[FICTION][11/10/25]Mankind
by William Walsh
Appropriated From Mankind: Have a Nice Day! A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks by Mick Foley. Regan Books, 1999.
Mankind on TV Mankind in the ring Mankind was a legendary performer in the ring Mankind could raise goosebumps on your arm Mankind on Pay-Per-View Mankind as the heel (bad guy) Mankind needed to be a heel Mankind had a heel persona Mankind was a great heel because he was so damn big Mankind was a great middle heel Mankind was a pudgy sneaky heel Mankind as the most hated heel Mankind as the number one heel Mankind as the hotter heel Mankind as the hottest heel Mankind is the story of a man who as a child dreamed of entertaining the masses inside a wrestling ring Mankind in the ring Mankind is really going to wrestle Mankind is wrestling with his buddies Mankind in a church basement Mankind was talking about the Kingdom of God—not the King Dome Mankind got a college education Mankind began throwing lefts and rights Mankind slapped his hands on the mat and came up shaking his fists Mankind consumed food of questionable origin Mankind absorbed through osmosis some understanding of what a referee does Mankind learned to work the mike Mankind is good television Mankind is the new hardcore Mankind wrestles his ass off Mankind does so many things that look inhuman Mankind would walk around with his Johnson blowing in the wind Mankind with his balls showing Mankind was talking to a girl with huge hooters Mankind was talking to her Mankind puzzled by boobs Mankind with his testicles in turmoil Mankind feels his nads Mankind had a sexual relationship with that woman Mankind went on a short run of rampant promiscuousness Mankind was talking too loud Mankind was talking way too much Mankind was talking about stacks of porno magazines Mankind was talking about bodily fluids Mankind was talking about considerable pain Mankind was talking with the Dream Mankind is hard enough Mankind used wrestling's most devastating move—sodomy Mankind had a reasonable shot at nailing that shit Mankind gets up every morning and looks in the mirror Mankind nodded and smiled blankly Mankind is an indictment of all—blame mankind for creating Mankind as a person Mankind is a MEW-TI-LAY-TOR Mankind rules Mankind is an insult Mankind laughed in your face Mankind grabbed a pair of chinos off the rack Mankind could throw down brews with the best of them Mankind is the best there ever was Mankind reflected a lack of humanity Mankind is the greatest clusterfuck Mankind put a twinkle in my eye and a bulge in my trousers Mankind gets a pedicure Mankind applies the mandible claw Mankind is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth—so help me Dude Mankind thought in-ring psychology was pretty simple Mankind is the norm Mankind had been thinking about psychology and criminal deviance—what makes a warped mind snap Mankind was a psychologist turned author Mankind was enthralled by how the plot was driven by some obscure mental illness Mankind is the possibility we could have been physically punished for Mankind is the little known and little exercised act of creating Mankind wanted to be on television Mankind was unique to television Mankind is the least sympathetic character in the business Mankind already had TV syndication Mankind depended on a more physical style and an episodic TV format Mankind began to lose matches on television with increasing regularity Mankind is punching downward with the point of the knuckles Mankind is the winner Mankind in the face of overwhelming odds succeeded Mankind makes you want to go out and dance a jig Mankind is the strangest Mankind was the worst natural wrestler Mankind was also the worst car singer Mankind was too loud Mankind was too heated Mankind broke three ribs Mankind clenching his fists Mankind backward off the top rope Mankind bumped backward to the mat Mankind on the mat with a rear chin lock Mankind heard a slap on the mat Mankind took a deep breath Mankind took a day off Mankind took a hell of a beating Mankind took a chokeslam Mankind took a hip toss, which could be more accurately have been called an ankle roll Mankind backsuplexed into a table in perfect textbook form Mankind didn't have to rely on cheap violent stunts to get a pop out of the crowd Mankind knew what was coming next Mankind willingly obliged Mankind landed on the concrete Mankind hurtled through the audience Mankind rolls back into the ring Mankind gets the ten-count Mankind has been his own worst enemy sometimes Mankind is helped out of the ring by Francois Petit and referee Teddy Long Mankind's heel card had been played out Mankind fans were on their feet Mankind started yelling at his fans Mankind was bullshit Mankind really wasn't comfortable being a cowardly heel Mankind lost the belt Mankind was laughed right out of the ring Mankind shuffles away Mankind walks away Mankind from the ring to the graveyard Mankind too psychologically scarred to ever wrestle again Mankind left a trail of bloody handprints crawling away Mankind couldn't defeat the Undertaker Mankind put up a hell of a fight Mankind deserves a place in heaven Mankind goes to black and a video montage airs to the music of Jethro Tull's "Elegy" Mankind Mankind Mankind
WILLIAM WALSH writes fiction that incorporates appropriation and experiments with compositional constraints. His books include The Poems (2025), The Poets (2024), ON TV (2024), Forty-five American Boys (2021), Stephen King Stephen King (2017), Unknown Arts (2011), Ampersand, Mass. (2011), Pathologies (2010), Questionstruck (2009), and Without Wax (2008). Over the years, his work has appeared in a number of journals, including Always Crashing, Hobart, Juked, LIT, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, New York Tyrant, and Quarterly West, as well as anthologies like Dzanc's Best of the Web, The &NOW Anthology of Innovative Writing, and The Norton Anthology of Exceptionally Short Fiction.