This is a real thing.
…I didn’t know it before, but even food can be terrifying…like for realsies…cuz I completely tore my bedding apart with thrashing and woke up a sweaty hot mess. And for once, it wasn’t cuz of a coughing attack or a fever.
Here’s the scene: If you’re a film buff, imagine “The Desperate Hours,” meets “A Clockwork Orange,” meets the Food Network.
You guys, it was fucked up.
…So a bunch of us are in this giant house, living there all together. Theatre people, some family, and strangers I didn’t really know. Anyway…we’re chilling in the living room, drinking and what-have-you, when these two dudes come to the door. And some idiot goes to answer, and just lets them in.
…And they (of course) have guns and shit…and a whole pack of “others” waiting out back to be let in…so we are taken over, hostage in our own house, everyone trying not to freak out, but doing it anyway, as all communication to the outside world is immediately ripped from us.
Then we are told about “the game.”
…Right from the start it is made clear that only ONE of us will be getting out of here alive. We tell them to just take whatever it is that they want and go and we won’t do anything about it, but they don’t want “stuff” they want anatomy trophies from dead “us’s.” But first, we have to play a game.
…These dudes (and a couple of chicks) corral us into the living room, pluck out one at a time, and sit us in view of the others. We are tied and fucked with until a plate arrives. On it: an array of foods. Finger-sized. Harmless looking enough. Except we see from watching the first victim that it isn’t so much. Clearly a collection of cross-hallucinigens, drugs, and poisons have laced the foods as we watch them being forced into said person, who writhes and foams at the mouth and (in some cases) cooks from the inside, out.
…And this is great “sport” apparently, as the maniacal freaks forcing this upon them are beside themselves with cheerings and joy. Eventually, said person mercifully succumbs to the poison, and dies. At which point, a “trophy” piece is hacked off of them, and a new victim is selected.
…Only at one point, new rules are introduced in that we are given the “choice” to either eat the foods, or take the punishment as devised by this freak-band of sickos. When one sees the punishment devices, one (more times than not) chooses the poisoning. The winner of said game, being the last bastard standing. Or sitting. Or leaning. Or breathing. As we are now selected several at a time, lined up, and played with in tandem.
You guys, you don’t even know.
…Twelve kinds of disgusting, and seriously terrifying. At one point a couple of us broke free and hid in the house, overcoming the assholes looking for us, but then we were overpowered in the end and had to pay EXTRA for it.
Somewhere in there, my alarm finally went off.
…I’ve never been so happy for that in my entire fucking LIFE!
…So then I laid there, trying not to burst into tears, telling myself it was only a dream for like twenty minutes of snoozes…cuz I was way too freaked to even get outta bed.
…Which is prob’ly why I was so thankful, when I got to work and heard we were still locked for Inventory, that I immediately got to work getting off book for Act 3. All of it. Just focus on SOMETHING and get it in my head to push out all the other shit.
Now that I’ve finally calmed down, I find that Monologue-hell is complete and I’ve only one Act left to work on.
So see, you can even turn a horror-fest into a positive use, thanks to theatre.
Too creeped out to eat anything…but food is still over three hours away, and at home. Should be good to go by then. One hopes. Cuz I’m fuckin’ starving. Only Benedryl and coffee are floating around in there, till then.
~D
