The following illustration and poem was drawn and written by Film Threat’s very own Stina Chyn.
The following story is based on a dream I once had.
It was a Wednesday night – about 2:16am in fact – and it was dark and stormy outside my window. My eyes were starting to give out; as if they had been lifting weights all day and now they are ready to hit the showers. I tried to fight them but it was hard – two against one. I lost the fight and shortly after, I was in a dream world.
My eyes opened and I was in the middle of an empty intersection. The clouds were dark and lighting traveled all throughout them. I was still in Florida, and being that I lived there during the 2004 Hurricane Season, I knew exactly what was to come. The wind was stirring quite a bit but the rain didn’t start yet. I still had time.
“There is going to be quite a storm,” a quiet voice said.
I turned to my left and there stood Lucy Liu. She was so beautiful. She stared straight ahead at the coming storm. The wind tossed her hair all over the place, save for one single braid that was held together by a thin black rubber band. I tried my best not to let her know how much I loved her.
I look forward once again and add, “There sure is. I wonder where everyone else is.”
Aside from Lucy and I, there were no people in sight. Leaves and palm tree leaves bumbled down the street like a motorized bee that ran out of gas.
“What are you doing here?” I ask her.
“I’m not quite sure.”
She looks over to me with a rather sad look on her face. I look back, right into her eyes. Should I tell her that I’d give my life to make out with her for even 4 seconds? Probably not, even in dreamland I knew this was a bad idea. What if Lucy was having this same dream?
She looks forward once again and I quickly follow suit. The sky is getting darker and the wind is picking up speed.
“I think I have to go now,” she says.
“No, you should wait. Let’s go somewhere… let’s find shelter,” I suggest and she takes me up on the offer.
We start walking down a street and I see Fat Steve up ahead a little ways. He see me from a far and he starts flagging me down with his right hand, while his left hand is clenching yet another donut.
“Who is that?” Lucy ponders.
“Damn, it’s my fake friend Steve.”
This answer seemed to confuse Lucy a little bit, as she tilted her head in my direction and asked, “Fake?”
“Yeah, Steve is one of those guys who, aside from purchasing the Special Edition DVD release of the old Star Wars trilogy, never does anything wrong so I don’t have the heart to tell him to jump off a building.”
She laughs. It’s even more beautiful in real life (okay, dream life) than it is on screen. I so wish I saw Hoops standing there instead.
We make our way up to Steve and he invites us inside a building. It was an actual business before this Hurricane came. Steve sat down on a rusty folding chair and continued watching a television he somehow rigged up to a car battery or something. He had a DVD player going too.
Lucy looks around the shop and I head over to see what Steve is watching. The images on the television look vaguely familiar.
“What is this dude?”
Steve lets out a chuckle and gets excited, “Dude, it’s War of the Worlds!”
Not the good version, the Steven Spielberg-Tom Cruise-David Koepp-Dakota Fanning monstrosity. Dreams can be so ironic. The world was ending outside and here is Steve inside a building with a donut and a copy of a really bad movie about the world ending.
“F**k that s**t Steve, I am better off outside.”
Lucy chuckles. She wanted no part of that either – she was out the door before I even stepped in that direction.
Outside, Lucy was once again in the middle of the street, staring at the black cloud moving quickly towards us. I go and stand next to her, still a little bit angered by the Steve situation.
“Sorry about that,” I tell her.
She laughs once again, then looks towards me.
“It’s okay,” she steps closer to me. “You have to do something for me…”
“I’d do anything for you, Lucy Liu.”
She gently rubs her hand on my cheek. I was so thankful I was actually smart enough to shave, so I could feel her hand in all of its glory.
“Don’t get so angry. It’ll be okay.”
Her smile is exposed once again and her hand falls from my cheek.
“You take care of yourself Mike.”
She literally vanishes and I find myself sad that she is gone. I look towards the darkness. The cloud was moving faster now and the wind was picking up. It was about to hit full force. And I was just waiting to let it hit me.
