What The Ghost of Death By Me Earns Tonight

The Ghost of Death By Me has said that I am a tool, that my sentences are a costume sewn over a losing record, that I could not win a match if the stakes were mortal. I have read those words carefully, twice, the way a man reads a contract before he signs it or burns it.

What I notice is that you speak at considerable volume about what I am not, Ghost of Death By Me, while offering very little evidence of what you are. A man who arrives at the worksite hollering about his opponent's inadequacies has already spent energy he will need later. That is poor budgeting. I have built a career on sound budgeting.

You say I am a jobber, that I do not belong in the ring with you, that this ends in under a minute. I will not argue the timeline. I will say only that the ring is a ledger, and every claim a man makes in front of an audience is a debt he has voluntarily assumed. Dozens of people, perhaps more, as you so generously estimated, will watch that debt come due.

I do not babble. I do not set up lines about milkshakes. I work. Tonight, Ghost of Death By Me, I come to collect what the ledger says you owe. That is all this is.