1A: Identity Crisis













---BLINK!---



Discord reigns.

The man is still atop a mountain.

Bodies are strewn everywhere.

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1B: The Clown

A warped grin contorts from underneath a gigantic wig of bright red curls that sits just above the man’s eyes. Its clumps shade his face from the light refracting through high, stained glass windows. Behind him, a lavish display of unlit candles are spread across a long table covered in a white tablecloth. Above the candles, a real-life statue of Him, crowned with thorns and bloodied with stigmata. There was a part of the man’s body that begged to recoil; a barely-buried trauma that at times surfaces in the recitation of grandiose escapades culminating in an assertive statement of defiance.


“Dearly beloved...” he says, settling a steaming porcelain mug on top of an old mahogany lectern. “We are gathered here today to join these two…”

“That’s a wedding,” interrupts a deep, rumbling voice with a thick Eastern bloc accent.

“Huh?” the man innocently blinks. “Oh, thanks, Morby! Err... I mean, Pastor Kyril.”

The gruff face of Morbid Angel looks at him from his perch at the side of the room, a piece of ham hanging dopily super-seriously from his mouth.

“How about...” the man starts again, seeking affirmation from his more experienced partner-in-war, “We are gathered here today to celebrate the life of…”

“That’s a funeral,” Morbid grunts again.

“God damn it!” A gasp. A pause. With wide eyes, he places a hand over his mouth. Slowly, he twists his neck back to where He hangs on his cross. He mouths ‘sorry’ before turning his attention back to Morbid. “Uh… Amen?”

“You say that at the end,” Morbid says through a muffled bite of a sub. Mayo stains his chin and he licks it off rather sensuously sternly.

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Another gasp. But not by the man, nor Morbid.

“Pastor Kyril?” asks a frail man sitting on one of the front pews. He holds a tartan flat cap in his lap, leaving the few remaining white strands atop his head to flop over his bumpy scalp. His eyes reflect an innocent befuddlement that’s matched on the faces of the rest of the gathered congregation, several hundred strong in total. “Who is this man?”

“He’s here to tell you about our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ,” Morbid replies, putting his half-eaten sandwich down on a silver plate that definitely used to be isn’t a collection plate. “Now… let us pray.”

Morbid Angel steps up to the lectern, and nudges the man with his elbow. They both bow their heads.

“Heavenly Father,” Morbid says, with absolutely no conviction. “It is through You, that this soul has been brought to us to share his story with your flock. And it is through he, and therefore You, that we get to understand You better. Thank You for Your sustenance that fills us; Your light that surrounds us; and Your love that never fails.”

“And thank you for Luau music,” the wayward guest adds.

“Yes,” Morbid agrees, most unholy. “Thank You for Luau music.”

He nudges the man once more.

“Amen!”

The crowd repeats.

“Amen!”

Morbid winks before heading back to his sammich, leaving the man alone at the lectern. The wig falls lower, completely taking over his face. Indifferent, he raps upon the surface of the old timber, as if lost in thought. The brown liquid in his mug ripples with every strike of his finger.

“You know…” he says to nobody. “Pastor Kyril and I were in conflict only a few months ago. And now… now I’ve sought him out to make amends. And together, we’ll fight the good fight! If only others would have that same level of self-awareness though.”

The crowd’s eyes dart between the man and the pastor, as they try to understand what’s going on. It’s as if he isn’t even talking to them, yet at the same time, he is.

“There’s this guy, right?” the man continues to rant. “A total d-bag who thinks that he’s some sort of trailblazing idol that’s changed the game for everyone. Thing is, he’s completely out of touch with reality! He goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and…”

Morbid clears his throat, snapping the man out of his broken loop.

“...and on about how important he is,” he picks up again. “But the rest of us? We look at him and we kind of just feel sorry for him. That is… when we’re not shitting on everything about him.”

A murmur ripples throughout the parish. Profanity sowing discontent. In the face of the rabble, Morbid raises a hand that quiets the masses.

“The Dukes are known to dance with the devil,” he facetiously sagely states.

“Duke?!” the mark half-shrieks. “I was talking about Chris Chaos! Now, I can see the similarities since they’re both self-admitted assholes, but I bet if I ever talked shit about Duke, he’d probably just be all like ‘Yeah, I’ve made mistakes, but look over there at my fighter jet! Aren’t I cool?’ Eye Roll City. Population: This guy.”

Morbid chuckles and it’s kind of terrifying. He pulls a phone from his pocket and unlocks it. From a shortcut on the main screen, he quickly opens and starts browsing through what looks to be PornHub an online bible. The man keeps going.

“Or he’d probably just scream ‘ACTOR! ACTOR! IT WAS A FUCKING ACTOR!’ all the while being oblivious to how he is, in fact, an actor himself. Funny that. But hey, he’s the guy who wants to point everyone in the direction of his ‘life outside the XWF’. Imagine him talking about how being a leader of a world nation is a 24/7 job, literally as he joins up to another wrestling company that would take him away from said job! And yes, folks, both those things actually happened. Simultaneously. Like… only a couple of weeks ago. I guess the Illuminatus education system isn’t that good because that’s not how 24/7 works!” Somewhere in there, he remembers to breathe. “But hey, good for him if he takes a bit of ‘me time’ away from his duties. Just replace ‘golf’ with ‘Acting/Wrestling/Modelling/Whatever’ and I really wasn’t that far off with the Trump comparisons I made when first we met, was I? I think Thad actually fucks around on the job more, and that is definitely a play-on-words, because did you know that he fucked around on his baby mama? That’s the type of Grade-A role model he is. I saw through his bullshit facade then and I see through it now. It started long before he ever won a match I was in, and no matter how much spin he has put on it lately, his dumbass knows it. I saw straight away that he was unequivocally the worst type of person. This motherfucker needs Jesus in all the worst ways, now can I get an ‘Amen’ on that?”

Crickets. Morbid loos up from definitely Pornhub his online bible and clears his throat again.

“Amen!” chants the crowd, half-heartedly.

“Thank you!” the man beams. He squares his shoulders, pushes back the wig, and lets the light from above illuminate his face. The parishioners barely register it as they begin to whisper to each other. He doesn’t even notice. “But hey, I shouldn't expect any better from a stone cold killer! No, seriously! He’s going to say it was just ‘war’, but there is such thing as war criminals, you know? Pastor Kyril and I are about to do some… err… rehabilitation work... with one ourselves! And make no mistake about it, after bringing us such comedic ‘gems’ as ‘Saturday Night Average’, Thaddeus Duke is absolutely criminal. Maybe he could save face by saying that line came from an actor too. I suppose it’s what you get from a horrible person who can’t be trusted. Poor Liz. Poor Adi. Poor Chaos, even. Jesus stink-fisting Christ, did I just say ‘poor Chaos’?”

He also just took the Lord’s name in vain, but Morbid, deep into his research on BBW ass-to-mouth Samson tearing apart a lion (heart and all) with his bare hands, doesn’t notice.


“You know, I never thought that I’d feel sorry for the guy who brought a freaking dictionary definition to a fist fight and then sullied the good name of Tori Amos, but here we are!” He shrugs as the mumblings of the churchgoers grow more and more pronounced. “As if the exclamation mark I put on the abortion of his resurrection wasn’t enough, now he has to work with a team where half of them have given him a good spanking this year alone! I'd ask how he could possibly get along with them, but really, does it matter? He's just going to do what he always does: be a giant disappointment. I may as well treat him like he's Atty Atara and just point him back to the same points I made last time. Maybe he'll actually be able to make a comeback this time. Probably not. His team should probably just cut their losses. His own captain, for crying out loud, literally thinks him an incompetent idiot. And also smacked him around. Real hard too. But who hasn’t? I mean… Thad’s not wrong about Chris, but I almost feel bad railing on his heiny again. At least he’ll be used to it. Now, I know that like them, Pastor Kyril and I had our issues too, but we're different! We…”

By now, the audience has almost entirely disengaged, and they miss the explanation as to why the Godkiller is now happy to fight alongside a man of the cloth. It’s a totally legit reason though. Believe me.


While the crowd talks amongst themselves, the elderly man in the front row places his hat down on the bench next to him and with creaking bones rises from the pew. He staggers his way over to where Morbid has moved on to researching gaping grannies Daniel surviving the lion’s den.

“Pastor Kyril,” the senior stammers in a hoarse, weak voice. “To which charity may we donate?”

“Huh?” Morbid hastily turns the screen off on his phone and looks up at his mark lamb.

“Which charity?” the old man asks again. “The church has been talking, and we can tell that you brought this man here because he, and so many others like him, need our help. We’re really eager to donate! Is there a particular mental health cause we should contribute to?”

“Umm…” Anxious, Morbid looks around. Coming up with an idea, he picks up the silver plate with just the breadcrumbs remaining of his tasty treat, and dusts it clean. He hands it over to the man, using it for a purpose that it definitely was wasn’t made for. “Just get everyone to put money in there. I’ll take care of the donation.”

“Of course,” the old-timer says, taking the plate from Morbid and slowly returning to his seat. Morbid stifles a grin as the old man drops several notes into the plate and passes it down the aisle, before looking back up to catch the tail end of a point that the raving man at the lectern seems really keen on making.

“...and that’s all I’m going to say about Andre Dixon, because if he can’t be bothered showing up, then why should he get any damn attention from me?” The elderly man has no clue what he means. The man who’s speaking has no clue why Andre even bothers. “Besides, if he wants to run with a bunch of idiots who’s super-evil scheme was just to attack people after their match (or two!), then he, and all of B.O.B. have shown just how much of a joke they still are. Right up there with the people who have done the same damn thing before them, like Big Bitch Baph’, or even more pathetic… Reggie fucking Estrada!

Λυπάμαι που τον τράβηξες.

Θα μπορούσε να είναι χειρότερα. Πεινασμένος Atty. Φάτε B.O.B.

Νόμιζα ότι είχες δει το φως; Υπάρχει ακόμα χρόνος.

Φέρτε μαζί σας τον Betsy στον τελικό. Απλώς προσέξτε την μπλε σκύλα.

Sorry. Speaking in tongues.

I’m just saying, that’s the calibre of company B.O.B. puts themselves on the same level as. Real impressive, right?” he shakes his head. “Thad’s barely better. He’s chosen a guy who literally prides himself on being a terrible human and then doubles down on it by even being terrible at that; a guy who joined a group that literally calls themselves ‘Baddies’; and then… Louis.”

For the first time the man stops. Not just talking, but moving entirely. The silence even draws Morbid’s attention away from little people with big dicks David killing a lion. The man is looking above the heads of the gathered group. Into nothing. As if something is there.

An intruder?

No…

He’s the one doing the intruding.

The man isn’t here anymore.

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1C: Flayed

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1D: Cain and Abel

“What was that?” Morbid Angel asks, as my eyes ---BLINK!--- open. He moves from above me where he was… wait, was he just smelling my hair? The focus I need to muster to hone in on his accent distracts me and the thought floats away.

The church is empty and I find myself seated next to my new partner on the deep-red carpet steps that lead up to the lectern. The ridiculous wig has been banished to the Land of Nod and with it, the memory of the last… wait, just how long is missing? I’ve had gaps like this before, but not in months. Not since…

“Hey!” Morbid shouts. “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah…” I exhale. “I can hear you.”

“Then what was that?” he asks again. “You freaked everybody out and they left.”

“I… I don’t know exactly,” I admit. “I think… I think that there’s a part of me that I’ve been trying to force down. But it’s been starting to bubble to the surface. And I worry…”

Morbid raises his eyebrows, not expecting this sort of openness from a man who swore war against what his church stands for just four months ago. But now… now there’s a new War.

“I worry what I’m going to do if Corey hasn’t been honest with me.”

“Cash-ins are annoying,” Morbid agrees. “But you did it. Why can’t he?”

“He can…” I say. “It’s not the act that I worry about. It’s the aftermath.”

“Hmmm…” he strokes the stubble on his face. “This isn’t exactly helpful, you know. We’re all individuals but we need to learn to work together. I thought that at the very least the two of you already could. Do you know where he is now?”

I had said I would have his back on Savage, but then B.O.B. got to him while I was taking a shit. Later, he was still recovering by the time they came for me. And now...

"I do not know”, I reply, torn. I don’t want to think this, but a part of me is happy to keep him and… it... away from me. And sometimes that part wins. “Am I my brother's keeper?"

BZZT!

A vibrating rattle gives me a fright and I leap up in shock! With a THUMP my shoulder collides with the lectern, and with a CRASH it spills to the ground.

With a SMASH my now cold coffee shatters on the ground.

“Look at this,” Morbid interrupts before I get a chance to do anything else. I rub my shoulder and crane my head over the top of his smartphone to see the screen. Beneath an alert informing him of a new quadruple penetration video interpretation of Benaiah killing a lion on a snowy day, I see a text message and immediately know who it’s from. Morbid clicks into it.





“Did you get one?” he asks me. I fiddle in my back pocket, pull out my own 2003 Motorola Razr, and flip it open.

“Yeah, I did.” I know it should have been expected, but I still feel relieved by the sight of Corey’s name. “Must have had it on silent.”

“Shall we get ready then?” he says as he pushes himself to his feet.

“Can I bum a ride?” He nods, and as he turns to get prepared, I finally get a chance to look upon the mess I’ve made.

An uninvited question encroaches on my mind…

When is a broken coffee mug more than just a broken coffee mug?

I know the answer.

When it’s a harbinger of…





“Amen.”