Sarah Wolf vs. Calliope (The Artist Formerly Known as Clamidiya)

[Cid]

Two years ago, Sammy Thomas Davies couldn't get booked. 

It got so bad that he had resorted to becoming a courier. In his eyes, it was an occupation not befitting of a marginal star and former SCW World Tag Team Champion. Still, he knew it had to be done. It was a sacrifice; to survive meant to deliver packages, no matter how lowly it seemed in comparison to his old life.

It was this continued fight for survival that made Clamidiya wonder if Sammy's sacrifices weighed as heavy as hers.

All she wanted was a good life. Instead, she found love. It was only a matter of time before she found out that a good life and love don’t necessarily go hand in hand. Now, as her other half was revealed to apparently be a very late bloomer right as their union ran aground on the rocks, she couldn’t help but feel jaded.

Maybe he really needed this. Maybe she really needed this.

“Call-eye-oh-pee,” she sounded out. She could barely hear herself with the wind blowing around her ears as she was driven towards the Positive State compound on a golf cart. Still, she tried her best to continue to sound out the name. If it was to be her new handle then she had to pronounce it right.

“It’s cal-ee-ope,” Lucas Warner told her. 

Lucas was a Southern boy. He knew how to pronounce the word better than anyone. Correcting people was something he’d grown used to as a high ranking member of The Positive State—not just because of his Southern upbringing, but because the people that sought out something like The Positive State weren’t always the brightest of the bunch. When you can’t figure something out, you seek help. That applied to anything from mathematics to a life crisis.

“But Holly said—”

“We’re here,” Lucas interrupted.

The golf cart skidded along the grass as it pulled up to the front porch. Clamidiya looked up and along the compound, which seemed to stretch for miles along the stretch of otherwise wide open land. If Cid had managed to go from an anxious wreck to running an operation like this, maybe he knew the answer that Clamidiya was looking for in the new set of questions life had presented.

---

“And now he’s got this stupid new hair and he’s always keeping a close shave,” Clamidiya went on as she had been for the last several minutes as her and Cid sat in the garden, watching Positive State disciples digging, planting, and picking. “All I’ve got to show for this is a joint bank account on life support and a new name I can’t pronounce.”

“Calliope, these things you’re saying—they’re very negative,” said Cid. “To be blunt, you’re in a negative state. Hasn’t GiGi been helping you with this?”

“I don’t know. That's why I came to you—just for today. I mean, he suggested an open marriage. In all honesty, I was in favor of it. I thought it would give Sammy—”

“Samuel,” Cid corrected her.

“Right…Samuel. I thought it would give Samuel a kick in the ass while giving me a bit of freedom to explore a better life. Instead, he doesn’t seem to give a damn about me. Just his miraculous win streak and his new hair.”

“It’s crazy how much those extensions brought out his jawline and cheekbones.”

“Truthfully, I’m starting to think all of this is just a bunch of—”

She stopped and looked at Cid.

Bullshit, she thought.

However, she couldn’t bring herself to say it. This whole Holly Adams Brand, trademarked, thing just seemed like a giant scam designed to pilfer money from desperate people like Sammy, but where would insulting the concept to one of the heads of Cerberus do except cause trouble? And who was she to get upset in the face of Sammy’s newfound success? She considered if she was just being jaded about all of this. Maybe she really was in a negative state.

Suddenly, her phone rang. She dug it out of her pocket and answered it.

“Hello?”

In the middle of nowhere along the coast of California, cell phone service was a blessing that was only fleeting. It was like the voice on the other end was speaking in riddles and she wasn’t exactly in the mood to work it all out.

“Sorry, can you say that again?”

The voice rambled on. The message became easier to decode, yet it somehow still didn’t make any sense.

Before long, the caller said their goodbyes. Clamidiya just looked at her phone in confusion before setting it back in her pocket.

“Everything okay?” asked Cid.

“I think so,” Clamidiya said, still processing the call. “Kind of strange. They said they were Brittany Lohan, but it sounded like a Middle Eastern dude.”

“Oh, that’s just Holly’s assistant.”

“And they went on about Miss Holly giving me a new name since Calliope wasn’t catching fire, apparently. I don’t know, though. I think I must’ve heard them wrong…”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” Clamidiya began with a sigh of confusion, “it sounded like they were saying that my new name was an emoji.”