CNF-Alt. Prompt

                                                Alt. Prompt First Loss

It was around the third time Ceiro’s fist hammered into my cheek that I realized how badly this fight was going to end for me. It was Martin Luther King Jr. Day and there was a day-off from school and to make it sweeter my mom was home for the first time in months from her truck driving job. It should have been a good day and in a way it was but I just got the crap beat out of me first.

Ceiro is my younger brother by three years yet he outweighs me by ninety pounds and is now half a head taller than me. Watching WWE all the time when we were younger, and still do, made our favorite pastime wrestling or brawling since there was no set form except to beat the other to a pulp. I’ve always taken great pride in the fact that Ceiro never beat me straight up for all the years we’ve been fighting but nothing last forever.

On January 17, 2011 I woke up feeling like shit, I’m not sure how it happened or why I felt like I did, all I know that I was in agony. My legs kept cramping up when I walked, my ribs creaked with every deep breath I took, and my arms where little more than dead weight at my sides. It didn’t seem like a big problem at the time, it was a day-off after all and I would just rest all day except for one thing. Big, bad Ceiro woke up in a fighting mood and attacked me twice that morning. A tackle from behind followed by a flurry of punches before I could react. By the second one I managed to sneak in a punch but there was no power behind, I was so weak. I ran out of the house, away from Ceiro; a cowardly act but feeling so powerless and helpless unnerved me.

That fear eventually turned into anger after some alone time outside; there was only so much my pride would take before my male ego forced me into action. I walked back into the house and quite calmly punched Ceiro in the gut. For the next five minutes Ceiro continued to thrash me; most of that ninety pound advantage comes from pure muscle and he used it to constantly slam me into the ground. My body grew numb after some time so most of the blows didn’t hurt, even the straight punches to the face. I was on the ground again; the left side of my face had a pleasant tingle and warmth to it, when I saw my first opening. I lashed my foot out in a wide ark and managed to sweep Ceiro off his feet and on the ground.

I can’t really explain the feeling I get when an opponent falls down, when they become vulnerable. The only likeness I can compare it to would be like a shark smelling blood or a lion sighting a zebra with a broken leg; a fierce predatory glee. All pain or numbness didn’t even register in my mind as I launched myself at Ceiro, driving in elbows and knees into his chest and ribs. He managed to throw me off but I was out to finish the fight off. I jumped onto his back and locked my leaden arms around his neck in a sleeper hold. It should have ended right then and there but Ceiro was still too strong and he stood up with me on his back, grabbed my arms and flipped me over his head and down hard onto the floor.

I snapped, the frustration, humiliation, and fear was too much for my pride to handle. I rose up, roaring with all the pain and rage inside me and punched out with all the strength I had; it was pitiful. Ceiro caught my wrist mid-punched, gave me a shit eating grin, and punched me in the face. I went down, I was beaten, I had lost.

I lied on the ground for about an hour, the shame of my first true loss to Ceiro burned hotter than any punch. Doubt wormed its way into my head, self-loathing following right behind it. How could I possibly be this weak? This helpless? The burning shame pushed me onto my feet; a new drive set my purpose, losing one match out of hundreds inspired me like nothing else. I would never be this weak again.

CNF-Character

                                                            CNF-Character

            Snob: Someone who believes that some people are inherently inferior to him or her for any one of a variety of reasons, including real or supposed intellect, wealth, education, ancestry, taste, beauty, nationality, et cetera.

            “Oh come on, you’re not done yet are you? I haven’t even warmed up yet.” Eighteen year old Michael Giandalia goaded on to his fallen opponent. The crowd of teenagers all roughly the same age, hooted and laughed like the immature hooligans they were. The always seemed to love Michael’s ‘superior than you’ jokes.  They were all in a poorly- lit basement under a bar, cold concrete floors and walls where padded with cardboard, the bitter stench of alcohol and sweat mixed together with the heat of a dozen bodies moving and bouncing in the confined space. It was a hellish kind of place but to Michael it was a dream come true.

            Two months back Michael watched a film called “Fight Club” a really disturbing movie but what captured Michael’s attention was the actual fight club. Michael’s favorite activity was to fight but there weren’t too many options to partake in that activity and after his parents bailed him out him out of jail for starting street-fights he thought he had to find a new hobby. But after watching “Fight Club” an idea took hold. Michael started to gather fellows that loved to fight as well, most came from a dockyard near Michael’s house that were looking for the next thrill besides getting high or drunk. They weren’t the smartest lot but they didn’t need to be, Michael needed punching bags not book bags. Next he asked to use the basement under the bar his father owned for their base of operations. His father accepted, “At least he won’t start any more street-fights and be sent to jail” he reasoned. Just like that Michael Giandalia had started his own fight club.

            “Now all I need is to find a guy named Bob with bitch-tits and I’ll become a real-life Tyler Durden” Michael absent mindedly thought before running a knee into the ribs of his opponent, Jeff or Jack, Michael thought his name was.  Jeff/Jack grunted out between a split lips and was on his back clenching his bruised ribs. It wasn’t a contest from the start, Michael was the best fighter in the club and Jeff/Jack was a newbie dope-fiend that one of the guys recruited just yesterday. It didn’t really matter to Michael who he was fighting; destroying a softie was as funny as fighting challenging opponent. But this was the best part of any fight; when his opponent was down and Michael started to cut loose.

            “You really are pathetic you know, nothing more than dirt between my toes.” Michael always insulted his opponents after they went down. Verbal abuse was as enjoyable as physical and Michael loved to brag on how great he was. “Pitiful clowns like you shouldn’t be able to even look at me.” It was a wonder why anyone came back to Michael’s fight club at all; he spared no one in letting them know how insignificant they were to him yet they kept coming back. Maybe they just really loved fighting or just to have the chance to deal damage to their tormentor. “Or maybe I am a real-life Tyler Durden” Michael thought while wiping the blood off his knuckles and watching the next two people fight, not quite sure if that idea excited him or terrified him.

CNF-150 words

I was enjoying my summer; sleeping, dreaming all day and meditating at night. I was learning to improve my spirit power, to unlock my third eye when I received the warning.

 A half-crazed woman with raven-hair and tan skin appeared in my dreams. “It’s all your f**king fault, he only started to kill those under his sign when you were born!”- She meant Scorpio by his sign- “He’s after you now and His seven-signs are stronger than your five.” For weeks my dreams were haunted by a shadowed-figure, the seven-sign man controlled dark energy and my stomach would turn cold and empty whenever I saw that shadow; fear.

I soon realized that I needed to become dark to in order to stop him, sacrificing my light for darkness and I did. Soon the fear that twisted my gut didn’t belong to me, it was all his now, I defeated him

CNF-Food

Spaghetti was dinner for tonight, relatively easy to make and can be eaten for about three days or so but you have to make a huge pot. Feeding two adults and six boys is quite a challenge. My mom said she would make it against my wishes since I wanted to make it. Last year I had to cook all the family meals for seven months while mom was truck-driving. I became especially good at making spaghetti, better even than my mom could make or so I thought. My mother’s pride and mine would never allow us to agree on which one was better.

Anyway my mom started to gather the ingredients; one and a half package of short noodles, six cans of Tomato & Basil sauce, and a huge block of meat that may or may not be a pound heavy. Frying the meat is easy; all you need to do its chop it up, mix it around and smack any thieving hand that gets too close. Cooking noodles is even easier; just boil it in water til its soft. Although the first time I made spaghetti it tasted like mushy, paste. Facts I still entirely blame on my elder brother, what sort of numskull can’t tell if noodles are undercooked or not? Only a fool can’t cook sauce and momma ain’t no fool and she stirs it in a separate pot. I prefer to cook the sauce with the fried meat so when I add sugar it looks like a warm, tangy, blood-red stew.

Mom finished and dumped everything in a stupidly huge pot and was stirring it all up. My brothers would sometimes crack jokes that she looked like a witch stirring a cauldron and mom would cackle and flick sauce at us. There’s no table in the house large enough to sit us all so everybody had to grab a plate,  serve themselves and wander off somewhere in the house to eat. The problem is there’s always a dispute of who gets to eat first. By the laws of the nature the strongest eat first and that’s how it mostly is at dinner time in my house. Mom eats first then it’s either me or my older brother and then I don’t really care who eats next.

After a heavy dose of parmesan cheese I wolf everything down yet still savoring the flavor. The noodles are well cooked, the meat is perfectly brown and the sauce has a bitter flavor to it that comes with the pounds of herbs, spices, and giblets mom love to drown the sauce in. When my hunger is sated I complement mom on her mediocre dish and she graciously accepted while hurdling her fork at me

CNF Picture

            He looked so happy, he looked so soft. He was wearing a small, black buttoned-up shirt with a ridiculous red tie; his pants resembled a checker board in design as he sat in very small chair. He was squealing in delight at whatever the photographer was doing to grab his attention. Behind him is an iron grey screen that is streaked diagonally like it’s raining. His hair was shaved on the sides of his head which was the ‘style’ back then. The small, chubby hands where resting at his sides. The year and a half baby was in his first official picture and he looked so…weak. That would all change as he aged; the boy would make sure of that.

            The boy was born into a pagan family of three brothers and his mother. From his mother the boy would learn all there was about the metaphysical world and magic. The boy will be enchanted by this world of his mother; he’ll study anything dealing in spiritual work; mostly about angels, necronomicon spells, astrological signs, spirit work. The boy did this mainly for selfish reasons though; even now he can’t exactly tell why he lust for power. Along with his brothers he developed a near obsession for fighting. It started with watching Dragonball Z when the oldest brother was nine and the youngest was six months. As the brothers grew in size so too did their rumbles grew in destructuction; they saw nothing wrong with broken windows and caved in walls if they could be easily covered. The boy’s relationship with his sire would be monotonous; the first time they met his sire took the boy’s popcorn which somehow caused the eight month old baby glare… They never seemed to be able to mend that bridge.

            As they boy grew into a teenager he became dissatisfied with what he considered to be a human weakness; emotions. To do away with those pesky mortal problems he blocked them out them through excessive mind work. He would sharpen his mind into weapon that would eventually turn him into a clever, bitterly sarcastic person. He would sometimes stay up all night thinking or meditating on ways to banish his emotional side. When he fought with his brothers his fighting style would mirror his mind frame. Although having no advantage in strength or even considered quick-footed he would fight with an intensity few could match. He would eventually refine his style into such a way that he would be able to defeat opponents a hundred pounds heavier than himself. He was silent fury incarnated at his best, borderlining cruelty and ruthlessness that was only matched by his own conscious. When the boy turns sixteen he will pride himself on the potential weapon he becomes, a weapon only to be used by one man; himself.

            Although emotions still proves a problem for him, sadness and disappointment being the most prominent. Suppressed emotions are not perfectly bottled up; they just hide until the breaks lose in the most inappropriate time. Negative emotions always seem to be the ones to slip past the boy’s walls.  Still he learns to get by, his quest for power helps to guide him and accomplishment, scholar-wise, occupies his time in the present. However, whenever those sentimental feelings return he will sometimes gaze at the picture of his year and a half self and ponder how someone as strong as he was something as weak as that.

            Still it must be said, I was a pretty cute baby.

CNF-Monolouge

John Cena’s Heel Turn

            So here’s the deal Cenation, I’m trying to convince Mr. McMahon to let me turn heel. To the ‘little jimmy’s’ out there that don’t know what I’m talking about a heel turn is when a good guy suddenly turns into a bad guy. Now the steps for a successful heel turn is either, A) Betray your tag team partner or ‘brother’ for selfish reason or, B) You attack everybody else and insult the fans any chance you get. Being the present-day Superman of the WWE, I don’t have a partner because Superman doesn’t need a partner so Option A is out. I could squash all the jobbers and those ‘would-be main eventers if I joined Vince’s ‘Kiss My Ass’ club, the problem is that my fan base is 95 percent made of children and chicks that dig my muscles. This wouldn’t be a problem if it was still the attitude-era but now since Vince decided to go PG, most of the fans are kids whose balls haven’t dropped yet and would stop watching if the saw their Superman turns evil. I could always go back to my rapper days, making up witty rhymes and acting like I’m black but being the face of a company means I can’t sag my pant anymore. O well, at least you'll see me becoming the new WWE Champion every few months.

            Word Life

CNF Dialouge

The action of lying is a complicated thing.

“Did you know how this happen to him?”

“No”

The first part is always the easiest, a simple ‘no’ or ‘yes’. But then the tricky part is convincing the fool you’re speaking truth.

“Are you sure?”

“Yea, I don’t know how he broke his leg.”

You have to balance a calm demeanor with some undertones of emotions. The easiest way to do that is turn the accusation on the accuser.

“What? You don’t believe me?”

“Of course I do.”

The quintessential part is your face and eyes. To convey a certain emotion like surprise or confusion it is very important that you don’t overdo it.

“Then why are you doubting me?”

“I’m not I’m just trying to find the out what happened to your brother.”

You over-dramatize an emotion and it’s clear you’re lying or hiding something. A half-second or so should do the trick. It’s the same with tone, small hints of anger or sadness in your voice is perfect.

“I already told you the truth, mom”

“I just thought you would know. You guys went to the park together didn’t you?”

It’s also easier to lie if you mix in the truth with your deception. You’re not technically lying if you add in some truth. There is deference between the truth and honesty.

“Yea but he ran off with his friends after a while. He was gone for twenty minutes before I found him.”

Also it is very important that you don’t adopt an emotionless mask while you’re lying. To little emotion is as suspicious as too much.

“Well thank you for being honesty with me”

“No problem”

If you’re lucky you won’t hear your subconscious chanting, “Liar, LIAR, LIAR!!!”

CNF Memories

              The punch was off its mark, instead of hitting my cheek it glanced over my lips with only half of the power behind it. Still… it was enough to shred my lips against my teeth, filling my mouth with the bittersweet taste of my own blood. I was fading, my arms where dead weights at my sides, my legs burned in agony from delivering numerous kicks and knees, I passed my breaking point five minutes ago and yet I fought on. It took me awhile to realize how much I was enjoying myself, relishing in the dark joy I only experience when I partake in my vicious, little ‘dance’.

            The love for fighting started when I was five, watching Dragon ball Z and shuddering in excitement when the heroes bellowed in pain or fury. Progressing into WWE when I was ten and being hypnotized by their furious, if staged, antics. My brothers were just as enchanted as I was by the deadly ‘dance’, each of us making it or life’s mission to be the supreme master over the others. The excitement and cruel sense of pride would radiate through me whenever I was victorious. The empowering sense of triumph as I stood over fallen opponents was intoxicating. My frame of mind would change; no distractions or wayward thoughts passed through my brain, nothing else mattered except the moment. ‘Quiet Intensity’ or ‘Silent Fury’ is what I personified when I ‘danced’. Feeling the aura of power burning in my blood like liquid fire let me know that I was invincible.

            Now I was losing, my body was beaten and bloody, and my tormentor was too strong this day for me to overcome. Yet I was happy, elated that my opponent was a challenge; pummeling rivals is very satisfying but nothing beats facing an opponent stronger than you. I would adapt, I would become stronger and faster to challenge to best my tormentor in the future. The knowledge that I would once again become invincible numbed any feeling of failure over the defeat but not the pain. The pain never really gets blocked out, but over the years I almost started to enjoy it. I smiled a bloody, almost demonic smile and waited for my older brother final assault.

           

Why I Write

I've actually written a book once. In the fourth grade my teacher had us write a story and she made the whole cover-thingy so that it looked like a real book...except for the poorly drawn picture on the cover. Anyway we were supposed to write about anything that came to mind as long as it was school friendly. My story was about a pride of lions and a huge salt-water crocodile attacking gods and it was up to a Nile crocodile to save the day by defeating the other croc and making a rainbow to appease to the gods. I have no idea where I got the idea for that story from and now that I think about it, it was the damndest plot I ever heard but all the same I still somewhat proud of what I wrote just because I alone came up with that story and I would still have that book today if my mother didn't 'misplace' it somewhere. So that was the start of my writing I wasn’t exactly enchanted by it since it was the only thing I wrote for fun in the next six years.

 Just last year in my English class Mr. Underwood had us write in journals for writing practice I guess and we were supposed to fill them out by the end of the year with whatever floated our boat. Mid-way through the term I only had one-eighth of the journal filled so then I just decided to write stories in it to take up pages. I had, if I say so myself, became a great storyteller over the years so I thought it shouldn’t be a problem. The first story I wrote was about a troll named Wiglaf that I killed and I realized I was enjoying make up stories but they weren’t exactly as… personal as I wanted it to be. No matter how good you can lie being attacked by a ten-foot troll with a silver spear coated in the blood of the hydra just can’t be read as nonfiction. So I decided to write about some of my more memorable and somewhat psychotic dreams and nightmares I’ve had and some of the more vicious battles I had with my brothers. I came to find that I loved writing about past experiences even more than my made-up ones because I could write about it easier and they had all the intensity of a real-life situation, or however real a dream can be. My friends loved my stories as well but that was just an added bonus, what I realized that I truly enjoyed and was entertained by my stories; which was a big thing for me      . For the past ten years or so the only other thing I truly enjoy is fighting and it’s nice to have a hobby that’s isn’t so painful or damaging.