Post by Nicholas Atknight on Feb 19, 2022 8:27:34 GMT
Sometimes the world looks perfect, nothing to rearrange...
Sometimes you just get a feeling like you need some kind of change...
**********
Nicholas Atknight sits on the couch in front of the television. Except for infrequent trips to the bathroom and the occasional catnap, he's been in this same position for the last five days. That's when they buried his mother.
The TV plays from a tape. In the background is an instrumental of the Star-Spangled Banner while images play of rolling, golden fields intercut with shots of the US flag and a soaring eagle. Over this, a voice intones: "Channel Six now ends its broadcast day. Thank you for watching, and have a very pleasant evening." The image switches to a test pattern, then static. Next up: Channel Eight's sign off. They've gone with coastal images: surf, sun and sand (this particular Channel Eight is from southern Florida). Then, Channel Thirteen from Los Angeles with its palm tree motif.
Television stations haven't produced actual sign off footage for years. This is a custom job, a VHS tape recording stitching together hours worth of such vintage footage from over decades and a wide variety of places. It has been playing on a loop, nonstop, and the tape is wearing out, streaked with heavy static lines and audio distortions. Atknight is motionless as he watches -- if he can, indeed, be said to watch. He is expressionless. Vacant.
From the doorway, one of the mansion servants comes in carrying a tray with a television dinner on it. Slices of rubbery turkey breast and blender-smooth mashed potatoes in thick brown gravy. A dark, spongy puff of brownie. "Sir," the servant says, "will you take your dinner now?" The servants have been whispering to each other, unsure of what to do. Atknight has always been remote and reclusive, but this situation is extreme and not apparently getting any better. But their salaries are paid automatically by the Atknight Family Trust, so twice a day they heat up one of these nutrition-less TV dinners Nicholas always loved so much, the kind his mother always made for him, and set it on his lap. Sometimes they get left alone, sometimes they get picked at, never really eaten, but at least they keep him alive.
Atknight makes no answer, but neither does he fight it when the servant deposits the tray and makes to leave. Suddenly, however, Atknight's hand shoots out and grabs the servant by the arm. The servant tries to jump back, but Atknight's grip is surprisingly strong; he is a big boy, after all, easily over three hundred pounds. Atknight squeals like a stuck pig, and the servant is shook.
"What is it? What's wrong?!"
Atknight squeals again, as though he's suddenly incapable of human speech, and the servant looks around to find... the source of the problem. The VHS tape has finally given up. The picture has gone black and the broken tape flaps audibly inside the VCR.
Finally, Atknight releases his hold on the servant's arm and finds his voice. "Turn something on. Please, quickly, turn something on."
"Are you certain, sir?" the servant asks, rubbing life back into his sore arm. "Wouldn't you... like to take a walk, perhaps? Some fresh air might--"
"Television! Now!"
"Yes, sir."
The servant finds the appropriate remote control -- there are many lining the coffee table -- and switches inputs to the cable service. "Shall I find suitable programming for you, or--?"
Atknight holds out his hand to take the cable remote, and the servant dutifully hands it over, then makes a grateful escape to the hall. He does look forward to gossiping about what's happened with the night staff, however.
The only child of his long-widowed, recently deceased mother, and sole heir to the Atknight canned and frozen foods fortune, Nicholas sullenly flips through the channels, barely pausing for a half-second on one before moving onto the next. Click. Click. Click. This used to bring him such pleasure. There were days and nights (months, or years, or decades, honestly) where it was his only real source of comfort or joy. But now? None of it seems to matter or mean anything.
He knows this is not good. He knows that he is in trouble, real trouble. But Atknight cannot pretend to feel things he does not, and what he feels right now is... nothing. He passes unmoved by old, familiar sitcoms, new game shows, cop shows, cop shows, cop shows, hospital, hospital, cop, all of it seeming to blur together, but then
Professional wrestling. His first childhood love. Atknight moves to click over to the next channel, on auto-pilot. Hesitates. Sets the remote down. He remembers watching with his Dad late at night, staying up to watch the heroes of his youth, like Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant. He remembers playing wrestler, how his Dad would let himself be pinned, time after time. How Atknight secretly dreamed of growing up to be a wrestler himself, before... his father's car accident, his mother's drinking, and all that went with it. He remembers how his Dad always told him that Atknight could be anything in life he wanted to be. Anything at all.
Atknight briefly looks down at himself under the tray on his lap to take in all that he has allowed himself to become, then quickly back towards the TV.
The promotion on the set is IIW, a league he's been aware of for a while, but not watched extensively; it's never seemed right, without Dad. They're running an in-house commercial, talking about how they're always scouting for new talent, and if you have what it takes, and don't let your chance pass you by, and suddenly, like a remote control somewhere high above has been pressed, something profound clicks inside of Nicholas Atknight.
He is no wrestler. He's five-feet, six-and-a-quarter-inches tall. He's... a touch overweight. He has no athletic background, no skills, no knowledge apart from what he remembers from years of watching it on television. But what he does have, what everybody loves and nobody can deny, is: money.
"Jacob," Atknight calls, summoning the servant who'd brought him his uneaten dinner. When Jacob appears, Atknight continues, "Find a contact for Intense International Wrestling. Get me a meeting. Top brass. Whatever donations, whatever the cost."
Jacob is shocked. In his years working for the household, he's never heard Nicholas Atknight speak with anything approaching authority. But he quickly puts his surprise aside for the sake of his professionalism. "Right away, sir." He leaves again, and once more alone, Atknight watches television with a renewed intensity. It has taken him 47 years, but he finally, fully knows what he wants to be when he grows up. What he's going to be from this moment on.
As so often happens, Nicholas Atknight finds himself best expressed in the lyrics of an old television show theme, and he begins to sing, off-key, under his breath:
"Standing tall, on the wings of my dream. Rise and fall, on the wings of my dream. The rain and thunder, wind and haze, I'm bound for better days..."
**********
It's my life and my dream,
And nothing's gonna stop me now.