Title: "Tracing Back To The Past"        

         The snow fell into its rhythmic pattern against his window. The houseboat rocked in the shaky water next to the harbor's dock. Life was as typical in Portland, Maine. Life as it should be, or so the saying went. As he was concerned, he had been there so long, it's life as it had always been.


         
Or almost.


         
He looked into the mirror to see a face. He couldn't remember how he looked before. His beard was thick and long. His eyes peered from beneath thick, shaggy hair atop his head. This was who he was. Who he always was. Right? He pulled his hair away from his forehead to see the hairline. The sight was a ghostly memory of years past. 


         
Lint Douglas propped himself against the sink and stared at the faucet. A decade had passed. The public said he vanished, but he saw his reflection in the mirror each and every day. He knew the truth. His first career path with a stint as a correctional officer at the Oakland Juvenile Center didn't fit. He was guarding those who he once was. There was no room for sympathy in that career after wrestling. After. In the audience's eye, anything he pursued as a working man was irrelevant to his existence. To the existence of Zero. That man died the day he walked out of fWo. His heart wasn't in it. At some point in his career, who he was became a character of who he was supposed to be.


         
He realized, who he was needed to be had ran its course, and who he was meant to be needed to leave. Leave wrestling. And leave the East Bay. He traveled north to Oregon but there was no work for him in Portland. Looking at a map, he needed a fresh outlook. A clean slate. So he made the Portland to Portland drive to see what opportunity might bestow upon him. He had nothing in Maine, but he had lost everything on the West coast. Lost, in a hurried shuffle to relieve himself of everything extra. 


         
Lint looked back at himself in the mirror. Ten years in Maine. Who was he looking at? The man before him was older. A scar peaked out from his beard on his left cheek. Was the beard a way to cover even the literal scars? His right arm, once a pattern of tattoos, was covered over in a wash of solid black ink. Self-censorship. His attire now consisted of an assortment of general beige overalls and mud boots. It was a life of practicality. He had found solace, peace, and an escape from the world outside while on the Atlantic. It was objective, there was a goal, but he could sleep at night. He knew what the next day would bring. Natural disasters happened, but they were out of his control. He couldn't prevent them, and he knew it. This brought relief. A convenient coping mechanism, but as he scanned the history adorning each wrinkle across his visible face, he would accept it.


         
He looked over his shoulder to his bed. A plane ticket sat next to his packed suitcase. This upcoming trip brought back old terms. 


         
The phrase, "hardcore icon." 


         
A "reluctant hero."


         
What did they even mean? In the grand scheme, was there a point? Mere titles inside a circus of acrobats performing for a faceless, ever changing crowd each week. And for what? Fame and glory? A metal belt too large to function? At what point was he a character of himself?


         
What does that get someone? 


         
Why was he doing this? There was nothing in the wrestling world he had to prove. Every fan had long since forgotten his name. He was making an embarrassment of himself by stepping back into this spotlight. His legacy and period of activity was long forgotten. There was no protégé he could be brought in to put over and cement their status. People cared about other things. He was a relic.


         
He had nothing to offer. 


         
The past decade morphed a man once known as Zero into someone comfortable to let go of that life. Embracing the world as Lint Douglas, he formed only a shadow of the image once adorning coliseums. In the right light, the two were divergent paths of a single life. One could not exist without the other, but the latter had achieved something the former could only wish for.


         
Peace.


         
He looked back into the mirror, and down at the small photograph taped to the glass. It brought a smile to Lint’s face. With the spotlight warming up to shine once again, Zero was all that could protect this new life worth fighting for. He was the protector. He was the shield needed to maintain normalcy. Lint Douglas was sending Zero in his place.


         
He reached across the sink and grabbed a razor. He didn’t know what face he would see when the beard came off. He remembered an idea from dreams, but as dreams typically seem, the image was distant and blurry. But under the beard, he hoped he would find the mask belonging to Zero.