonable lens.

Why, then, did she feel such a burning rage when she considered Alyster Black carrying the FWA World Championship to the ring to face her? Danny’s injury was, it seemed, Destiny’s intervention, once more insisting on keeping them apart. Once more, she found herself walking down a lonely trail. Once more, her trail was a different one to Danny’s, although she still felt in her heart that these twinned paths would lead them to the same place. Her rage, she mused, should therefore be directed towards Destiny, though her arms were too short for this fight. Destiny was more than human, but Alyster wasn’t: and, now, he was a manifestation of the anger and sorrow she felt about the promised dance… a promise repeatedly promised, and now trampled beyond recognition.

Not long after she had emerged onto the deck, she heard a series of stomps from the narrow, spiral stairway that led down to the cabins. Soon enough, the captain appeared through the heavy, iron door, wearing long-johns, no shirt, a heavy trench coat, and his hat. She wondered if he ever took the last of these off. She’d never seen him without it. He was only momentarily surprised that he wasn’t alone on the deck, and slowly sauntered over to his guest whilst reaching into his pockets for his smokes and a lighter.

“Up early, Frau von Horrowitz?” he said, as he approached.

“What time is it?” she asked, in return.

“A little after four,” the captain replied. “Or maybe you’re just getting in?”

“No, I was sleeping,” she said. “But now I can’t. You’re up early, too. It’s your night off, no?”

"These night voyages you insist upon," the captain said, whilst lighting a long, thin cigarillo that smelled of vanilla. "They have me up at ungodly hours. Not that I'm complaining. It's quiet at ungodly hours."

Michelle nodded. It had been quiet, until he'd arrived. She was acutely aware of the stench of her joint, but the captain didn't seem to mind. When he wasn't focussed on his cigarillo, he grinned at her in the curious way she'd grown accustomed to.

"And what's chasing you out here?" he enquired. "More cracks?"

"Just that same one," Michelle said. "And the dreams."

She didn't begrudge telling him that much, but stopped short of giving him specifics. They belonged to her.

"Ah, you're a dreamer?" he replied, whilst taking a seat in his chair. Michelle continued to stand, staring out over the docks. "I haven't dreamed in years. Maybe you'll grow out of it, too."

She finished her joint and stubbed it out in the old coffee cup at the captain's feet. It hadn't been emptied since Köln, and was two-thirds full. She didn't like to look inside it for too long.

"I found your café," she said, whilst holding the man's gaze. He had a kind face in the manner that most old people do, but she wondered what it was hiding. It seemed incomplete, though at the mention of the café she sensed desire within it. "In the old town? It's still there."

The old man had an air of nostalgia about him as he made his reply, pausing only to smoke thoughtfully from his cigarillo.

"It's good to know that it's still there," he began. "It's been more than half a century since I was last in Vienna, and the girl I knew… well, I don't know her anymore. Don't know if she's alive, even."

The wind howled. The moon hung above them, as if listening into their dialogue.

"What was her name?" Michelle asked, after a long silence.

"I can't remember," the old man replied. This made her sad.

"We could go tomorrow, if you're free," she suggested.

The captain dropped his cigarette into the old coffee can. He reclined in his chair, as if content to sit here a while despite the cold wind rolling across the river. He thought about the proposal for a while, and then nodded in affirmation. His smile seemed more peculiar than ever.

"Well, good night," she said, finally.

"You'll try to sleep again now?” he asked. She nodded, whilst stuffing her hands into the front pockets of her jacket. "I hope it's a dreamless one."

She remembered the look in the handsome man's eyes, and hoped it wouldn't be.

…

…

[ three ]

The last breath lingered. Caught in her lungs. Her body burned. A moment of ecstasy surrounds them, hanging upon a thread. The air was released from her in one drawn out motion, her hand positioned upon his thick chest for balance, her senses overwhelmed by a fragility that came with this rare vulnerability. Her other hand was in his hair, dampened by perspiration and the sea, his eyes alive again with the fire she'd once known in her waking hours. A fire now denied to her in that other world… that cold world. A fire rekindled here, wherever here was.

With heightened senses she felt everything about her: the retreating evening sun upon her back, the dry, soft sand that clung to her skin and that her feet had burrowed into during the tussle, the gently shifting weight of the man underneath her, the slow throb of him inside of her, returning to his natural state after the expenditure. Her heart lurched, all of her blood drawn to it, denying her proper use of the rest of her body. Her legs felt weakened to the point of uselessness. All she could manage was to roll off him, but focus on any other idea still eluded her.

The red sun was disappearing over the lip of the world out to sea, dusk gathering around them. The beach was still deserted, and shrouded from unwanted onlookers by the high sand dunes behind them. They were alone, truly for the first time, and in this place Michelle quite forgot that there was anything else at all over the dunes or across the sea.

Her breathing slowly regulated itself, but her body still ached. Roared for something more, something that he couldn't yet give her. The dance was incomplete. Words were beyond her. She managed only groans, and an occasional whimper. She rested a hand on her own hip bone, but a ripple of tension ran through her as she did, and she withdrew it as if her skin was boiling water. Only his touch tempered the heat.

He stood, abandoning her and her volatile body, denying her his soothing hands. She watched and then followed as he walked out into the sea. It was cold, but she braced herself and swam out. She began to regain control of her body, gradually but noticeably, as she struggled to keep pace with his powerful strokes.

Eventually, he stopped, and turned to her. They treaded water as the sun set. His eyes were sad.

She followed his sad eyes to the shore, where another man had punctured their sanctuary. This realisation drove the air out of her, just as the strength of the handsome man's untimely climax had. If he was here, he had come from without. That was enough for the dream to collapse in on itself. To collapse upon its Dreamer.

The masked man sat on the shore, in the spot where they had been overcome by each other. His hands were stuffed into the pockets of his heavy trench coat, as if groping for something.

Dreamer began to swim to shore. It was time.

The handsome man grasped her arm.

"A little longer," he said.

…

…

Michelle sat with the captain in the courtyard in front of Café Moritz, and since they'd arrived she'd noticed that his peculiar grin had grown into something else entirely. He was still smiling, but his visage seemed a lot fuller than it had that morning. As if the translucent image had finally been given colour, and the nostalgia that occupied it until now was finally retreating from the foreground. He alternated between sipping his beer and sipping his coffee, a cigarillo rested in the groove of the ashtray between them.

"It doesn't matter?" she asked, whilst rotating her own glass in idle fingers. "That it's not her?"

"It matters," the captain said.