(ERICA)
SUMMER OF FEAR
I don't remember what the dream was about but I remember after: I was scared. It happened about four or five times before I started to remember them.
LESS THAN ZERO
I was having profound thoughts about how little time we have on this earth on the couch opposite Derek, my dealer. We were getting high.
"I could fall asleep right now," he said. "I shouldn't have taken that Valium."
"Don't fall asleep," I said. "You have some speed around here, surely?"
"Yeah, I don't like speed..." another bong hit (inhale, exhale) "...a friend of mine died. He was murdered by his missus."
"That cannot be true!" I said, in genuine disbelief.
"Yeah. It is. Knifed to death. Can you believe it?"
"No!"
DOWN TO THE BONE
I was at work with a girl I hardly knew. We were working. I was thinking. I was stocking the drinks. She was doing the cigarette order. A customer came in. I let her have him. I hadn't said a word for about an hour. I didn't want to talk to anyone.
"Hi, how you doing?" she said.
"Just the fuel."
She punched buttons and told him the price. He gave her a note. She popped the till and gave him the change.
"Thanks."
"See ya."
He left.
I said, "are you getting tired?"
"Not really." She looked for her paperwork and found it. "I had three iced coffees."
"Coffee gives me headaches."
LIMITLESS
Derek and I watched TV. He gave me a bottle of Ritalin and I knew this was a kind of goodbye, so I told him I didn't want to leave, then I watched more TV with him. He told me he was tired, and I said "fine, I'll leave," and I left.
I felt shitty on the drive home. I took a couple of Ritalin, not because I felt shitty, but because I like Ritalin. I got home, showered, fingered myself and fantasied about fucking Derek. I toweled off, got dressed, put some music on, turned the volume up then played video games until the sun rose.
(DAVE)
IT'S PAT
At the library, where I worked, I sipped on coffee. A homeless man was on the couch reading A Farewell to Arms by Hemingway. He looked as if he was about to fall asleep.
I was thinking about my novel. I'd had the plot and most scenes for a while but I'd never been able to put it on the page.
MY BLUE HEAVEN
Katie, my girfriend, wondered aloud about what take-out to order: "Thai...? Chinese food...? Pizza...?"
"Pizza."
"Hmm I had my heart set on Chinese food."
"I feel like pizza, but I will settle for Chinese food."
"I suddenly feel like pizza... mmm... a nice pizza... a nice pizza right down in my belly!"
X: THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES
I dreamt that I was in Las Vegas, on an acid trip: the lights and sounds were overwhelming, I was euphoric, there was some paranoia and terror.
I woke at around about 3am.
At the laptop, I typed. The novel wrote itself. All the scenes and characters I'd seen in my head came out exactly as I'd imagined them.
The words stared back at me from the computer screen. The clock said it was 4:30. I knew it wasn't possible, but it had happened. I'd written an entire novel in one and a half hours.
(ERICA)
THE NINES
I read through the comic books I had under my bed and remembered the things from my past that they reminded me of and laughed and smiled, then realised if someone saw me I would have looked insane so I stopped.
I put some music on and on my bed I closed my eyes and lost myself in the music. "The World Has Turned and Left Me Here" by Weezer played and I remembered an old boyfriend of mine did a cover of it on his guitar and I remembered what a cunt he was. The lyrics were profound to me for reasons I couldn't discern.
FUNNY HA HA
(Dream)
I was at the boarding school I went to.
I was talking in the abstract to friends, people I knew, but people I've not met in real life. We weren't saying words to each other: we were just going through the motions of talking.
I hated boarding school and all of a sudden I realized this and panicked and escaped in a vague blur and looked over a railing at water on a boat travelling the sea.
I was under the influence of some drug(s?). Not weed, not speed, not psychedelics. Probably benzos, maybe painkillers, maybe (though I've never done it) heroin. I was numb and buzzed. Someone called to me. I looked over water, to see a familiar face, a new friend.
"Lance," I cried, and it is only because I said his name that I knew it.
He wore glasses and flannel. He was cute.
He said something about TV - I heard no specifics, no words at all, but I did get the gist of it, that he wanted me to watch TV with him, so I followed him inside.
The interior was surreal. The colors were very warm and organic, like the boat was not manmade.
Two others were watching television, one guy who I called Hemingway and another girl who Lance cuddled in a way that, in the midst of all of this mysteriousness, seemed animalistic, schizophrenic, but things adjusted (I don't know how to explain it better) and the cuddle was suddenly normal. Hemingway gestured for me to lay beside him and I felt a profound sexuality when I did, like we either had fucked or would fuck: I had that feeling you get in sex dreams, of being turned on, even if the person you will fuck later in the dream is not necessarily attractive.
Everyone was watching television and I was too, I suppose, but because it was a dream I was not engaged in watching television, I was just aware that I was performing the act of watching television.
We went to the sleeping quarters as if carried by an external force, while talking. I was aware that we were talking but not of the conversation itself. Lance and his girl were there then gone, and I was in bed watching TV with Hemingway and the lights were dimming.
(DAVE)
GHOSTBUSTERS
Katie wasn't there.
It was dark. The alarm clock was turned off.
I called her mobile. I heard it ring on the nightstand. Fuck.
I looked around for her, like she was my keys.
"Katie?"
(looking, looking)
"Where the fuck are you?"
(...)
I tried to turn the light on. No power.
I went downstairs. The street lamps were off. Everything was quiet, like I'd gone deaf.
"Katie?" I said aloud.
I wondered if I was dreaming. I pinched myself to see if I'd wake. Nope. No luck.
"Katie?"
There was no Katie anymore. Katie was gone.
(ERICA)
THE LANGOLIERS
I almost believed I wasn't scared.
As far as I could tell, it (the whole city) was empty. I heard only my thoughts. There were no cars. No insects. None of that weird mechanical/electronic buzzing you sometimes hear at odd hours of the night.
I walked and looked around and remembered when someone told me Detroit was like this and how I really wanted to go there, to poke around empty office buildings and smash windows and so on.
I saw a pharmacy.
I threw a trashcan at its front glass window. It bounced off and flung toward me. I ducked. It hit the curb and rolled away. I was scared, like I'd almost died. I couldn't control the shakes.
I found a side window. I wrapped my top around my fist and, just in a bra now, feeling exposed though no one was around, punched through it. The wait was killing me.
I climbed in and cut myself in a few places. There were shelves upon shelves of pharmaceuticals. I couldn't decide. Uppers? Downers? I found speed, then Xanax. I got a bottle of water from the fridge and washed some of each down. I got to work filling a plastic bag with anything that would get me high. Things only got benzo-vague after I left (from the front door, unlockable from the inside).
(DAVE)
PAUL BLART: MALL COP
A figure emerged from the distance. It waved. He waved. It was a he.
And she.
Two people.
She didn't wave. She stuck close by him.
I waved back.
We met in the middle.
"Lance," he said, introducing himself.
(This seemed familiar somehow.)
"Dave," I said, introducing myself.
"She's Laura," he said, gesturing to her.
(Me) "Hi."
(Laura) "..."
(Lance) "So..."
(Me) "Everyone is gone."
(Lance) "No kidding. No power either. We went to Woolworths and got potato chips. They had meat but I didn't want to touch it."
(Me) "Yeah, who knows how long we slept."
(Lance) "Where are you going?"
(Me) "I don't know. The coast?"
A LIFE LESS ORDINARY
(Lance) "I worked at Bunnings. Shit job. I don't miss it. But all the people. I could go insane thinking about how I'm not gonna see them again."
(Me) "I'm already insane."
(Lance) "You're not. Listen. You got to trust that when I say something, you're not hearing yourself talk. I'm a different person with a different point of view. I'm talking from different experiences. I got a different life behind me. If we all start thinking we're nuts, we're gonna waste away and die. This is happening. We're not crazy. This is real."
DAWN OF THE DEAD (2004 remake)
We gathered bits and pieces from a mall and cooked ourselves a meal. We decided that's where we'd stay. We laid on beds at Capt'n Snooze. We talked as we got tired.
(Me) "Do you remember Charlie Sheen? His... manic episode... whatever it was...?"
(Lance) "Sure."
(Me) "I was thinking about this. The thing that really struck me about that, the thing that really got me thinking, was 'Sheen's Korner.' Do you remember?"
(Lance) "No."
(Me) "They were these videos, nothing interesting: Sheen and his friends all coked up, saying nonsense. What was interesting, to me, was the misspelling of Korner: a K instead of a C. It was so unnecessary and bizarre, like a crude parody of how store and brand names are rife with intentional misspellings. The sign on the way in here got me thinking about this. 'Capt'n Snooze.' The apostrophe, the missing 'i.' I was bothered by it. It's all redundant now that everyone is gone, needless to say."
BILLY MADISON
I woke. It was still dark. Lance was asleep. Laura was awake. She was reading Cujo.
(Me) "Morning."
(Laura) "..."
(Me) "You don't say much."
(ERICA)
THE BLACKOUT
Enough time should have passed for the sun to have risen by now, I thought,
but it's still night.
In a haze of benzos and painkillers, I ate a cold pie on the floor of a bakery. I hadn't slept for a while.
Maybe I had been sleeping. Maybe I just didn't know it. I had been lying down a lot. It was entirely possible that I'd been falling asleep and waking up without realising. It's all very vague. Some things I remember clearly but there are a lot of gaps. Maybe I kept crossing the benzo threshold. Maybe I kept losing my ability to make new memories.
In retrospect, I'm surprised I didn't die. Pills, in the right (or rather, wrong) combination, are lethal, which I know because of Heath Ledger. I was lucky.
(DAVE)
THE SEARCHERS
We decided we couldn't stay. We had to look for others. So we walked.
SUPER HIGH ME
Quietness. Emptiness. Silence between us. Just footsteps.
I saw her.
She was retarded or insane or drugged up or something. She noticed us. I called out to her, by name, "Erica!"
The lyrics of an old song by an acclaimed, reknowned and wealthy musician played in my head: "you looked like a boy Erica, you looked like a boy..."
She turned and approached us. Her gait was odd. She ran briefly, then walked, then ran again.
"Hemingway!" She shouted. "What... the fuck... is going... on?"
(Me) "Are you alright?"
(Erica) "No! No, I'm not alright, what do you think...??? You think I'm alright?"
(Me) "Are you drunk?"
(Laura) "..."
(Erica) "No!"
(Me) "What's in the bag?"
(Erica) "Ah, you know... stuff?"
(Me) "What stuff?"
(Erica) "Ah..." (suddenly confident) "Clothes!"
(Me) "It sure doesn't look like clothes."
(Erica, resigned, exhausted with the facade) "Look, okay, it's pills, okay... I'm a druggie, okay... I know. I know."
(Me) "..."
(Erica) "What is going on?"
(Me) "..."
(Erica) "I've gone crazy!?!?!?"
(Me) "Well, no..." (though she had) "...the world has ended. I think. Everyone IS gone."
(Erica) "Fuck! I want to wake up! I don't like this dream!"
We had to take her. I didn't know whether to let her keep drugging herself, or to have her go through withdrawals. I settled on the former. It was the lesser of two evils.
A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET
At no point did I see the stars or the moon.
I became convinced that we (i.e. me, Lance, Laura, Erica) were the only people left because we'd seen no one in days. We slept where the food was. Erica kept saying it was a dream. It took time but I realised she wasn't crazy and I realised what she meant. This was her dream, in the same sense that it was my novel.
DO THE RIGHT THING
(Me) "I can hear the waves crashing on the shore."
(Lance) "It is odd what you can hear when there are no other sounds."
(Erica) "The boat..."
(Me) "Yeah, the boat. And television."
(Erica) "Televisions everywhere. In the main room. In our sleeping quarters. We the only people. Or were we? I can't remember."
(Me) "There was the staff. But other survivors... no. I don't think so."
(Lance) "There was Tom. Do you remember Tom?"
(Erica) "No."
(Me) "Who's Tom?!?!?!"
(Erica) "Good question..."
(Lance) "I'm fucking with you. You're insane."
(Erica) "I hope not. I liked the boat."
The city smelled of rot.
(ERICA)
TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON
It was at the end of the pier, the boat. A uniformed lady told us to come inside, so we did. A hallway. Mirrors ran up and down both sides, left and right. Small cameras, with rings of glowing green light around their lenses, followed us. Hundreds of unseen eyes were focused on me, I knew this: after days of being unwatched, I couldn't help but notice the shift back to normalcy; I had become, again, an object for others.
The doors at the end of the hallway slid open fast (like Star Trek) to reveal familiar psychedelic nature-on-acid colors. More mirrors and cameras. More invisible, watchful eyes. There was a moment of inertia and the boat set sail.
We were pulled, somehow, through other rooms. The other three looked worried. I was buzzed. I didn't mind.
Through a door: a small room, bald men, eight of them, two with glasses, taking notes. Through a door: couches, abstract paintings, a window looking out the the ocean (the shoreline was floating away). Through a door: a buffet (enough to feed hundreds), tables and chairs (more than you've ever seen in one room), and aside from us, empty.
We ate.
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
Talking head (male): "Nixon was, I think, a very misunderstood President. He broke the law, yes, but you'll find that every modern President has, in some way. He prolonged Vietnam, yes, but he also ended it. He was flawed, yes, but he also was brilliant. We make a mistake, I think, when we critique our politicians like we do our pop culture: our television shows, our books, our films. We ought to be more thoughtful, I think. We ought not to be so emotional. We ought to be more empathetic. We need to focus on the good and not only the bad. If you know the facts, and you see them through an objective lens, you'll find, I think, that Nixon was one of the better modern presidents, and he will, one day, be regarded as such."
SHE'S ALL THAT
They took my bag of pills only to dope me themselves. The nurses would come around to give us our meds, five times a day, different combinations of pills each time. They'd stand and watch and make sure we were taking them. Dave kept them under his tongue for a while, and spat them out once they'd gone. They caught on. They told him not to, but he kept trying. They locked him away for a day. They let him out and after that took his pills like a good boy.
COWBOY BEBOP: THE MOVIE
I don't believe you'd like it
No you wouldn't like it here
There ain't much entertainment
And the judgements are severe
- Leonard Cohen
(DAVE)
NEW JACK CITY
(Me) "Why don't we have a remote? Why can't we change the channels?"
(Lance) "I don't know."
(Me) "I'm sick of documentaries. I'm sick of The X-Files. I'm sick of Roseanne. I want choice. Is that so much to ask?"
(Lance) "Tell it to the staff."
(Me) "Fuck it."
(Lance) "Why are there no clocks?"
(Me) "I don't know. I don't mind. The days seem longer: are they?"
(ERICA)
THE PATRIOT
"There's a great deal of disinformation out there. Inaccurate biographies, self-serving memoirs, the press, the film: "Nixon"... a good many Americans have a very deluded idea of who Nixon was. What you have to understand is that we all understand him only through a filter, a fog of disinformation and wild emotion. We don't know the true him.
"I met Nixon, before he passed away. There is something to him... an extra something, a kind of energy, a sort of gravity. The same thing that movie stars have, the reason we're able to sit in a quiet, dark theater and watch them for hours.
"He was opened up relations with China and delivered speeches that brought men to tears because of that power of personality. Compared to Bush, Clinton, Bush Sr, Carter, Ford, LBJ... there is no comparison. He was a force of nature. People dismiss him because they don't know enough: they're just trying to make sense of the misinformation they have. We will hold him in high regard, one day; we will consider him to be a great and unjustly chastised President, one day: but it will take time."
THE ROOM
The boat had not moved for hours. The four of us watched TV: Everybody Loves Raymond. We didn't laugh. We just watched.
Two nurse came. One said, "to the showers." We stood. The other nurse said to me, "not you."
They followed one nurse. I followed the other.
Outside the boat, I saw we'd reached land. It was still dark. It'd been weeks, surely, and the sun was still down. We walked along the pier.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
A car waited for us. The nurse and I got in the back. A black guy drove. It was like Driving Miss Daisy. I wanted to sleep but I couldn't. The meds were wearing off. I was agitated. Hours passed, maybe not.
We arrived at a house, in the middle of nowhere. It had no windows. We got out of the car. The nurse walked me to it. She put in an old fashioned key and swung open the door.
"Get in."
"Why?"
A pause. Another pause. I stepped inside. She closed the door. No knob inside. Fuck. One room. A chair. A table. Paper. A typewriter. A post-it note with two words on it:
Erica,
WRITE.
So I did.
