BITCH! YOU FUCKING BITCH!!

Through the dilapidated house the words echo. He stands there, a half empty whiskey bottle in his hands, towering over his wife as she cowers against the yellowing wallpaper.

You'd love it if he crept in the back door and began touching you. DAMN HOAR!!

Words sputter out of his mouth, along with globs of spit and saliva. Anger is etched on his face as he clenches tightly at the bottle of Black Label. His cheeks have gone red as a vein begins pounding on his forehead.

I don't....I'm..I'm sorry. I shouldn't have looked out the...the window.

She pulls her arms up over her face as she tries as hard as she can to melt into the wall and just disappear. She doesn't understand what she did. She just looked out the window at the sunshine. She missed the sunshine, he never let her leave the house.

You were staring at him weren't you? FUCKING CUNT!

He knew what his wife was doing. He knew she was staring at the man working in his yard across the street. He does everything for her. He works hard at the docks every day. He provides for her. He gives her shelter and warmth. He saved her from the hole of a life she would have lived without him. She owes him.

I...I wasn't. I just wanted to see the sun.

She begins sobbing silently. She knows no matter what she says it's not going to change what's coming. He was so nice to her when they were dating. It wasn't until they were married, when they were on their honeymoon, that she realised she'd made a mistake with him.

Don't I give you everything you need? You disrespect me by dreaming of HIM! You should be kissing my feet for everything I do for you.

I'm sorry. You're right...right I shouldn't have been by the window.

She cried harder, it's coming. Any second now it's coming.

HOAR! FUCKING HOAR!!

He reels back and pitches the whiskey bottle at a spot on the wall, just above his wife's head. It sails through the air in slow motion. It hits the wall mere inches above the woman's head and shatters. Slivers of glass jump everywhere as whiskey is splashed onto the wall. At that moment everything stops. Footsteps can be heard from an adjacent hallway. Several second later Shane Jackson steps into the scene. He looks from the man, to the woman, then back to the man.

Shane: You know she puts up with this almost every day. He comes home and finds something to get angry about. If he can't find a reason to blame her for something he often makes it up, just so he can abuse her. Six years this has been going on. The day of their honeymoon was the first time he laid a hand on her, and he's continued ever since. In some small way this scene almost seems familiar. It almost appears to be the way John Miller is trying to break Jacob Star, in a manner of speaking. I'm not talking about the physical abuse, I'm talking about the intimidation. I've noticed that Miller's been trying to use his influence, his size and strength to gain the World Title.

Shane slowly walks over to the woman. He kneels down and brushes the hair away from her eyes. Her eyes are wet and a tear is frozen on her cheek. In his heart Shane feels sympathy for her. Nobody should ever have to go through this, but this is a scene from someone elses life. Someone who lives a million miles away from Vancouver. If Shane had the power he'd stop this, but he doesn't. He's only human.

Shane: She's got a fire deep inside her that she's yet to discover. That's not the case for Jacob Star. He's beginning to find his fire. Something in his life has sparked. He's gaining the confidence a World Champion needs to stay on top. I don't know why it's taken him this long to find his spark, but he found it. Maybe it was advice someone gave him, maybe it was something in his personal life but Star is now beginning his road a leader of the CWF.

Shane takes one last look at the woman's face before moving toward the man. As he approaches, the stains on the man's white shirt become clearly visible. His lips are wet this saliva, as the razor stubble stands out on his pudgy skin. His eyebrows are narrowed in a stare of hatred. In his eyes there only hatred. If it were possible Shane would reach through the man's ribcage and pull his heart right out. If only...

Shane: A face that represents what Miller is filled with. He's angry. He's upset that Jacob has the power he wants. He's trying to force Star into giving up what he's gained, what he beat Diablo for. If I had to make a guess, I'd say Miller is actually scared of Jacob Star. He's scared that someone younger is going to overshadow him. Being a Ten time Tag Champion doesn't hold much bearing today. There's no tag division left. No tag division, no titles. It's like all the accomplishments of Rated R have just been erased from Miller's career. With the stroke of a pen everything that made John Miller who he is has just been wiped away. How does he lash out? He goes after the one thing that he feels can fix it all, the World Title. It won't fix anything for him, trust me.

Shane glares at the man for another few moments before turning and walking away. He heads back up the hall he entered from and disappears. A split second later the life comes back to the house. Whiskey runs down the wall into the woman's hair. Across the room stands the man, breathing heavily. In a couple of strides he's crossed the room. He grabs the woman by the arm and pulls her to her feet, roughy. He raises one hand over his head, palm open and brings it down toward the woman's cheek. Just as he makes contact with the woman's cheek everyhting jumps to black.

It sits on black for few seconds before it fades back in.

No longer is it the inside of the run down house. It's a city street full of cars and trucks and busses. Oddly there's no noise. No sound of horns, no engines running, no sounds of people on the sidewalk. It's like everyone just blew away with a gust of wind. Cars sit empty, one even has it's left turn signal blinking, but there's no one behind the wheel. Busses sit abandon, seats devoid of passengers. Trucks, bearing loads of food or machine parts sit dead on their tires, nobody to guide them along the road.

A single sound begins echoing over the silence. A child crying. A toddler waddles suddenly waddles out from behind one of the empty cars. His eyes are wet with tears, his face red with despair. He wobbles along the street, his tiny running shoes padding on the pavement. He continues to wail, as tears begin driping down his cheeks and onto his yellow Winnie the Pooh shirt.

He continues to shuffle along the street, every few steps he stops and carefully looks around, then moves on again. He passes the front of a giant sky rise apartment building. As he passes he doesn't notice the movement in the shadow of the doorway. After the young toddler is several feet past the doorway a figure steps from the shadows. Shane Jackson. His hands are birued deep in his pockets as he watches the child move along the street.

Shane: Want to know what he's looking for? His father. Does he know where he is? No, he has no idea. All he knows is that at one moment he was holding his father's hand then all of a sudden he was gone. He looked up and the face that's so familiar to him was no longer there...nothing was. His hand was empty.

Shane thumbs the polaroid photo in his pocket.

Shane: What do you know about my demons, Kevin? You can look in my eyes and say you see them, but do you really know why they're there. Sometimes things are better left locked away that set loose. You may be curious about what I've got hidden away, but just leave it alone Kevin, don't open the box, learn from the mistake of Pandora.

Shane takes a long, deep breath. He squeezes the edge of the polaroid in his pocket, hoping that maybe he can make the image on it vanish, hoping that maybe, if he wills it, it will never develope.

Shane: You see that child Kevin? He's missing something. In my mind's eye that's you. You're lost and wandering. You look for something you can't put your finger on. You feel alone and empty. That's why you want me to give in to what's in my heart.You dont' want to be on your own anymore, you want to walk with someone who feels the same way to do.

From a distance down the street the cry of the toddler can still be heard. Shane looks in the direction of the cries, but makes no motion to go check on the child.

Shane: Keep walking Kevin. Walk right on past me. You don't need to try and dig up what's buried in my soul. Yes, there's something hidden there, but it's something you don't need to know about. You'll find what you're looking for somewhere else.

Shane turns and begins walking in the opposite direction that the child went.

Shane: Just keep walking.

Shane disappears from sight. A long distance down the road the toddler stops and turns slightly catching a glimpse of Shane's back. Before the toddler can actually understand that it's a person he's just seen Shane steps into a nearby alley. After a second the toddler lets out a long cry, turns and contines back on it's way. Forever searching for his father.