Dreamland

Assorted Short Subjects

Life in War Times: Our County is at war. LA has been bombed, and our house has been damaged. Clean water and food are almost impossible to get. All we have to eat right now is food that has been contaminated with asbestos. We eat it anyway, so we won’t starve. I’m out searching the rubble for supplies. I find a carton of cigarettes: Camel unfiltered. I bring them back to our place and sit down, start chain-smoking them. My wife complains, says smoking like that is bad for my health. I don’t care. I figure the way things are, the contaminated food will probably kill me first.

Truckin’: I’m driving a Semi cross-country. I spot several cardboard cartons along the side of the road; they’ve obviously fallen from another truck. I stop and pick one up; it’s got a shipping label on it for an address of a business in Hawaii. I open the box: It’s filled with industrial safety glasses. I pick up all of the boxes and throw them in the back of my truck. I can sell these in Florida when I get back. Whoever lost them will probably collect the insurance on them anyway.

Dinner or Stooges?: I’m supposed to go out for dinner and drinks with a group of people who all live in my apartment building. We’re meeting in the woman next door’s apartment. When I get there, everyone is arguing. Some people want to order takeout and stay there and watch the Three Stooges Marathon on TV. Some people still want to go out, but they are arguing about which place to go. I’m hungry and don’t have any patience for this. I walk down the icy porch steps from the third floor apartment, being careful not to slip, on my way to my car. They can all go to hell; I’m going out by myself to get something to eat.