(idea) by stash Thu Jul 19 2001 at 0:34:52
Meltdown, Crash, M & Ms

  • Visiting a house that's built on a hilltop. The architecture is strange, long and narrow as it follows the contours of the sharp peak--up one side and down the other--so from the side it's shaped like a caret.

  • The couple who lives with my friend Allen in a beautiful posh house, Sean and Kim, approaches me and tells me that they are interested in talking to me and August about something important. I have the feeling they want us to take over their room in the house when they move out.

  • I'm returning to Santa Rosa, California with my mother, coming from the North. We're driving separate cars and decide to stop for the night in Cloverdale, even though we're close to our destination. We pull into town and are greeted with the sight of blackened trees for miles around. We soon learn that there was an explosion at the nuclear power plant that charred the area in a huge blast radius. Ambulances dart here and there. Parking in front of a restaurant, we get out and sit down for dinner. I ask my mom why we didn't just go all the way to Santa Rosa, especially with the disaster here. She replies that it's been a long drive and she wants to rest for the night. I go to the restroom which looks like part of a locker room, though it's meant for one person since the toilet is out in the open. I proceed to have an enormous bm, literally filling the bowl. As I'm sitting there, two teenage girls walk in through the door since I forgot to lock it. As they are apologizing, my friend Jeremy appears behind them. The girls retreat and I ask Jeremy to lock and close the door for me. He obliges. Then a woman appears from around the corner (apparently there are two entrances) and again I apologize for not locking the door. I finish up and return to the dinner table.

  • With August, I visit my ex-girlfriend, Radha, at her home which is just a series of small rooms along one side of a single hallway, each room with a window that reaches to the ceiling. It reminds me of the compartments you might find on a train. With her housemates, we all go on a walk to a nearby airfield. Along the way, Radha tells me of the many coincidental deaths that have taken place just recently: her mother, two of her friends, Emily's mother, Asha's father, and others. We're standing in the airfield, waiting for an ambulance helicopter to arrive with two friends of Radha's who were in a bad accident. It appears, a large high-tech hover jet, and lands gently nearby. August and I walk over and go inside. While the four-man crew is shutting everything down, we explore the full kitchen and eating area in back. The table and chairs are on a gyroscopic platform so the flight won't affect it. Aug and I play with it by spinning it around really fast as we sit across from each other. Just then there is a malfunction and the crew yells that the plane is about to explode. We dash out and help pull the patients and crew to safety just before the whole thing blows up. I thought we got everybody but after the explosion, a crew member calls from a window high up in the plane. He's unhurt and yells, "I am the master!" We all walk back to Radha's place, I now walking with my arm draped over Radha's shoulders in a friendly manner. We arrive and August and I say goodnight. Just past their door I see an advertisement for M & M candies. It shows a baseball stadium and I hear a child's voiceover as I read the caption: "Recently, M & Ms have slipped to #2 in the candy market so you won't see our smiling faces on the big stadium sign anymore. Neither will we have M & M day at the park where the first 5,000 attendees receive a free, hand-sized M & M candy. And no more multiple shapes and colors."

  • Mario tells me that he just saw Matt Farnsworth, a guy I knew in high school, moving into a new place in Santa Cruz. He says Christina was there, an old friend of mine, and I think that I'd very much like to see her again.

I like it!