By tonight, Randy Weber came to terms with being in over his head.

If we're being fully honest though, which we're trying to do here, Randy was assuming he'd gone mad.

His lips sputtering through a crazed titter, checking out as it were. Standing alone in his underwear with a plastic jug of vodka. Everything around him being bent. Headlong in a meteoric plummet from the ordinary world and into surreal chaos.

Even tonight, after all of this time he'd spent with Schism, he doesn't recall what compelled him to try and make the kid a professional wrestler. Randy had a stable job, that he once loved. One that he was on the verge of retiring from. And yet for some reason, he uprooted all of that for a chance to spite that very company, the XWF, by making a wrestler out of a kid he'd known for only a few hours.

Schism had shown flashes of promise in the beginning. But all along, if we're being honest, the kid has been a complete lunatic from Randy's perspective. Because what could've been initially diagnosed as hyper social trepidation in Schism's personality, has rendered down into the kid having full-on schizophrenic conversations with himself... all day, and all night.

As he stands there, worn garments, and papers, and rubbish strewn out across the floor of his room, Randy can still hear the echoes of their threatening landlord. This burly Italian man, Stefano. He could hear him promising to evict the duo over Schism's sudden outbursts prior to facing Marf at Bad Medicine. Schism had been howling, and growling, and defecating like a wolf in a way that warranted eviction, and possible violence.

And since his decisive defeat at the hands of Marf, Schism has only spiraled deeper into a subtle mania. Randomly attacking the already former XTreme Champion, Bam Miller backstage at Bad Medicine. This he did while supposedly having a conversation with an invisible gorilla. The Zoo Animal named "A Literal Gorilla", that Randy considered nothing more than a cheap sideshow by his former employer, the XWF. In Randy's mind, before his current state of going mad that is, he knew that Schism's inability to produce victories in the ring had simply left him booked against bathroom-break "filler" competition. A more likely take on the situation than Schism's.

I know him-

"What?"

Schism proclaimed, and Randy interrupted, just moments after the gorilla first grunted at Schism - in no unusual way.

I- I- My! My Ishmael! I KNOW HIM, RANDY!

Randy tugged at Schism's elbow, aggravated and trying to amputate the two from backstage hallway.

STOP IT, RANDY! ISHMALL IS TRYING TO TELL ME SOMETHING!

Schism cried out, nearly wailing like a child being drug away from the toy isle.

But Schism's fixation with the gorilla would not be tested.

Randy stood there reflecting on all of this. The plastic jug of vodka sailing to his lips with ease. An ease brought on by it's lack of volume. Only backwash with a splash of his corn ether.

Randy waddled out of his bedroom, as he had been doing for days now, with his stained bathrobe slung open. Headed for the wet cardboard box of filled with plastic liters of Heaven Hill vodka.



The shot down the hallway gave an open eye view to the common room of the condo, and the tilted television, barely mounted onto the wall. This is the place Schism had been occupying. The end credits to Disney's Tarzan were rolling on the screen, some typical Phil Collins song blaring through the speakers.

"FOLLW YOU- FOLLOW ME- DAYS AND NIGHTS- I BER HER BER DER"

Randy intentionally shouts out the incorrect lyrics to a different Phil Collins song in a drunken slur. He's approaching the box of vodka bottles just at the break between the carpeted common room and the tiled kitchen. The whole condo smells like urine and- something catches Randy's nose, and then his eye. He looks over to his shoulder on the wall behind him where the couch sits.

"Goddamnit, kid! What in god's name are you-"

SHHHHHH! SHUSH, RANDY!

Schism turns away from the wall, pulling a brown finger up to his lips.

He's trying to tell me something!

"WHO?"

Randy pleas, not moving his eyes from the crude mural that Schism has painted on the wall,

He said man belongs to the world.

Schism replies, his tone flattening into a nonchalant mutter as he curtly turn back to the wall, rubbing his brown finger across it,

Randy squeezes his eyes shut, and undoes the red cap from the plastic liter of vodka, guzzling the drink down as what doesn't fit in his mouth spills down his bearded chin. He opens his eyes, and pulls a drag of alcohol sweat from his forehead, reading the wall over once more.

TEA CH E R SEE KS PUPIL. MUST HA VE EARNEST DE SIR E TO SAVE THE WOR LD

Is written in mostly fecal matter, say for the few letters on the end that's been engraved by fingernails chipping through the paint. Schism tries going over the dry spots with a fresh batch of his all natural ink.

Randy breathes the heat from the vodka, embracing the burn on his tongue and pulls the bottle back to his lips.

Get mad all you want, Randy. This is what HE wrote.

"Oh, yeah?"

Randy, bored with confusion responds,

"Who?"

Ishmael

"Oh, you mean the LITERAL gorilla you keep yammering about?"

Schism steadfast in his literal, doody paint job scoffs before responding:

Literal. Do you know what literal means, Randy?

"Haven't the slightest fuck, don't give the slightest fu-"

Well I Googled it! Just like Marf Googled my name before we wrestled.

"That's great."

The LITERAL gorilla. The exact one. It's Ishmael.

"Why do you keep calling him that?"

Bantam-Turner books? The Daniel Quinn paperback? An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit.

"You've read a book?"

He's telepathic, Randy.

Schism leaps down from the couch, which served as step ladder for his finger painting and approaches Randy. By this time, Randy doesn't even feel the trembles up his spine anymore when Schism approaches him. Randy figured that Schism would've killed him weeks ago.

He's trying to teach me... to teach ALL OF US. The love. The forgiveness. ...

Schism begins pacing back and forth, taking pauses to tug at his hair,

...The hope for change. How to be ETHICAL!

"Kid!"

Randy loses his patience,

"Let me tell you something! That gorilla is a goddamn animal! Unless you're planning to shoot that fucking thing, the way the last guy did who faced it, BE-HE-LEAVE-YOU-ME BUDDY-BOY. 'Ishmael'?!"

He spits,

"Ishmael is going to KILL YOU. He's a four-hundred pound wild animal! The XWF doesn't care about your safety, or his. This match against him? They're just exploiting you both. They see you as a circus routine. Because you can't win matches!"

JAAAAANE, and her ILK exploited Tarzan, Randy. They killed his Ishmael, the same way they've killed Ishmael a million times over. THEY'RE the killers!

Just then the front door to the condo kicks open, the deadlock bursting through the wooden frame of the door.

That's him!

It's Stefano, the condo landlord dressed down in a silver track suit with two matching goons behind either shoulder as he points at Schism.

"What in the FUCK is going on?!"

Randy demands,

My sister is the tenant that lives next to you, Randy. And your boyfriend here took her baby - MY baby nephew- from her arms and started tearing his hair out.

I was picking the bugs out of his head.

OH YEAH? Then howcome when she tried to take her baby back you took off running and started throwing poo-poo at her?

BECAUSE WE'RE TERRIORTIAL CREATURES!

"Oh my god-"

Randy looks at Schism, then back at Stefano,

"-WHERE is the baby?"

But Stefano and Schism only keep one another in their sights. Schism confidently moving next to Randy's shoulder,

YOU TWO ARE OUTTA HERE!

BY WHAT RIGHT?! The baby belongs to world!

Schism screeches out a horrible, animalistic growl. His tongue rolling as he pounces on Stefano. Both his fists closed and smashing into Stefano's ears like a set of drum cymbals. The scene is as gruesome as the cracking sound of broken bone is met with blood misting up onto the wall.

"YOU FUCKING KILLED HIM!"

Stefano's goons are shell-shocked, as Schism starts pounding their bosses face with his palms,

TARZAN FORGAVE JANE! SHE TOOK HIS ISHMAEL AND GAVE HIM STEFANO!

Randy's face runs from white to bleached with horror as Schism continues to mercilessly pound his landlords face against the floor,

I'll make them apologize Ishmael!

But you have to teach me!

TEACH ME TO SAVE THE WORLD!

We're left here, with this unsettling scene.