Scene 1
Lab rats, the pathogens, and the mice they experiment on, are flushed out and dispersed by earthquake, flood, tornado and typhoon (hurricane). Everything mixes until garbage dumps (landfills and sewers) are no longer the only wastelands.Scene 2
Since none of this is connected or repeated by the news we use, as this is taking place, people are shown doing supposedly normal everyday things. Especially shown are the wastelands of schools, religious gatherings, in traffic, in court, at pharmacies and other places normalized in cultures that are places of mass destruction and resource wasting.Scene 3
Me and my picturesque lovely family of four are out the door, on a road trip south to nowhere particular. In addition to this non-traditional route, we also plan to mostly travel secondary roads, travel only briefly by day and stop often to explore. We will also eat in unique local restaurants and stay in local accommodations. We'll ask around a lot whenever we stop to find unique experiences.Scene 4
Meanwhile, three rats and a mouse crawl out of the sewer and travel as one. Traveling on foot, they stopover for the night in a country big-house offering rooms for the night on a tattered sign only opportunists could find. They say they are on the journey of a lifetime doing what they should have done when they met years ago in college. Their introduction and settling in moves quickly as the scene switches between what they are doing and what me and my family are doing. We are now joined at the clip.The four travelers say they are going to hitchhike back into town to get some cash and find a car to rent.
Scene 5
We stay with relatives and say goodnight.In the middle of the night, the other band of four have made themselves at home and are in the kitchen cooking meat.
The proprietor, a much older short white woman, now dressed in a dull white house coat, thin crepe gown and fluffy house shoes, comes downstairs and enters the kitchen. She finds her male renters deliriously enjoying the carcass of some kind of animal they've just killed. They are taking turns expertly carving huge slices. They toss pieces into the cast iron skillet for a brief moment then impatiently take it out and began devouring it.
Wearing t-shirts, jeans and boots made for a certain kind of nightlife, they look like they've just crawled out the slime pit.
By the look on the woman's face this is all quite surprising since they looked different in daylight.
She takes it all in stride, sits down at the table and clasps her hands. (She momentarily sees her husband and children in the kitchen. She has a handgun in her pocket.)
Meat is being passed tossed around. The one with the knife surgically cuts another thick slice. The meat offers no resistance like room temperature butter. The body part they are carving appears to be the leg of a large dark colored animal. The woman glances towards the partially open side door, through the screen door and sees the shadow of something hanging and swaying on the nearest fruit tree.
Remaining composed, she looks into the carnivorous eyes across from her as he takes another eager bite like it's his first.
What are you eating, she asks? Everybody stops.
Whatever music was playing in the background, stops.
Even the skillet stops frying.
The swayer keeps swaying and the hooks and chains seem to speak up and creak, drawing the mind's eye back outside, but not the camera's.
The sound of chain reaction swallowing is heard. Those just passing through, suddenly seem restless.
“Shrimp Tar-tare” comes the reply with a broken sly smile followed by slithering lip licking.
For the first time the woman focuses on the hot sauce they're pouring from a whiskey bottle.
The woman glances at everyone and everything.
No one else has moved in this thirty-second delayed sense of space and time.
You must be the shrimp, she confidently replies
Laughter ensues.
She puts her hands in her pockets, gets up, walks out.
Insatiable eyes watch her leave.
Scene 6
What time is it honey? I ask, as we're moving south on the road to nowhere particular.I thought we weren't paying attention to time on this trip, she calmly replies.
I nod and smile.
I know it has been a few hours since we left your cousin's house and I'm getting hungry for lunch or something to munch on I tell her. We have avoided bringing food along to give us reasons to stop more often other than for bathroom breaks.
I'm hungry too, me too the kids interject.
What a surprise, she teases them.
Maybe we should have accepted Teffany's offer to make us some sandwiches for the road,
I know, I add, but we had already stayed a day longer than intended.
But it was well worth it. Khamaria says.
It was, but I'm still hungry.
We are too, the kids say.
We heard you greedy goblins the first time, my wife says.
Why does daddy get to keep saying he's hungry, my uninhibited daughter, Ta-she replies.
Touché Ta-she, our son chirps.
In my defense I say, you guys are a bunch of copycats.
Ignoring me, they continue to press the issue. Can we get stop and get some shrimp they say, because surprisingly the small town we are passing through has a Long John's Silver's and a Captain D's.
I think we should all hang on just a little while longer, and no, we are not going to eat chain store shrimp on this trip my wife says. Here, everybody chew some gum and enjoy the ride.
Always pushing the limits, I say, “Maybe we can get some giant wiggly worms, stick them with a hook, let the blood drip out, catch a catfish or trout, cut their heads off, take their guts out, start a fire, roast them on a stick, then eat them.
Eew, yuck, nasty, gross, I ain't eating no fish from a creek or river, they say as a united front from the backseat.
What do you think they do to those shrimp you love to eat?
Silence.
You know shrimp have more than eight legs, I state.
As soon as that is said, we are now well beyond the one stoplight town and are passing by a woman in the field waving to a car full of flailing hands that is about to pull onto the road. By the position of their vehicle, they seem headed in the opposite direction. Their car seems overloaded in the style of hunter-gatherer nomads, seemingly traveling with all their worldly possessions in tow, which seemed to have increased . We pass them in slow motion, looking at each other. One of them is black.
A strange sensation emerges. The musical score confirms it.
Not paying attention, I drive off the road slightly and the sound quickly brings the action back to real-time. I correct and pull over to quickly check the tires. As I walk back around the car, I unknowingly step on a littered packet of sun heated Ketchup. The camera catches the red splatter against the white-walled black tire.
We continue on our journey into the unknown, but expecting something different.
Scene 7
Not far behind, four more decide to head in the same direction.As soon as they are out of sight, the woman's expression changes. She stops what she's doing and moves quickly back towards the house to the tree. The carcass is gone, but not the wet spot beneath. She checks her pockets and finds nothing and hurries inside through the side door into the messy kitchen and past the table with dirty money on it. She rushes upstairs and finds her phone and gun in the bathroom. She picks up both and looks out the window and down the road in both directions. Seeing no one, she leans against the wall, breathes deeply and slowly folds her arms across her chest, gun in one hand, phone in the other. She then goes back downstairs, gets a hammer, goes outside still carrying phone and gun, goes to the tattered sign , knocks it down and tosses it into the thick growth beside the road. She then goes back to what she was doing.
.... Whose nightmare is this?
