[I love dimly lit rooms. They have this way of casting everything in dimly lit ways. You can meet people in dimly lit rooms and only know dimly lit information about them. When something goes on in a dimly lit room, I don't care if it's dimly lit sport shenanigans or dimly lit conversations involving dimly lit characters, it's always going to be entertaining; In a dimly lit way, of course. I don't know what it is exactly, maybe it's the lack of seeing John Goodman on Television less and less nowadays; Maybe it's the fact that I can't seem to find a really good shampoo; But every major moment in my life has happened in a dimly lit room.]

[Everytime I get the chance to really drop out of my stupor, to come out of this daze we're all born into and take a quick look around before resurfacing, it's always in a dimly lit room. I haven't led a full life, yet, but I can say I've had several of these moments occur, and usually they create a change in me that always ends up for the better. But the one thing I can say hasn't happened in these dimly lit rooms, is having several of these moments fire up and take hold in my life. Like meteors crashing into a planet as it revolves around and around, my brain's neurons get stimulated, and suddenly I'm ahead in the game.]

[Sitting here, in this dimly lit pool hall next to a bunch of people I don't know, I feel that one such revelation may be on the uptake now. I try and make conversations with these people that doesn't involve my career, or who I am and what I do, but for the middle of America doldrums, this comes as part of the territory. I can try and make them think the way I do, but that would be like trying to convince the doubters to believe in that which they doubt, understand?]

[I can tell someone's eyes are on me even now as I just sit here staring at the wooden surface of the table my feet are now resting on. An old man whom I can only barely see out of the corner of my eye, is looking at me, or staring or something. My head turns slowly to meet his rusty old gaze, I can already see where this prospective conversation is going even before either one of us opens our mouths.]

Man: I guess you're famous, hmm?

[I stare at the man for a second. Most people that approach me these days recognize me as that guy that played Batman, Val Kilmer. So many people come up to me and ask me if I'm him... I can't see it. I mean, if I were to compare our respective photographs, I'm sure I'd see they're is absolutely no resemblance, whatsoever.]

[See? We look NOTHING alike. Just look at the contrast in colour there.]

Man: It must be fun to see all these people horde around you simply because they saw you on T.V one night, eh?

[I nod and smile offhandedly, trying to be as noncommital to a conversation as I can be without be so rude that this guy proclaims me an a^^ or anything.]

Man: You're a wrestler, eh?

[Again I nod.]

Man: I don't follow it much. Seems too made up.

Gaines: Most things are, when you really look at them.

[The man stares at me for a moment. And I see that although I don't really want to talk to these people let alone be near them, I feel have some need for human contact.]

Gaines: Yeah, I'm a wrestler. I wrestle in a promotion called Gladiator Wrestling Assosciation.

[Now, having the tables beginning to turn, the old man greedily takes his turn to nod at me.]

Gaines: Wrestling a guy named Sebastian Bock this upcoming Wednesday in New York.

Man: Is he any good?

[I look around me, thinking carefully.]

Gaines: Well, he's won titles in the past. I haven't counted but has to be at least three.

Man: And how many have you won?

[I bite my lip enough to feel the faintest trickle of blood get swallowed into my belly.]

Gaines: One, I guess.

[The man rests his hands on his knees and stares at me for a moment, measuring me up.]

Man: Well, there's a little problem, eh?

[I glare at him from the corner of my eye.]

Gaines: Little problem? How is it a problem? If Bock thinks that for a second his ring experience nullifies any I've had he can think again. He's won titles but never in the matches that really make a man. He's beaten people but none that can really test a man. So all this time he's been teaching those under him the ropes, well it's time he gets taught, isn't it? I've had the pleasure of fighting people that'll drive you to the brink and then some, and then shake your hand right afterward like nothing happened. I've been put through some bad scrapes that Bock has only heard about in reviews of movies of the week. I'm not saying I'm any more extreme than the next half-wit. I'm just saying I don't need any explanations for why I am where I am, or why I'm the one who is going to be walking away from this match with a grin on my face.

I can hear Bock already. Most likely on the phone with Johnny Storm, both talking about their respective matches, when Bock brings me into the conversation. Storm, in an effort to save face will mention something along the lines of "I can't believe you have to fight that chump" And Bock will laugh. Short memories, by the way seem to run through all those who get involved in the Methods of Violence. Bock will have no recollection of Storm's clinching defeat at the hands of your's truly, but he'll also forget that he's the one who has to face me on Wednesday. And after I run Bock's ass out of town, he'll still be thinking he's well off for it, which he probably is.

These two have so much in common, they do. Both ran around the GWA long before my presence was felt. I've heard it said that while the Cat is away the mice will play. Don't get me wrong, I respect Bock, I just don't see him having the RIGHT experience for this match. He can say he's beaten some of the greats, and that's all well and good, but he can't say he's ever beaten me. So if you think his simple bragging right of holding a few titles without ever having me in contention for them is a problem, you obviously haven't thought it through too well. Capiche?

[Out of nowhere I hear a loud voice boom into the room.]

Voice: CUT! That's a wrap.

[Coming out of complete blackness, a man I've never seen before, holding what could only be a megaphone. The man's general appearance seems so strange and foreign that I cease making note of it and concentrate only on his voice.]

Voice: That was great, Marcus. Thanks for doing that promo for us.

[I glance quickly at him. My surprise is unforgiving.]

Gaines: What do you mean? What promo? When?

[Turning to a confused look, he grins widely.]

Gaines: We were just shooting there? Without my consent?

Voice: [When the voice starts talking again, I find that the voice has changed now. No longer so much a man's voice now as it is a woman's. A familiar voice, however, one I've definately heard before, but I can't put a finger on where from.] Well, of course, Marcus. We couldn't just TELL you we were going to be filming there, could we?

[Something about that arrangement of words also seem familiar to me. I know I've heard them recently, or just a repeated phrase I hear a lot in my life. I turn to try and put a face to the voice finally.]

Gaines: I... I know you.

[A wry smile etched across her sultry lips.]

Woman: Do you now?

[Her arms fold across her chest, and the lighting around us gets much dimmer than it was before, to the point of being almost pitch black. I can barely see her, only a feminine silhoutte remains where she once stood. I reach forward, trying to grab ahold of her, hoping for some answers, but I come up with nothing but dust.]

Gaines: Uhm... hello?

[The air around me freezes. What are you going to do in the dark when it's this freezing? When extending my arms leaves me open to windchill, I'm sure something bad is happening. I try and bundle myself up as much as possible to combat the cold, but it seemingly seeps through the fibres of my clothes, and chills my very skin. Surrounded in pure darkness only serves to intensify the cold I'm feeling at this moment. I hear what can only be described as a drum cymbal crash starting from silence and slowly reaching a crescendo.]

Voice: [From out of nowhere, a raspy whisper comes from beside me, and right in my ear.] Marcus.

[I turn my head to match the voice, but I can't see any distance ahead of me, there is only the cold. If I concentrate carefully I can hear the slow, monotonous drone of winter wind sweeping over a wasteland. The sound of small dust sweeping it's way over an expressionless landscape.]

Gaines: Hello?

[Nothing. Not even an echo around to comfort me.]

Voice: [Louder this time, and from the opposite side comes the voice in my ear.] Marcus.

[I turn my head to face the new direction.]

Voice: You've been looking for me.

[I step back and away from the voice. The eerie feeling creeps into my nervous system, causing my breathing to speed up, and my heart to pump much more blood to my body than it would normally. All around me, I can hear something, only it's coming from one direction. But I can't localize it in my head. It isn't the voice this time, it's like some event is occuring in this place with me, but it has no contact with me, and vice versa.]

[It's people's vocies. Mine. But I can't make out the other.]

Gaines: You can't just leave me like this, you know?

Woman's voice: Why not? I don't want to be here.

Gaines: But I need you here.

Woman's voice: You'll get by.

Gaines: How?! I can't make it without you. I know it.

Woman's voice: You don't know anything.

Gaines: I've come so far with you.

Woman's voice: And you'll go much farther without me.

Gaines: Don't leave me.

Woman's voice: I have to. I'm sorry.

[I keep listening, hoping to hear more, but I'm left with the wind around me. I glance around in the blackness, hoping to be able to make something out among the nothingness, but I'm unable. From behind me, a very familiar voice comes.]

Angela Landsbury: Another world, created and destroyed.

[I turn to face her, finally seeing someone easily recognizable among the barren blackness that previously surrounded me.]

Gaines: What do you mean? What the hell is all this? Damn, I'm even more confused now.

Angela Landsbury: Why try and understand yourself, Marcus? Isn't it enough to just live life on your own terms? Or do you have to question that freedom as well?

[I glare at her for a moment.]

Gaines: Just f*cking quit it with your damn Yoda routine. I'm sick of this sh^t. Why does every have to be a goddamn riddle with you. I'm sick and tired of trying to see all the little hidden gems you slip into all our little conversations. Can't you just, for once give me something to go on?

[She simply stares at me for a moment. Like most people always do when given an ultimatum.]

Angela Landsbury: You want something to go on, Marcus?

[I nod.]

Angela Landsbury: I can't spell it any better than I already have...

Gaines: Try! For god's sake, try! I've been confusing myself worse than I already was with all of this.

[With an introspective stare she saw through me and saw exactly what I needed to hear at that very moment.]

Angela Landsbury: Have you thought about her much, Marcus? Debra I mean? Have you thought about what sort of connection she has with you? Remember how I asked you to think about that?

[I nod.]

Angela Landsbury: Have you tried figuring out, why exactly the only thing clear as day in your head is wrestling?

[Yet again I can only nod.]

Angela Landsbury: I want you to try getting there on your own, Marcus... think about all of these sounds....

[It's as if her face completely wipes itself from my view, leaving me again, cold and alone in the blackness of wherever it is that I am. That slow, low-pitched hum of the winds sweeping over the plains brings itself to the foreground of my auditory canal, by itself sending shivers down my spine.]

[Again, I can hear my voice coming up out of nowhere. Speaking again to something I can neither see, nor truly recognize enough to comprehend.]'

Gaines: So what exactly are you saying, doctor?

Doctor: Plain and simple... you have narcolepsy. You'll just sort of nod off and wakeup in strange places, it's normal enough.

Gaines: Yeah, but when I wakeup, I'm already standing. I don't feel like I've slept at all... not for a long time.

Doctor: Well, with Narcolepsy, you're just not getting the kind of sleep that you're supposed to. Hence, you won't feel fully rested. These memories you say you have are just dreams that your mind makes into real simply because you're not fully asleep when you think them up.

Gaines: But they're so real... I mean I actually believe I've been to the Eiffel tower... I ACTUALLY believe I've jumped off of it and walked away like nothing happened.

Doctor: If you're subconscious shows you something and you're in that little zone between sleep and waking, you're bound to believe anything your subconscious throws at you.

[The voices fade out exactly like the last ones had. And I'm left standing here trying to figure out what they mean. Are they related in some way? They'd have to be I can only assume.]

Angela Landsbury: [Her voice comes form far off, but it sounds right close to me, as if right in my ear like the raspy whispers of the familiar voice from before.]Put the two together, Marcus. Don't make me do all of the work here.

[I glance around me, trying to find where she'll pop up next, but instead she doesn't show herself. Again I'm stuck here in pure black, trying to figure out and finally lock together all of the little pieces of my life in one strange dream.]

[The voices come up again.]

Man: Hey, man... who are you talking to, there?

Gaines: Hmmm.. What?

Man: Oh, I was just walking by and you looked to be talking to someone, but that can't be... there's no one around. [Laughs loudly.]

Gaines: What do you mean, no one around? She's right there.

Man: Uh... right where? I don't see anyone.

[I keep finding myself waiting for more to be said, but each time I hear these voices, they end abruptly, and without warning. Left all alone in the blackness here, my mind doesn't seem to want to focus on the task I've been given. It's like the things I can concentrate aren't the things I'm supposed to.]

Angela Lansbury: Seeing it now? Catching on at all, Marcus?

[I look around, trying to find her, but find I can only really reply to darkness itself.]

Gaines: I'm having trouble grasping this... what does it all mean? What are these voices I keep hearing? Are these things in my head?

Angela Landsbury: The last two are real, Marcus... the first is simply something you experienced in your head.

Gaines: What? How is that... I mean how could that...

Angela Landsbury: [Her voice suddenly closer and the sound it makes lets me know she's close. I turn to see her standing right behind me.] You heard the doctor, didn't you? I mean I can't say exactly how long it's been going on... but you've been dreaming things up for a long time now.

Gaines: What?

Angela Landsbury: [Sighing.] Wrestling was the only time you were awake. When in that ring you weren't allowed to just fade out, like you would out on the street, or in a mall, or even inside your own home. Except it wasn't narcolepsy at all... doctor's always make mistakes like that. It's so hard to get good examinations these days.  Insomniacs never sleep, Marcus. They have so much time to just sit, and think, and get lost in their own heads. You've practically had a whole lifetime in which to experience these things... and it only took a few months to totally destroy it all, and to give you a totally new way of thinking.

[My breath, being taken from my lungs at an exponential rate, slows, and I fall to the ground for a moment trying to catch my breath.]

Angela Landsbury: [Crouching down and resting a hand on my shoulder.] Why waste time trying to find out how you got to where you are, Marcus. You said it yourself. If I were you, I'd rather not have things liek that going on in my head, too many things to focus on, taking away from a career that you're actually quite good at. Before, you had a life inside your head that took away from your true calling. It was a hinderance, Marcus. Debra was always there, doing things to you that you were just not ready to deal with. Look at it like this, Marcus... the most important match of your career back then was literally ruined because you had her on your mind; Who knows, you could have beaten Reina had you not had her on the ol' membrane, hmmm?

[My lungs seem to have almost completely deflated as the realization reaches full effect.]

Angela Landsbury: It got you into a lot of trouble, when you look at it Marcus. You wasted months just trying to make it in the wrestling world with her, and you got nowhere. And now, after being back for two weeks, you've gotten so much farther without her. You know what's best for you, better than anyone. And I think you realize that Debra Coleman was just a figment of your imagination; Albeit an entity in your mind that you thought you couldn't live without, but basically an imaginary friend.

[She stops to look at me, her gaze a comforting one.]

Angela Landsbury: Are you okay?

Gaines: I can't f^cking believe I had sex with an imaginary woman...

[Her laugh is loud and jolting, bringing back to my sense slightly.]

Gaines: Like, did that actually happen, did I just hump air? Or was it all in my mind?

Angela Landsbury: Uhm, I dunno Marcus. I don't see how that's really important.

Gaines: Of course it is. If I was out on the street or where talking to my little imaginary friends and people are walking by, thinking I'm talking to myself, well that's bad enough. But if I'm out in public humping street signs while thinking it's a real woman, that's going to be a problem.

[She laughs again.]

Angela Landsbury: If that happened, it happened before you got to where you are now, okay?

Gaines: If I was on my couch and humping throw pillows or something I guess that'd be okay... just nothing in public, you know?

[She nods, trying to move past the subject. As I go to glance around the area one last time, I find that not only has the blackness and the cold dropped away, but so has Angela Landsbury, leaving me laying on the floor of my hotel room. The lights around me, dimly lit, with smoke wafting around wistfully. I smile, feeling somewhat centred. I can't help but think: If an uncentred, imaginary friend creating Marcus Gaines could give so many opponents such runs for their money... than obviously Sebastian Bock was about to meet the most unbridled version of myself anyone had ever seen.]