With "Friends" Like This, Who Needs Enemies?

I was sitting in my 7th grade classroom, watching an episode from a new season of Friends.

The episode was strange in that it wasn’t comedic at all. The tone was dead-serious, and the plot very bizarre; Monica was experiencing some weird Twilight Zone scenario where the world around her was transforming into one straight from a soap opera; even the look changed halfway through from a modern HD digital look to a worn-out, hazy, shot-on-video look.

And David Arquette was the guest star.

Taking a break from the episode, I stepped out of the classroom, and found myself outside in my front yard. I wandered under a tree or into a field (or both at different times), where these tiny, mite-sized black widow spiders began swarming over me.

They began feeding off me, which started leaving me giddy and light-headed.

After a minute or two, I returned back inside the classroom to continue watching Friends. I repeated this scenario several times, taking a break from the TV to go outside, allowing evermore spiders to feed off me.

And art was imitating life; on Friends, Monica & co. were going outdoors, where they, too, were serving as smorgasbord to tiny mite-sized black widows. In the end, everyone — myself included — were left desiccated husks drained dry of all fluids.

I think I remained alive in this state.

Watching '80s Horror Movies on VHS/A Chat with My Inner Spirit

I was watching B-grade horror movies from the '80s on VHS through an old CRT TV.

(By gum, those were the days.)

A young(er) Donald Trump appeared in the first movie I decided to watch, playing himself.

(Could he ever play different?)

He chastised a female character for finding religion, then began monologuing to himself on how he once sought belief in a higher power before deciding to believe in himself.

(What's that, subconscious mind? Donald Trump worships himself? I already knew that, but thanks for the info anyhow.)

Gears shifted and the second movie was on.

A small group of rich, spoiled teenagers/early twenty-somethings

decided to hold a séance in the last house remaining from a poor, decaying neighbourhood that was otherwise completely bulldozed over and replaced with brand spankin' new homes built for the rich decades ago.

Assembling at a large square table in a room located in the centre of the dark, decrepit building, they used florescent ink and florescent gas

as conjuring substances to summon forth a spirit of the house. Quite suddenly a short, squat woman with messy red hair, wild eyes, and an impossibly wide mouth materialized atop the table.

(Imagine a three-way cross between Fiona Dourif, Henrietta from Evil Dead II, and the Cheshire Cat and you get the unsettling picture.)

Scared shitless, they all bolted from the room. Some got lost in the dark trying to escape, but most managed to get out to safety. I don't know what became of those trapped in the house with the spirit made flesh.

(But really, I do.)

* * *

I was now in a sterile classroom, where a social worker

(who will now be played by the saucy Elisa Donovan)

gave me a list of outfits which could help me find a job to copy down. I tried writing down some of the addresses, but for some reason I couldn't concentrate on the words and failed to do so.

In a flash, I was then on the back porch of my house. I was there with the social worker, and she was trying to communicate with my inner spirit, which looked like a human-shaped bundle of dead leaves dressed in a blue vest.

(Close enough.)

When I told the social worker her presence wasn't helping, that my inner spirit wouldn't emerge with her standing around acting all demanding, she left.

Then my inner spirit took on its true form; it looked like a dirty Avery Brooks.

(Grime to be added in post-production.)

My inner spirit then began lamenting on how it — and by extension, I — should've married and had kids by now.

"On second thought, I shouldn't have driven the saucy redhead away."