I realized my dad moved all my reggae 12s to another part of the house.

ANOTHER NUTSHELL

A giant, ancient theater topped with luxury lofts whose name is written in neon above the marquee, where the collective moniker of a group of my friends is written in less luminous script. There's only 2.70 minutes on the burner. There's a pair of unsecured networks apparent from the sidewalk out front, where young ones have just begun quietly queuing en masse, but for some reason I can't seem to get on either network. I put my handheld gaming/internet device back into my backpack, rezipping it quickly before too many flies escape. I walk down the block, turn into the parking lot. Two guys dressed as cops are conversing by an orange cone near the alley that undoubtably leads to the rear of the theater. They direct me back to the front entrance.

An hour or two later I am in, and an hour or two after that I am pushing against a crowd of people, trying to exit through the front door. The crowd is so thick that I am wedged, slowly shuffling against the influx, I can feel my two bulging bags pushing against people I cannot see and I can feel their discomfort through the bag. I keep an apologetic and patient look on my face-- every grill that gets close to mine responds with unmistakable frost. I'm paranoid, for sure, but I think its a safe bet that many of these mumbles are frustrated requests that I use a different door, for a dedicated exit surely exists elsewhere in the building. I'm using this one, though. It doesn't seem unreasonable, to me, to want to come out the same way you came in.

WELL GODDAMN THIS CANNOT BE A GOOD SIGN

American society has collapsed into a frenzied bloodhunt and me and a small crew of heads are somehow in this area that feels like a cross between a exurban cul-de-sac and a small resort village. We have a house, not sure why or whose, but I'm pretty sure we have some kind of legitimate claim to it. It's big and we find a few guns around, including an awesome rifle with a scope that I sling over my shoulder. Some people try to sleep (we ran a long time to get here) and some people are just panicky and unfocused. I am keeping my eyes on the windows on the top floor (the house has 3 floors, probably a basement, too, although I never get near it for fear of getting trapped down there and executed too easily) watching this little hill behind the house, and the closest neighbor, for signs of violent maniacs. Pretty soon I see a bunch of dudes coming over the hill and they all carry guns. I start yelling for other people to take up spots at windows so we can fucking blast these guys, but one of my crew objects-- the guys with guns are all black. "We've been watching all manner of motherfuckers kill each other like it's nothing all day, we can't fuck aorund right now!" The objector persists, and manages to convince other people in the crew that we should be arguing instead of shooting. "Look-- fess the fuck up," I scream, "You don't really give a fuck about racism, at least not about 'fixing' it or whatever-- all you want to do is feel superior while you criticize and castigate from an impregnable position!" They don't get it. I try to explain that this behavior needs to be left in the past, that the collapse changes everything and these intellectual "gotcha, you crypto-raciss!" shit was never really righteous, it was all about shaming people, never did a damn thing to better anybody's actual existence, only make weird guilty crackers without black friends feel better momentarily about themselves. The argument doesn't stop, though, more people are shouting, trying to get some words in. I turn back to the window to see dudes running at full bore towards our spot. I raise the rifle to my shoulder and take a shot right through the closed window. I watch this dude crumple behind the spreading spiderweb crack in the glass. It turns out I'm Annie Oakley with this little scope attachment. One of my crew joins me at the next window and we repel the gang trying to move on our spot, but we don't actually fall all of them, which makes me sick to my stomach, I know they're going to regroup and return. Also, it will turn out that we've attracted the attention of the closest neighbors, a little McMansion full of (honky) cops (ex-cops at this point, really) who still dress in uniform and think they can trick us into letting them into the house by saying they're going to help us. There's no argument here-- nobody is trying to let them in, but it's obvious that their arsenal is intense so we don't open fire on them either, just stay ready until they leave, threatening to come back and fuck us up big-time.

The first group returns first, though, and after a lengthy shoot-out in which I completely run out of ammo and see most of my crew shot to pieces, the two fat bastards that head up that particular posse come in for vengence. They act so chill at first that there's nothing I can do but sit silently on my knees with my hands on my head while some mook pokes me in the back with the barrel of his gun. There's a rape I am forced to watch in which the rapee begins to act like she's all into it, multiplying the gross line-crossing intensity of this oneiroscape exponentially. I'm abruptly shot in the head by the henchmen behind me before it's over.