3.15.09 - Slumgod Millionaire [Screenplay]

Announcer The guy who hands out the awards. This year, the Oscars don’t have any special way of presenting the nominees, so he takes care of that.

Danny Boyle The director of Slumdog Millionaire and 28 Days Later. An egotistical jerk.

Christopher Nolan The director of The Dark Knight. A jealous man who feels he’s being cheated.

Resul Pookutty Slumdog Millionaire’s sound mixer.

Peter Jackson The director of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Famed Bollywood dancer.

Setting 2009, Auditorium holding the Oscars. Announcer stands at podium while the nominees sit to the right in chairs placed side by side.

ANNOUNCER

And the winner for Best Adapted Screenplay goes to...Slumdog Millionaire!

(gentle clapping)

BOYLE

(stands up and walks toward podium; accepts Oscar)

Thank you very much indeed...I’m...(pause). What is this, number 12? Is this my 12th Oscar? Is it?

ANNOUNCER

Yes

BOYLE
Yeah, me!

(returns to seat)

ANNOUNCER

(gentle clapping)

NOLAN

(from his seat, mockingly)

Douche...

ANNOUNCER

Thank you. And now we move to our next category: Best Sound Mixing. And the nominees are...

(with exaggerated energy, begins making rocket noises, throwing arms in different direction)

(in a deeper voice)

Best Sound Mixing.

(more rocket noises)

Wanted. Slumdog Millionaire. The Dark Knight.

NOLAN

Here we go! Finally, some recognition.

ANNOUNCER

(voice back to normal)

And the winner for Best Sound Mixing goes to...Slumdog Millionaire!

(gentle clapping)

NOLAN

Are you kidding me?!

ANNOUNCER

(tries to hand Oscar to RESUL POOKUTTY, but DANNY BOYLE takes it instead)

BOYLE

It’s okay, you can sit down, I’m here.

POOKUTTY
But...

BOYLE

Nah, take a break. You earned it. I earned it...for you.

(takes deep breath)

This is the greatest feeling I’ve ever felt...ever. It’s like nothing you’ll ever experience and I deserve this, you know? Y’all know what I mean? I deserve this. All of this.

(waves arms in a circle over the stage)

No one does it better than me. No one!

(slams fists on podium)

As for people I’d like to thank...

(takes his time pulling out a list)

I’d like to thank myself for being so genuinely perfect, and...well... thank you!

ANNOUNCER

(gentle clapping)

BOYLE

(while returning to seat, to Nolan:)

Hey failure.

NOLAN

How’s it goin’, Boyle?

BOYLE

Bling-bling

(flashes Oscars)

Perfectly.

ANNOUNCER

Thank you. Our next category is for best animated film. And the nominees are...

(robot beeping, more rocket noises, with a deep voice:)

Best Animated Film.

(robot beeping, random screaming)

Bolt. Kung Fu Panda. WALL-E.

(back to normal)

And the winner is...

(struggles to open envelope to add to the tension)

Slumdog Millionaire!

(gentle clapping)

NOLAN

What?! He wasn’t even nominated!

BOYLE

Oh my Me...Oh my Me...This was a tough one to pick up, but I knew it was mine. I earned it. I...I earned it. Look at this statue. Nolan, check this out.

NOLAN

No.

BOYLE
Look at it shine. Like me. Like my insanely brilliant artistic soul.

NOLAN

Can I say something here? Can I interject or something?

BOYLE

Mmm, ouch!

(fake stabs himself with Oscar)

Oh, it burns so sexy-nice!

(obscene dancing)

NOLAN

Does anyone really think he deserves this award?

ANNOUNCER

Excuse me, are you doubting the sainthood of Slumdog Millionaire?

NOLAN

Sainthood...are you kidding me?!

ANNOUNCER

Watch it Mr. Christopher “You-Suck” Nolan. Look at the scores. Schindler’s List only won 7 Academy Awards. Seven. Pathetic. SlumGod Millionaire has won all of them.

NOLAN

Not Best Documentary.

ANNOUNCER

Or did he?

(into cell phone)

Assassinate the “Man On Wire” cast and crew...yes...and their children.

BOYLE

Now do you understand, Nolan? This isn’t Kansas anymore, Batman.

NOLAN

What?

BOYLE

You know, ‘cause Batman’s from Kansas.

NOLAN

You’re all insane!

BOYLE

Shut up and eat your foot Nolan, we’re down to the last award. Winning this one will give me enough gold to create the perfect hydrogen bomb. I’ll start by blowing up your precious Kansas. Then...the world.

(All but NOLAN and ANNOUNCER sit down)

NOLAN
Is anyone listening to this guy?

BOYLE

Sit down failure.

(NOLAN stares at the ANNOUNCER, who shrugs, then begrudgingly sits down)

ANNOUNCER

And now onto our next category: Best Picture of 2008.

(rocket noises)

NOLAN

Can you shut the hell up and finish this?

ANNOUNCER

(offended)

Oh...

(emotionally destroyed, he opens the envelope)

And the winner is...

BOYLE

(taunts NOLAN with obscene gestures.)

ANNOUNCER

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

BOYLE

Are you kidding me?!

JACKSON

It’s time to let the big boys play.

(Music begins playing. ANNOUNCER, DANNY BOYLE, CHRISTOPHER NOLAN, PETER JACKSON and RESUL POOKUTTY dance randomly as the lights fade.)

3.15.09 - Goosebumps [Nonfiction]

If the television series Goosebumps has done anything for my life, it has scarred me. Okay, maybe that’s a little bit too extreme., but still, it was this show that kept me from climbing spiral staircases and sleeping with my teddy bear. Well, that and I’m an adult now, though I bet there’s plenty of successful people who sleep with their teddies and/or blankies.

Watching Goosebumps now, I can appreciate the horrible acting and costume work, but not when I was a kid. It was like MacBeth times infinity. I was glued to the set. Do you remember Horrorland? Just look at that name! “Hey, let’s take the kids to Horrorland, there’s some clean family fun! Maybe tomorrow we’ll check out Decapitationville!” How R.L. Stine not imprisoned for life? “The Headless Ghost,” “Monster Blood,” “The Blob That Ate Everyone.” The MPAA would’ve had a field day if they had gotten hold of him.

I, like probably every other child in the world, hated nightmares. In fact, my dad once told me that all I had to do was say “I won’t have a nightmare” over and over again, and I would be safe the entire night. I gave it a go; the first night, I was cured!The next night, my teddy bear was strangling me under my bed sheets.

More often than not, my dad’s advice saved me. It’s only fair then to put the blame on Goosebumps, the television show that spawned the two scariest dreams of my childhood.

The first one I already mentioned. I was sleeping in bed, nice and snug under the covers. I opened my eyes slowly and turned to my teddy bear. Right before I drifted off once more, it blinked! I opened them wide, and all of a sudden the dummy from Goosebumps is strangling me. I tried to scream for help, but it just kept squeezing tighter and tighter. Once, I had this dream three times in a row; a dream within a dream within a dream. Can you imagine being strangled three freakin’ times in a row? Can you imagine the kind of therapy I’m gonna need when my kid asks me for a teddy bear and I start whimpering like a sick puppy?

The second one is more creepy than violent. I’m on a tall, winding staircase, much like the one from “A Night In Terror Tower.” Anyway, I’m running around and around this thing, but it’s like I’m not even moving at all. I look down, and there’s this witch at the very bottom. She speeds through the air, and I’m still trying to make it to the top. She grabs me and screams and then, just my luck, I wake up to a dream of me being shot in the chest (it tickled, I recall.) I never had that dream again, but trust me, once was more than enough.

If only I still had those VHS recordings...let me tell you, the only thing scarier than killer teddy bears and witches on staircases is popping in a VHS you’re sure is a collection of Goosebumps episodes and having Oprah parade around on your television screen. I haven’t slept a day since.

3.2.09 - The Cottage [Short Story]

I use to own this lake house in Michigan. It was beautiful, really, it was. We saw deer once. We were sitting on the steps and they came prancing by.

Did they have trouble getting up the road? It use to take so much effort to get our car up there. Every time we got to the top, we’d all cheer. Except for...Megan...

(At this point, the victim’s mother needed to take a break. We gave her a cup of water, and let her calm down. After five minutes, she began again.)

She was so terrified of that road, because once, when she was three, she was riding her tricycle out in front. I had gone inside to grab suntan lotion and when I got back, she was nearing the edge of the road. I remember the blare of a horn, one that shook the trees and with that, she began descending down the road into the street. Oh, how I screamed. I could feel each and every one of those eighteen wheels shaking the ground. Thomas (he 17 at the time) and Michael was 11, they heard my cries and ran after her. She had landed in a thorn bush. It took me hours to...to pull them...to get them all out.

Megan never liked the cottage like we did. She was sure it was unlucky. It wasn’t though, you know? It was where Jim proposed to me. It was where we spent our first night together as one, lying in our bed overlooking the Lake. I gave birth to my children there. Except for Megan. Coincidence I guess, right?

We got rid of the cottage ten years ago. 1998. Megan was thirteen years old, and we were up at the lake house celebrating her birthday. We placed balloons at the end of the road, and a sign that read “Happy 13^th Megan!” It was supposed to be a surprise party, right, but one of Megan’s friends gave it away.

Thomas wanted to take Michael to some new bar down the road and Jim didn’t want them driving home drunk, so he went along too. It was just me and Megan, talking about boys she liked at school, and what she wanted to do when she grew up. And she kept this notebook that I wish I had to show you, but she kept everything in there; doodles, stories, receipts, coupons... It was my idea for her to use it. I told her that one day she’d look back and cherish it. I wish I still had it.

(We asked the victim’s mother how she ended up leaving the victim alone.)

I didn’t have enough eggs for the cake, and I asked her if I could leave her home alone. The neighbor was so safe back then, we didn’t even lock the doors at night. She said it was fine, as long as Clapper got to stay in the house. I almost told her no, but I’m so glad I didn’t.

At the bottom of the road there was a car that passed, a black Dodge. I’ll never forget it...it had a long, jagged cut along the edge, like someone had ran a giant key across it. The man in there took a look at the sign. That didn’t really bother me; it was a pretty big sign. But then he took a look at me, and I swear I nearly vomited, like there was some aura he was giving off that just sickened me. I had to unroll the window to clear my head. As soon as he passed, I made my left turn.

He was still there...parked on the side of the road. He had no reason to park there, so I slowed down to make sure he was okay, to see if he stopped because we knew each other or something, but he stared at me, and smiled. His teeth were too yellow, too crooked to be friendly and hair was gray and stringy, he was so skinny; I could see the bones in his face.

(We asked the victim’s mother if she suspected the man would go after the victim)

Not right away. I kept driving, but little more than halfway to the store, I began to shiver. He had looked at that sign just before he parked. Then I turned my car right around.

I parked ran for the door and it was locked! It was never locked, so I knocked hard and called Megan’s name out, and I was sure she had been taken or dead or I don’t even know. But then she poked her head out of her upstairs bedroom window and I was gasping for air.

She said she was playing a board game when Clapper started barking at the window, just snarling. Megan looked out the window and saw a tall man, standing under the shadow of one of the trees, just staring at her, smiling the entire time. The dog barked again, and the man waved at her, just waved. She ran up to her bedroom and crawled under the bed with notebook and dolly, and she and she didn’t move until I came home. I told her that she should’ve called the police. I should’ve been loving her but I was so scared so I just yelled at her and the entire party ruined.

We never found him, and we had to sell the cottage because every sound was him, every smell was him. We took the couches and the tables, and just left everything for the sellers. It all felt so tainted.

She was so happy we were moving. She wouldn’t let me take anything. She wouldn’t even go back in the house. She just sat on the porch, Clapper’s leash around her arm, and waited for us to come out.

It’s him...I know it. Megan swore he had been following her ever since the incident. Once, she had her friends drive her home from the park because she swore she saw him sitting by the trees watching her. And just last years, she called me on her cell crying because she thought she saw him in the cereal aisle. And I told her she needed to move on. I told her she was delusional and I hate myself for that. I mean, how the hell could he have found her?

(Officer Bryant removed a tattered notebook from a sealed bag and placed it in front of the victim’s mother. She paged through it, visibly distressed.)

It’s...oh God...

(She closeed the notebook and began to cry. The officers attempt to comfort her, but to no avail.)

No one ever bought the lake house...because everyone who went up there complained of some stench, like some bum was shitting where ever he felt like. And they told me that the smell came from her bedroom.

She left it in there...I told her not to write any personal information, but...her address....

(The victim’s mother was unable to continue after this point. We confirmed that the victim was last seen leaving her house for a morning jog. We assured the victim’s mother that we’d find the perpetrator, then dismissed her.)

2.17.09 - Accidental Glance [poem]

I swear I wasn’t staring - there was
something out the window
that caught my eye.

But then you looked over and
we saw each other and
I looked away and
I thought you’d the same butwhen I took another glance
you were still staring.
You were probably taking the same glance I took
and I swear it was an accident,this stuff just happens.
So I’m sorry for staring
(unless you wanted me to stare
because you look very nice but
not in a creepy way).
I mean, that bird out the window was cool and
it was the reddest cardinal I had ever seen and
the light just kinda bounced off its wings and
landed on you.

I guess what I’m trying to say is
you look nice in the light and
I guess I’ll return to my book.

1.11.09 - You Take Away Its Energy And It Disappears [short story]

I realize already that I am going to be killed.

My eyelids, twin gates that have kept my mind safe from the world, slide open. My eyes are like spotlights; they scan my bedroom, the dark abyss where predators may lay hidden underneath my bed or inside the closet, waiting to attack.

I peel the covers off of my body. The cool sting of the swinging fan reminds me that I am completely vulnerable. I swing my legs over the bed’s threshold. They dangle like worms beneath the ocean’s waters, writhing, taunting the beast that lurks below.

I know how this dream goes, and yet I can’t force myself awake. This path is linear and unchanging. I’m to be killed if I ever wish to pass on into reality.

My feet drop to the floor. A rustle emerges from inside the closet. Usually I’m pulled under the bed, but I guess it likes to keep me on my toes. This was always the scariest version anyway.

Yes, I’m going to die, but every night it seems like that door to the hallway is my freedom. If only I could open it up rush down the stairs, I would be okay. I would have outsmarted it.

And yet, I’ve never outsmarted it.

One step forward. The floorboards creak. The closet door swings open a bit. It peers through, it’s black eyes hidden within the shadows. It is the shadows, smothering the entire room, poisoning the good air I attempt to breath.

Another step. Creeeaaakkk. I can feel it now. With every unholy intake of oxygen I am consumed with anxiety. A hand, no, a claw emerges from the closet, it’s jagged nails cracking against the door. It whispers my name. I look around, though I know where it came from. I know it’s coming, and yet I remain oblivious.

I break into a run, but it’s faster than me. It smashes through the closet and throws me to the ground. It wraps it’s claws around my throat and I struggle to push it off but in a matter of seconds it throws it’s head back and let’s out a guttural howl. It has no teeth, and that always scared me; it’s just an empty void. The pitch of the scream rows higher and higher and why can’t my parents hear the scream and then it squeezes my head and snaps it around in a 360 spin and

I jolt awake in bed (though I used to think it was my coffin when I was little). Sweat runs down my face and I realize that not only had I let it kill me again, I had let it scare me again.

If it were any other night, I would’ve dropped my head back onto the pillow to dream of Kaitlyn Summers appearing at my windowsill (naked), but this is close to the 100^th time I’ve had this dream. It sucks knowing that I’m going to die every night, but what sucks the most is that I’m unable to control it.

It’s been 10 years now, and I’ve let it kill me for far too long. I have an idea, one that I’ve been formulating for the past week now. It’s a risky one, but if I succeed, my dreams will forever be cleansed.

I close the gates. My mind urges me to lock them shut forever, to let things remain as they are. I know better than my mind. It’s time to face

The beast. It’s nearby. I can feel its wickedness growing like a weed in my room.

There’s something that I want to do, but my mind is so hazy…I peel the covers off, cold air draping my body…

I blink. The blades of the fan are the spinning rays of a dormant sun, a sun that has refused to shine through it’s heartlessness. I know exactly what needs to be done.

I stand up in bed and pull the string, drowning the room in a brilliant sunshine. I march over to the closet and throw open the door. Out falls a giant teddy bear with a blue vest, it’s paws covering up it’s eyes, cringing in pain.

“Hey, what the heck jerk…” the bear cries. Its voice is surprisingly pathetic.

“What the hell are you doing in there?”

“I was, um…” It looks around the room, as if excuses existed as solid objects in my bedroom. “Just visiting…?”

“This is bullshit! I’m sick of you jumping out and screaming and snapping my neck and shit! Just stop it!”

It backs up against the wall, it’s lower lip trembling. A tear made of stuffing falls out of it’s button eye. I had finally defeated my arch nemesis…but I didn’t want to make it cry.

“Hey,” I say, knelling down next to it. “I didn’t mean to shout at you.”

“This always happens!” It cries, throwing it’s paws up in the air. “Whenever I try to make friends I just snap their necks! They don’t even give me a chance!”

“I’m sorry I never gave you a chance, buddy.”

“Hey, what’s going on here?” someone asks from the windowsill. In crawls Kaitlyn Summers (naked). “I was passing by and I heard crying.”

“I was yelling at the monster in my closet.”

“Oh, don’t mind Choo-Choo Bear, he’s just shy,” she says (sexily, I might add).

“Well, gee, Choo-Choo Bear, I’m awful sorry I made you cry.”

“It’s okay,” it says with a cute little sniffle, wiping the fluff off of it’s eyes. “Does this means we’re friends now?”

“Well…” I look over at Kaitlin and she nods in sexy approval. “Sure we can.”

Kaitlin and Choo-Choo Bear hip-hip-horray, and I can only smile. And to think for this long my greatest fear had been a feeble little bear.

“So Kaitlin, now that that’s all settled, you wanna do something?”

Kaitlin struts toward me, giving me a tiny wink. “Nope, I actually came here to pick up…Choo-Choo Bear.”

Choo-Choo Bear elbows my arm and gives me a wink. They leave hand-and-hand out my window, where a flying eagle swoops them up and they fly towards a beautiful horizon.

Thankfully, it was all just a dream.