Bang! Bang! Bang! The noise of gunshots echoed through the forest, as the last gorilla ran from the trophy hunters. Ahead, there was a cliff. Behind, the hunters. Wishing to die rather than be used for cloning and trophies, the gorilla jumped. She had made it to the ocean.

As she fell, the water pulled back to reveal harsh and unforgiving rocks. The gorilla hit them. The trophy hunters got to the cliff, and saw the broken body of a gorilla on the rocks below. They lowered a rope, and as they started to climb down, a huge tsunami wave reared its head above the gorilla. The trophy hunters started to climb back up the rope, but it was too late.

The tsunami crashed against the cliff with a sound like thunder. When the waves receeded, all that was left was a rope, dangling in the wind. Another gorilla came out from the brush, looked down at the black ocean, and let out a ear-rending wail. I thought about how lucky I was, to have the only gorilla in the world in the sights of my tranquilizer gun.

I shot, and it hit the gorilla. As I ran toward it, the gorilla started falling. Falling off the cliff! I hadn't realized how close the edgeof the clif was. I dove toward the gorilla as it fell off the cliff. Tumbling off the cliff, I barely grabbed a clump of its fur before both it and I went over the edge.

Luckily, we were close enough to the rope that I was able to hold on. The gorilla got swept out to sea, but I had enough DNA from its fur to be able to clone it back in the lab. We (I) had saved the gorillas from extinction! Now for the dodos.

“Tim, could you come to aisle 7, we have a situation going on over here.”

The words echoed as they emerged, sounding awfully scratchy, through the cheap plastic walkie talkie clipped to my yellow uniform.

“Ah shit another shoplifter.” I thought.

I wish it was.

As I rounded the bend past the fresh produce I listened for sounds of commotion. For a few seconds all I heard was the sound of my Reeboks tapping against the linoleum tiles. That’s when I first heard it. It was a low and loud vocal noise, but it sounded scratchy. It gave me a weird impression and I hesitated to look around the corner as if my brain sensed this was not right. I paused for a moment before shaking it off and walking into the aisle.

I can’t exactly say I could’ve been prepared for what I saw. I jumped back in shock and let out a gasp as I laid eyes on it. A large person, at least 6’5” and seriously overweight, was walking around on all fours in a fake-looking gorilla costume. A plastic walkie talkie labeled “Marc” hung around its neck on a string. It played a stock roar sound effect on loop every few seconds.

My coworker, Josh, who was the one who signaled me over, stood at the end of the aisle. He was pointing a camera at the scene and trying to hold in his laughter.

This was not the first time those two had pranked me at work like this, though it was definitely the most elaborate. Usually they’d just hide in the dark corner of the back room and jump out with a “BOO!” when I turned the lights on, or something of that caliber. I had to say I was impressed with the lengths they’d go to get a rise out of me, despite my annoyance at them for messing with me while on the job.

“Alright, you got me good that time,” I said “though that costume was so bad it only actually had me fooled for about a se-”

All of a sudden Marc burst out of the back room. He was wearing a cheap paper gorilla mask, and the walkie talkie clipped to his shirt played a different stock monkey noise on loop. He began walking over to Josh, who seemed distracted.

“Oh hi Marc.” said Josh, still distracted by filming his prank.

“Alright ya ready to call him over?” Marc said “We gotta make it quick I have a doc-”

Marc turned to see me standing there, as well as the guy in the gorilla costume on the floor.

“I thought you said I was gonna do it.” said Marc.

The color drained from Josh’s face as the realization struck him.

“I-I did.” replied Josh “I-I brought you that costume and told you to change into it, remember?”

The man-gorilla crawling on the floor swatted at the shelf of canned beans, knocking a few off the rack. This caused all of us to jump back a little, one nearly hit my foot.

“Hey dude what the hell are you doin?” Marc said angrily to the swatting stranger “You’re the one who’s gonna have to clean that up now just sayin.”

“W-where did you even get that stupid mask?” Josh snapped, ignoring the gorilla-man “and more importantly who is in that costume?”

“I just made this with the back room printer, but yeah I don’t kn-”

The man-gorilla growled in a very deep voice at me, seemingly just becoming aware of my presence. It began moving towards me slowly.

“Alright I’m just gonna unmask this idiot.” I said, quite done with this weird shit and ready to go back to work arranging my CocaCola display.

I moved a hand towards the cheap, head-covering, rubber bear mask. The gorilla-man craned it’s neck in my direction. I grabbed hold of a rubber ear covered in fake fur and pulled up hard. I heard Josh scream. Marc started running. I just stood there in disbelief.

To this day I don’t know how or why someone snuck an actual live gorilla into that costume and into that grocery store.

Needless to say I don’t work there anymore.

His words fell clumsily through his fingers. He, as though meaning to know their whereabouts, looked up. The words must be found, for it is the occasion. Here, like so many other nights it seemed, was the time to put them to good use:

“I’m ready” he laughed.

“For what?” she said mundanely, as though not already aware.

“I don’t know... I...”

“You don’t?”

She did, or at least somewhat did at this point. He however, did not. And he who thinks to know does not.

“...a..and he who thin...”

“Stop.” She said sharply, glaring holes through the wall that lay in front of them.

“What?” He exclaimed.

“You hear it too don’t you? Please tell me you do.” She shifted her gaze toward him. “You were just repeating it.”

“Hear wha...”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about!”

He recoiled further back than he realized. Staring back at her, he noticed that she looked more alone then she did before. He reestablished his space beside her. She seemed restless now, frantic even, and still alone. Her troubles, he could not know, for it was far out of his grasp to perceive. He stared puzzled at her. She met his stare for brief, but meaningless moments as she twitched back and fourth in between thoughts, until finally greeting it.

“Hello!” She shouted.

She received no reply. Yet, for some odd reason it roused a curious feeling in him that he should do the same.

“Hello!” He shouted back at her.

He too, received no reply. Now more alone than ever, her disposition deepened as she realized for certain that the eyes that looked back at her own did not share the same plight. If now was not the ti...

“You want an excuse to use the word anodyne! And the last thing that will be said is ‘I replied’ isn’t it? I hear that too. I hear it all just as much as you do!”

She was looking directly at the wall now. He was confused, as well he should be, for he did not hear the mindless cacophony she did. Yet, his respect for her did not fade. Staring back at her, anodyne and warm.

“You look nice.” he said meekly.

Her eyes did not move from their fixed position on the wall.

“Please?” She murmured through fresh tears.

She was well aware that her situation was worthy of pity. He, being aware of it now, and for all the wrong reasons, attempted to comfort her. With one cruel look at him his advances cease.

“I am looking at you, not him! You’ve drawn this out too long, don’t you think? If the point isn’t clear by now what is it! You’re struggling between using past and present tense, just get this over with! Make it stop!”

He looked at her more perplexed than ever. Without averting her gaze she looked back at him. There was a piercing fear in her eyes like he had never seen before, or ever will. He felt a sharp ridged pain in his neck. In his view, she fell out of focus as he raised his blood soaked hands to the foreground. Dumbfounded in his final moments, he thought of nothing except the faint and uncomfortable feeling of blood on his numb fingers and the strange and unfamiliar feeling of his throat where she lodged the knife into his flesh. He was bereaved for one final instance before he collapsed at the withdrawal of the blade.

“There’s nothing between us now” she cried.

She knew full well she did nothing wrong, yet felt it all anyways. She felt it like the fresh wet blood on her hands, or the person, now corpse, that lie beside her. She felt it like the barrier that she thought she had lifted.

“Why!” She cried “was this really necessary? You’ve made me more and more omniscient in your dull witted, pretentious story, for what? Would it even make sense at all if I didn’t use the phrase ‘fourth wall’? You didn’t make your point, you don’t possess the words to make your point. Or maybe you don’t possess the thought to even have a point! Speak! To me, not through me. To me!”

She collapsed in anguish, the black viscous blood of he who previously stood beside her, now deflated by her, absorbed her tears as both fluids coagulated on the floor between them. “I should kill myself right now” she thought. She did not want to, not yet. She thought for a moment, then rose unsteadily to her feet.

“You‘re a genius. You are excellent. You are everything perfect. I mean that. Really I do, I mean... I love you.”

She uttered the words with equal parts hate and disgust, though there was no way to discern for certain. By the way she said it, those remarks could have easily been mistaken for equal parts cream and sugar. Cream and sugar it was not, and upon remarking her seemingly profound statement she regaled,

“You can frame me as you like, but you can’t use me to cover up your mistakes anymore. I’ll lavish you with praise for pages if it pleases you, though I know that it doesn’t. You shift uncomfortably in your seat at the mere thought of wasting more words praising yourself. It isn’t even for humility’s sake either. It couldn’t be. One can’t humble themself, by themself. You don’t want them reading this to think you’ve wasted their time celebrating yourself, but that’s all this ever was.”

The silence between the two was palpable, or at least the words to express it were. She looked at the corpse, growing colder and more lifeless than before. She too, felt cold and lifeless. She felt the indignity that she will have earned pity in the mind of another while forever existing in a mind that warrants no such thing. “I could kill myself right now” she thought. She did not want to. She felt a void in her stomach, holes in her heart, and black in her lungs. She was a reflection of her maker in this moment, a mirror of her conjurer. Hate is what she felt first, then disgust, then sorrow, then nothing.

“Did I kill him? Or was it you? I don’t think I know.” She didn’t.

“Does it matter?” It didn’t.

“Was there a purpose in all this?”

Perhaps at some point in time there was. But now, it was uncertain.

“Hello.” She said.

“Hello.” I replied.