Writer’s Note: A while ago now, I wrote a novella. It was something that I had always wanted to do, and something that you’d probably be likely to spot on a really geeky bucket list. For as long as I can remember, I have always loved writing. Back on my Pentium 256 (or whatever the hell it was), I would sit for hours and type and type and type. There have been many failed projects that I have undertaken, some I finished (ask me about my screenplay that’s collecting dust) and others I didn’t (like a weird serial-killer fiction piece).
I guess the biggest thing for me with this novella was finally being able to actually finish something and publish it. Wow, that was like nothing else in the world. Although it was self-published, and not overly successful, last year I released “Keyboard Warrior.” It was supposed to be the first of a three-part series (yeah, the other two parts will come one day).
I am releasing the novella in its entirety over the course of a few days. I guess, for me, it’s less about trying to make money out of this, and more about sharing a passion. So, read. Share. Enjoy.
It always consumed him, what “they” said on the internet. Who are “they?”
“They” are quite possibly you. “They” are the guys that have a lot to say when it’s safe.
Dave sat there in his bedroom, eyes glued to his laptop screen. Each word he read was like a dagger in his heart. He didn’t mind too much that the lights were off. Well, he didn’t seem to notice really. He was captivated in what was being said about his friends and in particular about himself. As he continued to read, his expressionless face began to change. Things were starting to get ugly.
JohnSun101: LOL @ 2min 3sec in. Guy sucks
Wow.
What a waste of my day.
Looking down at the clock in the right hand corner of the screen, Dave soon realised that his day had now become night. He shook his head and continued to read down the page, scrolling casually past his replies to the good people of ProFighting.com from the day before. After a while, he reaches another post directed at him.
u dont know what u r talking bout, u dont even look like a fighter. Lolz
Dave shook his head. His fingers hit the keyboard with an impressive pace.
Thanks champ. I am sure that next time you hit the cage you will be able to show me how it is really done
After submitting his reply, Dave shut the lid on his laptop and got up from the chair. Looking out the window at the moonlight, he stretched his arms. It’d been a long week—training at the crack of dawn, work all day, more training and then sleep, well, for the most part. It had gotten pretty hard to sleep, especially with so much running through his mind as he lay there in silence. The dream was always there. Every time he closed his eyes all he could think about was the success he was chasing. Bed was such a good idea in theory, and Dave knew that he would need to rest eventually.
Dave leaned over and unplugged the laptop charger. With his left hand, he picked up the laptop and set it down on his nightstand. His head hit the pillow hard as he fell onto the bed. He closed his eyes and tried to doze off so that he could try and forget everything that had been said about him, but every time he tried to fall asleep his thoughts would run wild.
Lying there, all he could think about was his one chance to make it big in the sport he loved, and all the “keyboard warriors” that would tell him time and time again that he was going nowhere.
“Screw it,” he said to himself as he leant down to grab his laptop.
The light from the screen was blinding, but he didn’t really care. It’s strange the way your mind acts when you have an obsession. Nothing was going to stop him from getting on those forums, and in the past nothing did, not even the love of his life. He always tried to keep it out of his head when he went to bed, but tonight, just like every other night, he couldn’t do it.
Trying was one thing, succeeding was something else entirely. They got to him. When you are trying to make a name for yourself, it’s always harder to take the criticism. Sure, the biggest names of the sport cop it all day, every day. But Dave didn’t have that thick of a skin just yet. He wasn’t ready to be told that his dreams were just that—dreams that would never come true.
Dave opened the website again. It was obvious that this had become an obsession, and it was this obsession that had killed his relationship with the girl he should have been spending the rest of his life with.
“Let’s see what these guys have been saying now,” Dave muttered to himself as he checked the new posts on the forum.
A sigh followed as he scrolled through the same old stuff, time after time. It never really got old. Everyone always had something to say. Everyone was an expert.
It was his own fault though. It was like an addiction that he just couldn’t beat. He looked down to the video he had uploaded two days earlier. He hovered the mouse over it.
“Seventeen likes. Fourteen dislikes,”
It didn’t take long for the laptop to end up right where it was before. It hit the floor with a light thud as Dave let out another sigh. It killed him each and every time he read those negative comments.
Dave lay there with his eyes closed.
If only I could prove myself.
They will see…
I am gonna make it. This is what I was born to do.
Eventually his eyes closed and he drifted off. Tomorrow was a new day and another chance to keep on trying to make it in what was slowly becoming a saturated industry.
The high-pitched buzzing of the alarm echoed throughout the room. Reaching over, Dave slammed his hand on the off button and wiped the sleep from his eyes. An animated stretch and a yawn later, it was time to get out of bed and start the cycle that was his life. Slowly, Dave went to his walk-in wardrobe and pulled together his gym shorts and a white tank top. As he left the room, he stopped in the doorway and glanced back at his laptop on the ground. It was just sitting there. It was as though it was taunting him. Dave shook his head and continued on his way.
Making his way through his cozy townhouse, he eventually got to the front door. When he opened it, he found the sun only just rising. He took a deep breath, shut the door behind him and started with a slow jog. It was a great way to clear his head, to just let his feet hit the ground. It made things clearer, but also brought back memories.
“Jamie,” he said under his breath as his pace began to increase. For most people, the running would take their mind off heartache. Not for Dave. For Dave, it was the worst thing that he could do. They used to run together, five days a week in fact. It was one of the very few things that they had left in common after his obsession had taken over his life. Sometimes he would still look back, half expecting to see her beautiful smile behind him, but she had long left. She was now a mere ghost from a memory that had slowly started to fade away.
As he rounded the final corner of his morning route, the sun was now all the way up. It looked like it was going to be a beautiful day.
Dave arrived back at his house and barged through the front door. It was a bad habit, but since his neighbourhood was so safe he seldom locked his door in the morning. Panting heavily, he made his way down the hallway and back to the bedroom. As soon as he got into the room there was the laptop, sitting there, just wanting to be picked up. He reached down to the laptop and opened it. Planting himself on his bed, he double-clicked on the internet browser. The ProFighting.com page was already on the screen from the night before. As if it were a ritual, he clicked refresh and began to read the new content.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
This was now life for Dave. Sure, he had a job, but that was just a coaching gig at his gym. It paid well enough and allowed him to focus on trying to become a professional fighter, but it didn’t really fill enough hours in the day for him to be able to stop obsessing over what people on the other side of the world had to say about him. A day didn’t go by where he didn’t check Facebook, Twitter or the forums. Dave wasn’t even a professional fighter yet and this side of the business had consumed him. How much worse would it become if he did in fact make it?
Skimming over the new posts, one caught his eye.
“Looking for fighters in Orlando area,” the thread title read. His heart started to beat faster. This is the kind of thing that he is always on the lookout for, a chance to get inside the cage and prove just how good he is. He read over the post. His heart sunk.
“Not my weight class,” he muttered to himself as he slammed his fist on his bed.
When you try to make a living out of mixed martial arts, disappointment often becomes an accepted emotion. Most people look at their life as a series of peaks and valleys. For the aspiring professional fighter, it always seems that the valleys are much deeper and much more common. Closing his laptop again Dave looked over at the clock on his bedside table.
9:17 A.M.
Dave picked up his cell phone from the floor and opened up the Twitter app. His fingers moved at lightning speed as he updated the world—well, his 26 Twitter followers, at least.
9:19. Time to grind #fighterlife
It was a sense of fulfilment, and it was something that made Dave chase his dream even more. One day, there could be one million people hanging on his every word. One day, he could be “trending.” He could be the most popular fighter in the Twitterverse.
Slipping his phone into his pocket, Dave stepped up from the bed. He leant over and grabbed his work attire, a gym bag with a pair of sneakers, and debated whether he would take his laptop today. For a change, the phone was going to be enough. He could still keep up to date with what was happening in the world, and constant timeline updating would ensure he would never miss a beat, or the rare ”peak” that was always “just around the corner,” as Dave continued to tell himself.
In reality, the only thing that was just around the corner—and conveniently so—was his workplace. It took Dave all of about five minutes to get to the gym that he was fortunate enough to call his second home and his place of business. “Elite Fight Pro,” the sign out front read. It had been there for years, right on New River Drive. It didn’t look much like a gym, but looks can be deceiving.
The gym had been set up by a former fighter who had tried to make it big, but could never make the cut in the big leagues. He opened it up because he didn’t know any better. He didn’t have anything to fall back on. His name was Christian “Bulldog” Michaels. It wasn’t a name that many knew, but what he lacked in name value he made up for in coaching. Christian was the best coach in the Orlando area and many fighters in the state looking for a chance to take their craft to the next level would find their way to this low-key gym at some point in their career.
Christian saw something in Dave when he would show up to the gym seven days a week for eight hours a day. He saw commitment. He saw a fighter.
With his right hand, Dave pushed the glass door open. He was met with a warm “Hello,” from Michelle, the gyms receptionist. She had this hint of beauty that could make your heart race just like you were fifteen. Her long brown hair and olive complexion were a perfect match, and that smile, it was something else.
Walking through the foyer Dave took a right and started down the windy corridors towards the locker rooms. This place really was deceiving. From the outside, you wouldn’t expect it to be so spacious and never would you think that such a well-organized operation would take place inside a seemingly lower-level gym.
As an assistant coach, Dave got his own locker room. He opened the door and tossed his bag to the ground. After retrieving his mouth guard, gloves, cup and shin guards, he emerged. Not much time was spent in that room. If anything, it was a storage room. Dave would always find himself spending time with the fighters, honing his craft and helping them to do the same thing.
The first step of Dave’s daily schedule was always the exercise room. It was located in the room just across from his locker room and looked exactly like your average fitness gym with rows and rows of treadmills, bikes, free weights and other assorted exercise equipment.
“First things first,” he said to himself as he stepped up onto his regular treadmill. It was the same spot, the exact same time and the exact same speed.
Taking the time to warm up was a valuable lesson that he had learned early on in his career. Many would argue that his crack-of-dawn jog would give him the warm up he needed, but Dave only used that run to try and piece his life back together. It wasn’t about preparing for the gym, but rather about trying to recreate familiar emotions.
It was always about trying to recreate the past.
Inside the gym, things were so different. It was almost like the computer didn’t exist. It was almost as if the heartache faded.
On the treadmill, Dave meant business. He had a schedule, and he approached it like a man possessed. He knew, as each second ticked by on the clock, where he needed to be and he knew what each motion was doing to his body.
“10:26. Time to get to class,” he said to himself as he stepped off the treadmill. After wiping down the sweat, he made his way through the rest of the weights room, getting to the double doors at the end of the room. He pushed them open to find his class of four up-and-coming fighters sparring together in pairs. Names were always important to Dave. He knew what it was like to not be remembered, thus he always showed the fighters he trained with that courtesy.
The second that Dave got through the doors, they stopped their free sparring and stood in a line. They stared, awaiting Dave’s instruction, as he wiped the sweat from his brow.
Dave looked over his young prospects. The reality was that none of them were really that much younger than him. They just got started in the sport later or didn’t have the same opportunities that Dave had. They all respected him for his work ethic, but in reality, they were there to be trained by Christian.
There was Blair “Boy Wonder” Stevens. He was the smallest of the group, a featherweight fighter who had yet to make his debut. His upper body was covered in tattoos. In a past life, he was influenced by some bad people and made some decisions that came back to haunt him several times since he started to train at Elite Pro Fighting. Blair’s head was shaved and his frame was small, but he could pack a punch and knew all too well how to take one.
While Blair was the smallest, Jason Deep was the group’s largest. Fighting out of the heavyweight division, Jason certainly helped many in the gym overcome sizeable opponents. Not only was he packed full of muscle, but he was tall too. Jason towered over everybody else in the group and was always big for his age. His bleached blonde hair and pale complexion didn’t really go together too well, but what he lacked in physical appearance Jason certainly made up for with his skills inside the cage.
Next in the line was Stephen Davis, an All-American wrestler looking to follow the same path that former teammates had travelled before him. Coming from a very poor predominantly African-American neighbourhood, Stephen never took an opportunity for granted. He knew very well that every chance had to be embraced, and his respect for authority was second to none. Stephen was there for one reason: to become the best middleweight fighter in the world. His eye was always on the prize, and there was nothing that was going to take that prize away from him.
Then there was Billy Trenton. You always see a guy like Billy in the gym, no matter where you live or train. Billy was that awkward-looking kid, the one that had the weird boxing stance, the strange two-step jab and was always the kid that would somehow unbelievably get the victory. He was a new breed of fighter, much like Dave. This kid had raw talent.
“Good morning guys,” Dave started.
“Morning Dave!” All at once and almost in unison, they bellowed in reply. A smile came to Dave’s face and he tossed his towel to the ground.
“Continue sparring,” he instructed. They turned to each other and continued right where they had been when Dave had walked in. The start of his session always began the same way. Dave would circle the fighters and observe as they sparred together. Although it would seemingly make no sense, Stephen and Jason were going through wrestling drills. To his credit, Stephen was able to take the big man down, but couldn’t quite manage to keep him on the mat. Billy and Blair traded lefts and rights and would change their pace to no end. They could literally spar for hours.
Looking up at the large clock on the wall, Dave halted the sparring.
“Time for cage work,” he instructed.
They all made their way to the cage. It was overwhelming if you had never seen it before. Each time you step through that door, your heart begins to race. This is where these men wanted to make a living. This is where they wanted to be famous.
Dave started off by circling with Stephen, who immediately shot for a double leg.
“That’s good, now push me towards the cage,” Dave commanded.
Stephen obliged, pushing Dave firmly against the fence.
“Watch for the guillotine!” Blair shouted.
They all knew Dave far too well. Every single fight he had been in, he always tried it. Sometimes it paid off, but mostly it didn’t. Dave had locked his arms around Stephen’s neck and began to pull back.
“Come on, Stephen!” Jason bellowed.
A smile came to Dave’s face. Although he would not always go in to teach a lesson, so to speak, today was different. It could have come down to what he had read the night before, or it could have just been the jog in the morning, Dave didn’t really know what was going through his mind. He just knew that he had to show everyone that he didn’t suck. As the guillotine got tighter, a booming voice could be heard in the distance.
“What the hell are you doing!”
It was Christian.
Immediately, Dave loosened his grip and Stephen fell to the mat. Dave patted him on the back as Christian made his way into the cage.
“He has a fight next weekend, you idiot!” Christian yelled.
It was something that Dave should have remembered. After all, he was going to be cornering his teammate that night. Something had overcome him. His obsession was starting to make him do things he wouldn’t normally do.
“Sorry coach,” Dave replied.
“You are here to teach them Dave, not fight them. I didn’t hire you to help them lose!” Christian shouted.
Dave’s head lowered. He had done the worst thing possible. He had disappointed his idol.
“I don’t know what came over me,” Dave started.
Stephen was getting up at this point. He looked over at Dave with a smile on his face and extended his hand.
“Don’t worry about it, bro,” he said.
The two shook hands. It was always going to be water under the bridge, but each and every time this happened, the water level rose and the bridge slowly started to decay.
“Whatever it is, Dave, you gotta leave that shit at the door,” Christian instructed. “I know things have been tough with Jamie and all, but when you come here you have to do what is best for the team.”
Dave nodded in agreement.
“Alright, guys, time for pad work,” Christian said. He knew when to change the subject, and he knew when Dave had learnt his lesson.
Now that Christian was there, it was pairs again. Christian and Dave stood across from each other. As Christian held the pad up, ready for Dave to kick, a ringtone went off. Dave reached into his pocket without a millisecond of delay and pulled his phone out.
“What the hell are you doing?” Christian asked, looking at Dave in disgust.
“I got a notification,” Dave replied.
It was now official: social media had taken over his life. It was close before, but this was the final straw. Christian threw the pad down as Dave stood there with his fingers moving a mile a minute.
“Sometimes I really wonder…,” Christian grumbled as he walked over to Blair and Stephen.
Dave just stood there, absorbed by his phone. It was a reply to his tweet encouraging people to view his latest fight video. Dave stood there with a smug look on his face. It was always a great feeling when someone said something encouraging, and the words were often few and far between.
He retweeted the comment and slipped the phone back in his pocket. None of the other fighters had pockets in their shorts, but Dave always made sure he had his phone with him and had actually modified his shorts to ensure that it wouldn’t fall out during training. His customised, rubberised case almost made it look like he was on a construction site, but it did its job and ensured that his phone would safely make It through every session. All the while, Dave would never miss a moment of what was happening in the “never sleep” world of mixed martial arts.
There it was, another sign of how far his obsession had gone.
Christian stared at Dave and shook his head. Dave knew what was going through his mind. He knew that Christian disapproved of Dave’s uptake of the latest technologies.
“He is too old to get it,” Dave said to himself as he walked over to the group.
“Thanks for joining us, Captain Internet,” Christian said sarcastically.
“Sorry,” Dave apologised. It was starting to become the word of the day for Dave, who had been making mistakes more and more in training.
“You need to sort out your priorities,” Christian instructed. “This isn’t a hobby, Dave. This is a lifestyle. I thought you realised that when I put you on my team.”
“This is my life,” Dave replied sharply. He was starting to get himself worked up. He knew what Christian wanted, but also knew what he needed to do to be a success.
“All the big stars get on this stuff. They are always interacting with their fans,” Dave sought to justify himself.
“Yeah, but they also have fans,” Christian promptly rebutted.
The others laughed. They knew that Dave had “pie in the sky” dreams. They knew that he had this idea that the president of the American Fighting Association would one day stumble across Dave on Twitter and sign him up. They all knew better. They all knew that if Dave put his weird and life-consuming rituals aside, he could actually make it by fighting.
“Take the rest of the day off,” Christian said as Dave just stood there. “Come back tomorrow, and make sure you are one hundred percent. Stephen needs a good finish to his camp.”
Dave turned his back and left the team inside the cage. The second he stepped out, another notification chimed. Just like a reflex, Dave reached into his pocket and refreshed his app. Another reply, and this time a negative one.
This never-ending cycle continued. For every positive comment, there was always going to be something negative. In an industry where there are so many people trying to get their shot, it was always hard to give yourself a unique brand. Dave was just another soul that was getting lost in the big bad sea of fighters. He quickly put his phone back in his pocket, shook his head and went to grab his bag from his locker room.
This walk home was not like any other he had endured in a while. Giving himself time to reflect on where he was in his life seemed like a good idea. However, all it did was make him see what he was missing. Was checking that notification really all that important? Was it going to get him through the day? Was it going to be the big chance he had been waiting for?
No, no and No.