Spiral Bound Journal

Hurt/Locker

Marlon blinked as he stared at his phone screen. Tyrone had texted him and ended up dropping an astonishing bomb in his lap. Brandt Showalter was gone. Just like that. Marlon hadn't seen any of the news reports, but Tyrone mentioned that Brandt's death was being investigated as a suicide.

Setting his phone down, Marlon looked around his empty room from where he'd been sitting on the sectional's chaise. Jillian and Aiden were at the park. Since it was a weekend, Jillian had suggested Marlon stay home so he wouldn't get hounded by fans while he tried to spend time with his wife and son. At first, Marlon had objected. Now he feels only a bit better about this decision. It would have been nice to talk to someone about this before he started digging up the details.

His mind drifted back to when he faced Brandt in one of the several Bowl Championship games over the past several years. Even though Marlon's dad had been a professional athlete, it was Brandt that inspired to pursue football instead of basketball, baseball, or track, all sports he'd tried his hand at when he was growing up. Brandt was flattered to hear Marlon's admission and praised his performance even though Brandt's team had defeated him. That exchange showed Marlon how much Brandt enjoyed being in the game. Given that Brandt had retired in 2022, was his being out of the game enough to drive him over the edge?

With a sigh, Marlon got up and made his way to the office. He picked up his phone and noticed it was low on charge. Once in the office, he found a wireless charging stage and set the phone on it. He then grabbed his laptop and woke it up from its sleeping state. Marlon knew well enough that people would look to him for a statement about Brandt's death. It occurred to him that he had no idea where to start with this. After all, for as much as he was inspired by Brandt's athleticism, things began to get more complex that longer Marlon played football professionally.

His eyes landed on a photo from the 2022 Bowl Championship Game. It was a rematch with the 49ers, and once again Kansas City reigned supreme. The atmosphere was so very different, though. Instead of facing off right before the specter of a global pandemic weighed down on them, this game took place in waning days of the variant that boosted COVID immunity to the point of rendering the disease endemic. By that point, Marlon had gotten three vaccines and had maintained his health to dodge COVID up to that point. He recalled how many people had laughed when he'd announced very early in 2021 that he'd gotten his first shot, but with his second Championship ring he ended up with the last laugh. It was a bittersweet laugh, though, as during this stretch of time he learned that Brandt had taken his sweet time getting vaccinated. Some of his other fellow quarterbacks hadn't even bothered, and none of them reached the Big Game. This realization propelled Marlon down an unexpected rabbit hole of investigating beliefs in bad science in professional football, a rabbit hole filled with loneliness, isolation, but also hope.

As he opened Chrome, he saw a Messenger notification. Clicking on it, he found a new message waiting from Felicia. She'd clearly gotten the news, and she was looking for Marlon's take. Unlike his coach, agent, or fans, she was a trustworthy ear. And luckily Messenger had beefed up its encryption. Several months ago, Marlon wouldn't have cared about encryption or anything along those lines. Becoming friends with an IT professional had made him rethink his outlook on tech, even getting into a couple arguments with his younger brother for being obsessed with TikTok. Even with all this floating in his mind, he decided to chat with Felicia. Maybe she could help him with tackling this.

Marlon: Yeah, I head that Brandt had died. I haven't delved too much into it, though.

Felicia: Oh, you've missed a lot of crazy speculation and backstory. I don't know how much you keep up with his supplement company or social circle, but the SEC came knocking on the door of both his business and Guerrero, that douchecanoe. Far as I can tell there were significant concerns about insider trading and huge errors on tax filings.

Marlon blinked. That was quite a curveball. It also made a twisted sort of sense. Brandt's supplement company banked on his near superhuman image to peddle things meant to boost users' health but were more useful for boosting the health of Brandt's net worth. When Marlon started looking into the beet juice supplement Brandt promoted and sold, he found that it didn't work the same as drinking beet juice or even eating beets, as the process of turning this into capsules resulted in large reductions in antioxidant amounts. This discovery had begun to tarnish Brandt's image in his head.

Marlon: Do you think that financial trouble plays a part in Brandt's death?

Felicia: Not so much financial as criminal. The things I read about the SEC's investigation involved insider trading, money laundering, and potential defraudment. Serious stuff. Plus the FTC was looking to get involved as well. It sounds like they'd gotten good ol' Dr. Crunk to provide some details.

Well. That was bad news for Brandt for sure, as Dr. Crunk had been Brandt's right hand man both as a tight end on two different teams and with the supplement business. Marlon had quite a few questions about what would make Dr. Crunk turn on his longtime friend and cohort. All the same, learning that Brandt's foray into bad science had wandered into borderline illegal activity dimmed Marlon's sorrow.

Marlon: Yikes! I didn't see that coming.

Felicia: Me neither, at least not until I started combing the financial papers' backpages. It was better reading about that than some of the other less savory aspects of all this.

Marlon: What do you mean?

Felicia: Someone at the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office "speaking on condition of anonymity" mentioned that they found a bunch of pills at Brandt's residence. Can't believe they even went public with that before the autopsy. And people wonder why there's growing distrust in law enforcement.

Marlon: Yeah, I agree with you. That's a bunch of crap. I wonder if I should address that whenever I give a statement about this. I know people will want to hear about my thoughts and feelings on this.

Felicia: Which as far as I'm concerned is crap. The news just broke. I bet you're still trying to wrap your head around this. This makes me want to open a Twitter account just to publicly denounce any vaguely humanoid entities that hound you for an opinion or soundbyte BS.

Marlon: Don't hold back!

Felica: Snerk. Seriously, though. Grief is complex enough without being in the spotlight, and I know you've been dealing with doubts about Brandt for a couple years now. Those doubts will likely rattle around in your head more thanks to this. No need to have that becoming public along with all the other stresses Brandt's death will bring. Much as I never liked the guy, I get that it's a huge loss.

Marlon sat for a moment contemplating Felicia's words. It was moments like this that made Marlon wish he'd met her sooner. Felicia was the big sister he never realized that he needed. While most of the team, his coaches, and even his family sometimes got lost when he talked about his scientific findings, Felicia could keep up and even helped him find ways to explain his findings so more people could understand him. As a result, she'd heard the most about his doubts regarding Brandt. Her insight so far had helped him better come to grips with the death of a role model and professional cohort. It also made him realize that with with Brandt's death he was now in a position to change the course of scientific discourse in football. Like it or not, it was his time to step up and fill those shoes both on the field and off.

With that, he opened up a Word document and began to hammer out a statement.





Word count: 1388

Prompt 8-Suicide ▼

We have reached now probably the heaviest prompt of the round.

Death is always a difficult thing for anyone to experience. It is always with us and can come from many causes. One of these is self-destruction. Different peoples have different attitudes to suicide and different traditions around it.

Write a scene in which a character learns someone they know has committed suicide.

*Noteb* How and why did the dead character kill himself? What it simply for self-destruction or to make a statement? Was it a protest, an escape, a way to preserve honour in a lose-lose situation?
*Noteb* What is the general attitude to this kind of death? Is it lauded as a brave and virtuous thing? Is it condemned as sinful or weak? Is it shameful for a different reason? Subsequently, how is the body treated?
*Noteb* How does the character receiving this new react? How are they expected or permitted to react?