by Storm

She sees the orange of a waxing moon.
She hears the low, throaty call of a nameless creature.
She smells an effluvium of burdock, pine and Wild Turkey.
She feels the clinging wetness of the leaves upon her feet.

Her hair, the clothes she wears, these are not Kaitlyn.
The colors she sees, this is not Kaitlyn.
"The color is blue," she murmurs.  This is not Kaitlyn.
She tries to beat down an increasing sense of aloneness.
All of these things are billowing heaps of ash.

Kaitlyn learned need and desire, soon after she was born.
She learned to dread not knowing as she tumbled herself over 
in her mind, like clothes left in a hot dryer far too long.
Kaitlyn is a wheel spinning in the Void -- 
once turning it desires anything but stillness.

She yearns to drink at the font of becoming,
as a young camel thirsts for life-giving water,
after a shriving journey through its first sirocco.
Everywhere Kaitlyn turned, 
but she found only her fear, her will, her
understanding and everywhere, 
like a dark tarantula slowly crawling up her arm,
there was this craving.

"Kaitlyn" perceives that she does not live in the moment --
she is the moment.  Each space of time is a footstep 
in a journey she walks alone.

I am sorry, but there is this dank wall of detachment between us.
I played in a foggy old wallow of metaphor and imagined
that I was healing myself, making bad feelings go away.
In reality I plied the Mason’s craft and piled up cold bricks of 
“why can’t you just accept me the way I am” 
                             and 
“if you can’t deal with this then I don’t want to talk to you.”

Now this killing silence makes me feel like the Necromancer.
Not brooding alone in my lonely tower, of course, 
but cut off from the blood of my life just the same.
The others are human enough, 
but their essence reeks tellingly of unlife.
Yet, if I built this dank wall, 
my father my mother my sister my brother,
then you laid a foundation that is firm 
and thinks it has all of the very best answers.

(Upon this rock I built my Church?)

How? . . .
It seems that I am a crafter of dead things, 
following tired lay lines along crumbling pathways
of anonymous bonemeal.   
Perhaps what I want most I understand least?
I feel like a man who loves a woman’s corpse,
dissects her, 
tries to bring her back to life,
but he is left with a pile of cold meat, 
too late’s, and what could have been’s.

"An Interview With Storm" by Y. Acoff

When she agreed to this interview, I had just met Storm in the back parking lot of a bar in Sacramento, California. I had seen her perform that evening. It was the first time I had attended a pro wrestling event. Her part in the ballet that is professional wrestling consisted mainly of accompanying a very large, very sweaty fellow out to battle another even larger, very sweaty fellow. When her man was losing, she distracted the referee and belted the other guy over the head with a set of leg irons the size of Massachusetts. How the referee missed it I'll never know, but there it was. Her guy of course pinned his opponent and won the match, but the fun wasn't over yet. While the ref was raising the victor's hand, Storm jumped into the ring and snapped her still bloody cuffs around the prone wrestler's leg and then the ring post. (She had obviously done this sort of thing before.) Then Storm started beating him with this mean little red and black whip. Her guy must have finally gotten tired of the spectacle, because after about a minute of this he threw her over his shoulder and walked out of the arena laughing his fool head off.

Storm put her arm around 'Tombstone', a man with no hair and no eyebrows for that matter. His arms were a canvas of tattoos and a testament to a lifetime apparently spent in the gym.

Acoff: Is it ok if I ask you some questions that will give our readers a general sense of what you are like as a person and a wrestler?
STORM: You'll mention my website? http://www.ns.net/~main.htm. Here's my card.

Acoff: Absolutely.
STORM: Ok then. Sure. Whatever. Fire at will.

Acoff: What is your real name?
STORM: Mistress Storm.

Acoff: Is "Tombstone" your boyfriend?"
STORM [smiling up at "Tombstone"]: No, we are "just friends".

Acoff: Is there anyone special in your life right now?
STORM: Is this an interview or an obtuse way of asking me if I'm available?

Acoff ["Tombstone" is starting to look at me a little funny. I resist the urge to flee. I know it would do me no good]: Sorry, not at all. Our readers are just curious. What is your greatest achievement to date?
STORM: Beating Rocky Marciano for the undisputed championship of the world in 1923.

Acoff: Why did you decide to get into professional wrestling?
STORM: The career opportunities were better than selling my slaves' blood or being a bouncer at a "men's club". And a lot more fun.

Acoff: What is your most inspirational experience?
STORM [suddenly looking very serious and speaking more quietly]: Watching my grandmother, who was a midwife, save the lives of both a mother and her newborn. The doctor was thirty miles away and never would have made it in time. I was like ten at the time. When I think the world is cruel or evil, I think about her and that moment.

Acoff: What would you like to be reincarnated as?
STORM [laughing]: Well, ultimately, if we postulate that the Four Nobles Truths are in fact true, I would like to not be reborn. But barring any immediate Enlightenment, I'd like to be reincarnated just as I am now, only more so.

Acoff: What is something you would never do?
STORM: Pass up an opportunity to be noticed by people, or kick someone's ass who is annoying my friends. Hey, that's two answers for the price of one!

Acoff: When and where were you the happiest?
STORM: Remember the story about my grandmother? Right after we knew they were both going to be ok.

Acoff: What is your idea of perfect happiness?
STORM: Realizing there is no such thing as perfection in the world and being cool with that.

Acoff: When was the last time you cried?
STORM: When I last cut onions. I'm a really good cook by the way.

"Tombstone" says something I didn't quite catch, but he obviously agrees.

Acoff: How would you like to die?
STORM: You're a depressing little animal! Um, I'll let you in on a little secret so long as you promise not to tell anyone who doesn't read your magazine. I don't plan on dying. I've cut this deal with a gentleman and his multiple personalities in ... I can't say where exactly. He's offered me unlife and immortality in exchange for a regular supply of ... I can't say what. But I can give you his card if you're interested.

Acoff [laughing]: No thanks. What is your greatest regret?
STORM [rolling her eyes]: That I didn't get into professional wrestling before I was born.

Acoff: What is your most treasured possession?
STORM: My AR-15. His name is Katie. He is my friend.

Acoff: Living person you most admire?
STORM: Julius Caesar.

Acoff: Living person.
STORM: "That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange eons even death may die." Learn it, know it, live it.

Acoff: Person you most despise?
STORM: Flavor of the month on that one, I'm afraid.

Acoff: What character from books or film do you see yourself as being most like?
STORM: An alchemical blending of Hollywood Hulk Hogan, Saint Teresa of Avila, and Bela Lugosi.

Acoff: Any hidden talents?
STORM: Lots. One is that I can read Latin, and balance a checkbook to within four head of cattle.

Acoff: What is always in your refrigerator?
STORM: The inside of the refrigerator. The laws of three dimensional space and all of that. Ever read Flatland? You ought to. It's a really good book.

Acoff [laughing]: No I haven't but I will. If you had a superpower, what would if be?
STORM: Well, I do have a superpower, but I'm under contract with the philosopher beetles of Aldebaron III to keep it entirely under wraps until December 17, 2003. But hypothetically speaking, if I had a superpower it would be to cause both my own and other people's skin to become transparent at will. [giggling] That would be really cool!

Acoff: What is your greatest extravagance?
STORM: Monetarily, I'd have to say leather stuff and fast cars, in that order.

Acoff: If you could change something about yourself, what would it be?
STORM: I'd try to be less like everyone else. I'm way too much the girl next door type.

Acoff: What is something people would be surprised to know about you?
STORM: That I have a huge collection of stuffed bunnies and I was painfully shy growing up. Can I go now, please? The natives are getting a little restless.

Acoff: It was very nice talking to you. Thank you so much for your time, Storm.
STORM: Sure. Likewise. Here's a present to remember me by.

Storm hands me a man's size 12 tan Bostonian dress shoe and runs over to "Tombstone". She jumps on the back of his black and silver Harley and they roar off laughing into a sultry Sacramento night.