There was the “Congratulations” card, tastefully designed, with the illustration of the rattle on the front.

Perhaps more important, though, were the two one-page letters that tumbled out when he flipped the front of the card open. Part thanks, part confession, one was for the best friend he couldn’t help but feel like he had constantly let down, the man who had been not only his tag team partner but also his first real friend in the business. The other for the most amazing woman he’d ever met – not only had she been his manager and mentor, she’d also been his friend. He hoped that they were happy, and he cursed his weakness in not being able to face them anymore.

But didn’t they deserve more than what he could offer? After all, he was nothing anymore, a hollow shell of a man, hobbled by injuries and crippled by emotions. And while it was true that the injuries had had time to heal completely, and that they had done exactly that, the emotional trauma that he’d inflicted upon himself, that particular brand of psychological malaise, wouldn’t go away, wouldn’t heal, and why not?

Because he couldn’t. He was afraid that if his depression left him, he’d be truly alone. Oh sure, there were the coworkers who occasionally invited him out for drinks mostly to make them feel better about themselves for including him, and the rarer woman who’d come home with him on those nights and leave in the morning with a haunting sense of loneliness. But that only served to alienate him further, and he’d isolate himself even more for weeks at a time.

Suicide was never an option, because he didn’t feel like he deserved an end to this suffering – after all, he’d brought it upon himself, hadn’t he? Besides, he’d learnt in primary school that if you took your own life, you’d go to hell, and that had to be worse than this, didn’t it?

Some days, he wondered.

As he folded the notes back up and carefully replaced them inside the card, the feeling of loss was especially profound, and made all the worse when he slid the card away from himself, revealing a photograph.

The photograph, actually.

Taken in another world on a long-ago New Year’s Eve, the worn photograph has traveled a great many miles, and in spite of its worn corners and creases, the five smiling faces that it holds are still all-too-visible, the pain they convey all-too-real.

On the left, a seven-foot mass of tattoos and scars, the last great hardcore wrestler who was so much more and proved it by winning two of the most prestigious titles in the world. Followed by the poetess, now seen in Rolling Stone on a monthly basis, she proved to be the siren who eventually called him home.

On the right, a serious-eyed blonde who had a letter waiting in a card a few feet away, the man who’d taught him everything he knew about giving a convincing promo and showed him what respect actually meant. To his left, the greatest wrestling manager ever to walk to the ring, and the intended recipient of the other letter folded away nearby. They’d found happiness together, and was that ever really in doubt?

They were his friends, his family, and while he was happy for them, his happiness only served to further highlight his isolation.

The other person in the picture?

A young man, not terribly different from the man who looked intently at him from outside the picture’s frame.

No, they weren’t so different at all, except for in every possible way.

The young man in the picture was smiling, happy, full of life. His bald head gleamed and his clean-shaven visage was lit up by the smile. He was uninjured, untainted, and full of potential and promise and the world was almost certainly his oyster.

The man looking down at the picture was morose, morbid, empty. His longish hair was oily and unkempt, and his three-day growth camouflaged the barren look of desolation that routinely covered his face. He was uninjured, unloved, and empty of ambition and expectations.