Definition of Insanity.

… Can’t worry about the Bruvs. Andy Murray. The eMpire. Deacon. All these memories of the past.

… and the absolute BEST.

FADEIN: A simple room, the walls adorned with bamboo stalks for wallpaper. High Flyer sits Indian style on a simple blue mat. The floor is made out of hardwood. A small dish of incense burns. Flyer holds both hands above his knees, middle fingers touching his thumbs. His eyes are closed. He wears the bottom half of a plain black gi. There’s a deep inhale. Only a quick additional moment passes.

High Flyer: This isn’t working.

Flyer opens his eyes as he kicks over the incense pan. It starts to smoke and smolder the wooden floor. Flyer just shrugs as the camera cuts. MULTIPLE BURSTS OF STATIC, interlaced with violent imagery.

CUTTO: The psychiatry office of Dr. Clarissa Cambridge. A scholastic library of books adorn the walls as usual. Flyer lays back down on one of those red plush couches, as Clarissa sits across from him. She jots a few notes down into her notepad.

Dr. Clarissa Cambridge: You seem distracted. Is everything alright?

High Flyer: Well, I’m in therapy. So no?

Dr. Clarissa Cambridge: Talk about that with me.

Flyer sighs, rolling his eyes into the back of his head. He sits up on the couch, rubbing his hands through his multi-colored hair.

High Flyer: I’m wondering, what’s the point? Is this really an efficient use of my time? Should I even be trying to be… Whatever. You say better, I say worse.

Dr. Clarissa Cambridge: Why do you say that?

High Flyer: Cause feelin’s make you week Doc. At least in my business. Maybe they’re great in lovely dovey therapy world, where you hug stuffed animals and cry about your feelings, but what’s it gotten me?

Dr. Clarissa Cambridge: I think you’ve made some great progress over the past year or so. You’ve really put in the work. It’s taken you almost fifteen years to give therapy a legitimate chance at working. I do want to thank you for putting your trust in me.

High Flyer: Ha. Trust. What a laugh.

Dr. Clarissa Cambridge: Excuse me?

High Flyer: Trust gets you merc’d in this business. I’m surprised I gotta explain that to ya Clarissa. Wrestling is a cutthroat world, the wild west of professional sports. I can’t trust anyone.

Dr. Clarissa Cambridge: I’d hope, after all this time, you could trust me.

Flyer laughs.

High Flyer: Sure! Trust you? The woman who made me SOFT? Seriously, what has this softer side of Jack Harmen gotten me? Really? A bunch of losses on the stat sheet. A wife who still barely talks to me unless I almost electrocute myself and throw out a sleaze ball womanizer from her house. A son who blames me because he doesn’t feel he can ever step out of my shadow. A daughter who’s as disinterested in me as I am in her makeup collection….

Flyer winces, nostrils snarling.

High Flyer: And a bunch of so called friends who’d sooner step over me onto their own glory than support each other. Blame each other for their collective short comings. Listen. I’m sorry.

High Flyer stands up from the couch, dusting off his slacks.

High Flyer: You’re great doc, smart as hell and fine on the eyes… but this therapy ain’t for me no more.

Dr. Clarissa Cambridge: I see dramatic improvement. Jack, you’re becoming a better man.

High Flyer: But a worse wrestler.

Dr. Clarissa Cambridge: What’s more important?

Flyer doesn’t look back at Clarissa as he leaves to the door, but we see the corner of his mouth smile in an subdued smirk.

High Flyer: The fact you even have to ask…

**MULTIPLE BURSTS OF STATIC, Interlaced with images of Mike Best’s HOW career.**

The camera shakes on a dutch tilt as we look up the metaphorical nostrils of the Lunatic, High Flyer. His face is painted like a crooked yin yang, his broken busted eye being the black dot inside of the white swoosh. His one good eye is wide as he stares down at the camera.

High Flyer: Mikey Mike, I’mma do you a favor. Ya listenin’? Good.

He smiles. As he lists things off, he starts counting on one hand.

High Flyer: You were mis’diagnosed. Or, at least. Underdiagnosed. Cause I count… Narcissistic personality disorder. Borderline personality disorder. A lack of empathy and guilt, conniving, dishonesty, manipulative…

Extreme close up on Flyer’s eyes as he narrows them in thought.

High Flyer: I’ve run out of fingers.

We cut to a medium shot, as Flyer begins to pace along the now crumbling and burnt asunder bamboo room from the opening scene.

High Flyer: Me? My name is Jack Harmen, and I have anger control issues. I have impulse control issues. I have little regard for my own body. The safety of others. The law. Society. I’m erratic, I haven’t stayed in one place for more than four years. A traveling nomad, a vagabond of violence. See, the difference between Mike Best and High Flyer?

Extreme Close up on High Flyer’s eyes as they speak with determination.

High Flyer: I’m a sociopath…

Back to a regular close up, as Flyer snarls before speaking.

High Flyer: … Mike Best is a gorram psychopath.

Laughter. It echoes, eerily throughout the burnt empty room.

High Flyer: I don’t know which is better. ‘Cause I show a bit of empathy. Not a lot, but I feel it, more than I show it. I feel guilt, I know. WEIRD. But I feel guilt. I just push it down. Deep down, so not even the little girl in the 80s who fell down the well and spent like three weeks there could find it… I ignore it best I can. Mike Best? No guilt. No remorse. Honestly, I’m a bit envious of you. It would be a lot easier…

Flyer strokes his imaginary goatee as his head tilts to the side.

High Flyer: See… I know this, just like you (finger quotes) “know me.” The real reason you turned into a bulldozer?

Back to wide shot as Flyer begins to pace around the room. In the back, we can see the roof has collapsed to a pile of darkened ashened bamboo.

High Flyer: … because you could. ‘Cause some quack just thought you couldn’t control your anger impulses, when it was never about lack of control. You were always in control. Cold. Calculating. So, when you got diagnosed? You were given the EXCUSE. It’s OKAY Mike. It’s just a disease. We understand. Here, take some little papers. Give them to people on the subway. Then beat them up. Go ahead. Indulge in your chaos. Vacation in your lunacy. Ten minutes a day…

Extreme Close up on High Flyer, focused and determined.

High Flyer: I live here.

Back to a medium shot as Flyer begins to pace once more. His footsteps sink into the burnt floor.

High Flyer: Those pills were supposed to be the way to put a muzzle on your rabid self, a solution to make others feel okay about your transgressions, to REPENT… To rejoin “society,” like anyone wants to be there anyway. They tried that with me. But in the end, they didn’t help you become a better man. You didn’t want to be. So you threw ‘em away the first chance you got. That was your choice. You wanted to be this way. You wanted the anger. You wanted the rage.

CUTTO: A close up on Harmen as he stops pacing. There’s a deep pause, as Flyer contemplates his next words very carefully.

High Flyer: I respect that. ‘Cause I don’t know if I want to be this way…

Flyer shrugs, and begins to pace again.

High Flyer: But I am. It’s the lot in life the WILDCARD’s been dealt. Gotta make the best of it. I can just hear your response now. “So what, you got a poor family life, dad died at six and mom killed herself. She did it cause of you!” Good one Mikey Mike. You’ve probably heard this sob story a million times, the garbage backstory of every crying indi wrestler in the world. OH WAH! My dads dead. I had it SO HARD. I’m so emo.

WAH.

Flyer smiles, as he stops pacing. The camera cuts to a medium shot as Flyer continues on.

High Flyer: Truth is, your dad didn’t even want you.

He shrugs.

High Flyer: That ain’t smack talk. That’s the truth. He’ll tell it to your face if you ask him Mikey Mike. See, your dad’s the boss… He may have had you, and he wants the best for you… but he hates your guts.

Flyer tosses both arms out to his side.

High Flyer: Can’t blame the guy either. I’d be disappointed. Hell, I’m not the biggest Lee Best fan, far from it honestly, but I gotta agree with the man. He and I and the entire world that doesn’t have a CAPITAL M in their name knows…

Flyer stares at the camera, solemn. If any part of his speech gets through, he hopes it’s this.

High Flyer: You, are a monster. And you choose to be.

Flyer starts pacing again.

High Flyer: SEE, I’m a monster because I can’t stop myself. I don’t want to hurt anyone. But I do. And I enjoy it. ‘Cause I make the bad decisions. (offhandedly) They seem great at the time. I’m usually pretty okay with it. Fun times. Had by me. (Back to focused) And I get it, you’re finally embracing your psychopathic tendencies. Again, I’m jealous. I wish I could be a man with no remorse… Hell, I kinda wish I could take a life… Haven’t ever done it though. Probably won’t. I like certain things in life too much to end anothers. That being said, I never said I’d kill anyone in the first place. I said I’d stab. Very important difference. I like to keep my play things alive. I don’t just go for a single serving of violence. I come back, again, and again.

Flyer looks off distantly, into his vivid imagination. He quickly snaps back to reality.

High Flyer: Plus, far as I see in HOW? Stabbing is ENCOURAGED. Max Kael isn’t in jail. He stabbed me! Hell, you didn’t get arrested for murder. There’s absolutely no consequences here…. HOW is a place where you can achieve glory and admiration in exchange for pure unbridled bloodlust. Where people like you and me? We can be ourselves. That is SO therapeutic. ’cause it’s hard. Trying to be something you ain’t. Fighting against the current only drags you down. I see that now. I might as well give in to the inner demons. Why fight against them here?

Flyer just smiles, laughing for a moment before it’s stifled.

High Flyer: Yet you think I’m just a man PLAYING crazy? Hell, maybe you’re right.

He claps his hands. A slow clap that reaches a crescendo.

High Flyer: Ya got me. Mike Best got me. I admit it. After all this time, I’m exposed as a fraud, a charade, a FAKE.

Flyer laughs, turning his head away from the camera with a snort of disgust.

High Flyer: Such a simplistic view of a lunatic…

As the scene fades to black, we hear the last words echo in a voice over.

High Flyer: “I could use that…”