Devastating earthquake rocks Southland

by Bill, © copyright 1993

A powerful earthquake measuring 8.3 on the Richter Scale brought Southern California to its knees just before dawn yesterday. Hundreds of buildings in the greater Los Angeles area were completely destroyed, dozens more rendered uninhabitable. L.A.'s newly-completed MetroRail subway system collapsed in on itself. Virtually every freeway overpass has either collapsed or been made impassable. Electricity, gas and water services are out throughout most of the Southland. People are panicked in the streets. It is complete bedlam.

Meanwhile, in a quiet little neighborhood on the west side of town where nothing bad ever happens, there sits a man in his apartment, at his computer, completely oblivious to the chaos that has engulfed the city. Two reporters from The Times enter his apartment without knocking -- because they're reporters, dammit, and have the right to do whatever they want in pursuit of a story -- and they ask this man how he can be so calm in the midst of this natural disaster.

"What disaster?" the man asks.

"The earthquake," they say. "Surely, you felt it."

"Well," he says, taking a moment to scratch his butt. "I did feel something last night. But I thought it was just a bunch of fat people running up and down the stairs. They have a lot of fat people living here in the building, you know. So, it woke me up for a minute, but I went right back to sleep. So it was an earthquake, eh?"

"Yes," they say, having trouble believing this guy is for real. "It was a HUGE earthquake. The Big One! You must've at least heard about it."

"Television's not working for some reason," he says. "All I get is static. And the damned paper boy never delivered my paper this morning."

"We're with the newspaper," they tell him. "And we can tell you that there won't be any paper this morning. Might not be another paper for days."

"Damn!" he shouts. "What kinda outfit you running down there at The Times?"

"There's been an earthquake, you idiot!" they shout at him. "Are you completely insane? Have you looked out the window? It's complete chaos!"

"I've been too busy on the computer to notice what's going on outside," he says, agitated. "Now, if you don't mind, would you please get out of my house? I don't recall ever inviting you in, actually."

And that's when the reporters noticed that this man's computer was indeed working, as were his lights.

"How is it that your computer and your lights are working when the electricity is supposedly out throughout Southern California?" they ask.

"Well, it's obviously not out everywhere," he says. One of the reporters goes out into the common area of the apartment building and asks loudly if anyone's electricity is on. A chorus of "no's" from the other tenants was his answer.

"What program are you using there?" the other reporter points to the computer.

"Oh, just some computer bulletin board I belong to," the man says casually.

"Bulletin board? How can you be logged onto a computer bulletin board when the phone lines are down?"

"Well, obviously ..." he begins, but they finish his sentence for him: "... yeah, yeah, obviously not all the phone lines are down."

In the upper left corner of his computer screen is a 3-D multicolored logo. It's a hologram of a slowly spinning planet. And there is some strange-looking writing like hieroglyphics or something below the logo. Translated, it read "Planetary Council." But, of course, the reporters would have no way of knowing this.

"Can we use your phone?" one of the reporters asks.

"Not while I'm logged onto the bulletin board," the man replies.

"It's pretty important," says the reporter. "Yours is the first working phone we've had access to since leaving The Times building."

"'Fraid I can't let you do that."

"Why not?"

"Well, because that would break the connection," the man says.

"The bulletin board connection?"

"Yep."

"But it's really important that we use the phone!" they are shouting at him again. One of the reporters takes this as his cue to make a move toward the telephone, which is located on a little table on the other side of the room.

"I wouldn't do that if I was you," the man says to the reporter. The man is pointing a large-calibre gun at the reporter. Neither reporter is sure where the gun came from. They never noticed it before. But, there it was in his hand.

"Now just back away from the phone," the man says, gesturing with the gun. The reporter complies. "Now, I asked you once and I'm not going to ask you again. Get out of my house." He doesn't raise his voice. The gun in his hand makes that unnecessary.

The reporters left the man's apartment and made their way through the rubble of the earthquake's aftermath to the nearest police station to report this anomalous guy and the fact that all of his utilities seemed to be working while the rest of the county had no such luxury.

An hour or so later when the reporters and police returned to the apartment, however, the man was gone. In fact, not just he was gone, but the entire contents of the apartment were missing! The outer walls were still there, but the rest of the contents of the man's apartment were gone. Everything, that is, except the phone jack in the wall.

The police left in disgust, claiming they had better things to do than follow a couple of idiot reporters around.

Meanwhile, the "anomalous guy" was still at his computer. He was still logged onto his "Planetary Council" bulletin board. And, as far as he could tell, everything was pretty much the same as it was before those damned reporters had stopped by.

If he had bothered to look out his window, he would have realized he wasn't in Los Angeles anymore. But, he didn't really care. His television was working again. He wasn't getting Los Angeles stations, he was getting Planetary Council television. But, he was so used to mentally switching back and forth between Earth reality and Planetary Council reality that he hardly noticed the switch in language, both written and spoken, from English to Planetary Council.

This "anomalous guy" was what they called a "monitor." Just a technician, really. He was the conduit between the two universes -- Earth's and the Planetary Council's. In the larger scheme of things, his existence could be equated with that of the simple phone jack in the wall. He liked to think of himself as more than that. But, to be honest, that's basically all he was.

He soon dropped this train of thought, however, getting depressed thinking of himself in such unflattering terms. He remembered what he had been taught in school: If you find yourself getting depressed or unhappy, stop thinking. Stop thinking entirely. That's what they always told him.

And so, with this in mind, he returned to his computer screen and did his job, like the good soldier that he was.

THE END?

Lunch at Jack-In-The-Box

by Bill

Driving around town the other day, I somehow ended up in Hollywood. I don't get to Hollywood much anymore and don't usually find myself missing it. But it was a beautiful day. And seeing all the quaint shops -- each one striving for uniqueness -- and the many people on the street -- each one striving for a unique sameness -- I wondered why I ever left. On this day, Hollywood truly seemed like the place to be.

Getting hungry, I started looking for a hip, cool place to have lunch. I passed by several places with tables on the sidewalk and young, hip, sunglass-wearing people sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes. But I couldn't have lunch at one of these places. I was alone. And, in Hollywood, alone people just don't sit at sidewalk cafe tables for lunch.

As I stopped at a traffic light I saw a Jack-In-The-Box restaurant on my left -- not exactly a cool, hip place to have lunch. But I was tired of driving around, and my stomach was telling me to stop here for lunch.

"What about the recent food poisoning scare?" I wondered.

"Well, yeah, there's that," my stomach answered. "But, wasn't it their hamburger meat that was contaminated?"

"Yeah, so?" I countered.

"Well, you never buy their burgers," my stomach reasoned. "You always go for their chicken sandwiches."

"You're right, of course," I acquiesced. And in a reckless, daring move, I stopped for lunch.

The first thing I see as I pull into the parking lot is this bum -- or should I say a "mentally-challenged, emotionally-disabled, financially-disadvantaged, homeless person"? "Bum" is easier. Anyway, he's standing there in the middle of the parking lot, completely filthy, hair sticking out in all directions, pants half-way down his legs, obviously incoherent, staring off into space. Probably a Scientologist.

As I enter the restaurant there's this young rock 'n roll poser-type -- complete with long blonde hair, black tank-top shirt, multi-colored spandex pants and white sneakers -- having lunch with his nubile bimbo girlfriend in white spandex pants, black leather boots and some sort of fishnet over a pink t-shirt. They're like cardboard cutouts.

I approach the cashier and order the "Chicken Supreme" sandwich, "Seasoned Curly Fries" and a Coke. I sit down at the corner table furthest from the door and start in on the curly fries.

In walks this girl. I wouldn't have noticed her except that she's shouting "Hey!" at someone as she staggers through the door. She looks to be about twenty, with medium-length dirty-blonde hair, narrow-set angry eyes, small pinched mouth. She's obviously on drugs.

At first, I think she's just another whacked-out homeless person, and I hope she'll leave as soon as she realizes that food costs money. But she doesn't go way. In fact, she's brought friends. Two young "dudes" -- she calls them both "dude" -- stagger into the restaurant a moment or two behind her. They look fairly strung-out on drugs themselves. And, unfortunately, it looks as if they intend to order lunch and eat here.

At the cashier counter, the girl is being extremely bizarre, talking loudly at one moment only to mumble something beyond my hearing the next. I keep an eye on her because she's so deranged, and I'm afraid she might come near me.

I seem to attract these weirdos. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I look at them. I make eye contact. And weirdos are used to having others look away. So when they catch me looking at them, no matter how fleeting that eye contact may be, they get a glimmer of hope that I might actually talk to them, or listen to them, or give them money, or make some sort of acknowledgement of their existence. Of course, I generally don't. But this is probably what they're thinking.

Anyway, I'm at my table in the corner of the restaurant and there are about twenty other tables available. But which table does this girl (and her tag-along "dudes") choose? That's right -- the one right next to me.

My first thought is to immediately move to another table. But I'm hesitant because I get the impression the girl is paying attention to me (with what's left of her mind) and she might be insulted if I get up and leave. I don't want to insult her because I'm afraid she'll go into some sort of mad, drug-induced tirade aimed at me, and I would then be forced to eat my lunch in my car.

I hope she moves to another table, saving me the trouble. I don't know what makes me think this will happen. Maybe it's because she reminds me of a wheel on a bent axle: liable to fly off in any direction at any moment, and I'm hoping she will fly off in the direction furthest away from me.

She starts barking at one of her dudes, "Get me an ashtray! I need an ashtray!"

I don't know if she's going to start smoking or if she just wants an ashtray to lick the bottom of.

I finally get up and move to the opposite corner of the restaurant. I feel her eyes upon me a couple of times while I eat, but I never look in her direction again. I've made too much eye contact already for one day.

I can't wait to get back home.