Phase 17: Episode 1: "...next stop, the Unemployment Zone"

    The overall effect of being unemployed has produced a variety of emotions that are not always easy to explain or to slough off, like dust on a table, or dog hair on the floor, or unfolded laundry in a basket, or dirt dishes in the sink, or dinner not ready when the spouse gets home from work, or...... Arrrrrrrgh! Wait, I am inside some kind of time warp... Being unemployed has some how shifted, phased, or altered my existence! I have some how become a character in some kind of personal Twilight Zone.

     

[Bring up image of Rod Serling]


NOTE: The names and facts contained in this story may vary from actual reality, but the heartfelt sentiment remains true. 

"You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead — your next stop, the Unemployment Zone."

SCENE 1: A man wanders around the house, moving things, touching things straightening things, over and over, sometimes the same objects, readjusting them. He goes faster and faster, getting closer and closer to the camera until his face fills the frame, staring, blinking, zombie like.

[Narrator ME] "Recently I have reflected on things, kind of like an external observer in an episode of The Twilight Zone. I'm there, I see myself, I'm doing things, going through the motions of trying to cope with no job, dwindling resources and an increasing sense of foreboding. Yet, somehow I exist outside the regular world in some kind of strange limbo. 

    The days seem to run together, as I have mentioned before, the lack of a 'work-day' robs us of the subliminal addiction to a schedule. 

[Actual ME] (in bed, looking at the clock) "Get up. Come on. Move!"

[Narrator ME] "Each morning my body wakes me up around six - for a second - then the other part of me takes control 

[Other ME] (voice over) "He you! Shut-up! He doesn't have to go to work. Go back to sleep." 

[Narrator ME] Saddly the other part of me seems to take a stronger hold each day. It seems harder and harder to justify getting up in the morning. Harder and harder to find reason to do much of anything. 

SCENE 2 : back to the man doing chores around the house zombie like, laundry, dishes, taking out he garbage, dusting, sweeping madly, again ending up face to face with the camera. 

[Narrator ME] So, I watch myself, wander through the day, doing stuff. One day I do some laundry, the next I sweep, dust and do some yardwork. Then next day I may have an almost obsessive need to sweep and dust - attempting to collect every loose hair in the house. 

SCENE 3: the man taps away on a laptop, shuffles paper, makes notes on papers, carelessly drinks coffee, stops to take a cell phone call, swearing occasionally, looking haggard. 

[Narrator ME] Yesterday the obsession was job hunting. With maddening abandoned I sat, laptop on the table, web-browser whiring, resuume and cove letter open - tweaking each one to match each job like some kind of possessed demon in my personal twilight zone...Suddenly the computer dies....? The thing just shut down! I look for a reason. Dead battery. Christ! It's four in the afternoon... The entire day shot... Wait.... Where are the boys? What have they been doing all day. 

SCENE 4: (the man stands, stretches, looks to the ceiling...)

[Narrator ME]  I stand, stretch and move around the house to find out what has happened to my kids while I was lost in the Unemployment Zone. The youngest is at the neighbors swimming - I don't remember him even asking - the oldest, well he is GONE. I grab the cell phone and call. 

[ME] (manly hysterical) "Jezus, where the hell are you?"

[OLDEST SON] (perturbed and confused at being bothered) "God, Dad. Settle down."

[ME] (calming down) "So, you just go, without asking me?"

[OLDEST SON] (best 'adult' voice) "First, I AM 18 and I KNOW how to take the bus."

[ME] (frustration returning to my voice) "So!" 

[OLDEST SON] "Dad, you were so busy hunched over you computer with job adds an resumes all over, I didn't want to bother you."

[ME] (shuffling papers on the table, plugging in the computer charger) "O.K.

[OLDEST SON] "So, are you, like done? I'll be home by five."

[ME] (wanders into the kitchen, looks at the clock) "Sure. Be safe. See you then."

SCENE 5: the man moves around the kitchen, preparing dinner, cleaning up

[Narrator ME]  I  move lazily in the un-airconditioned heat of my house. I look at the clock - almost 5:00 P.M. , I had better get things straightened up around here and start dinner before my wife gets home... 

What? Where did THAT come from? Thinking in this heat makes my head hurt...so I go to the fridge.

SCENE 6: the man stands at the open refrigerator, drinking a beer, mist flows out of the fridge around his feet. He finishes a beer and stands there.

[Narrator ME] I start asking myself how much longer I can put up with this. This existence with no structure. This life of moving from day to day seems less and less important. The ongoing effort to find a job seems more and more pointless. The confusion of what to do next, the near freezing paralysis of not being able to move forward or backward. Stuck there....frozen.

SCENE 7: YOUNGEST SON enters from the door next to the fridge.  (he is wet, has a beach towel over his shoulder)  Stops and stares at his dad, who is standing in front of the open fridge.

[YOUNGEST SON] "Dad? DAD! What are you doing?"

(YOUNGEST SON runs off, Dad is startled. Stands looking around)

[Narrator ME] Crap! I'm still standing in front of the open fridge, but now there are three empty beer cans on the shelf, next to the now sweating milk jug. Brother. I need to get it together.

SCENE 8: time lapse of table setting, family seating, eating dinner, cleaning up, washing dishes, one at a time they leave, the man pours coffee, sits in a recliner in the living room, grabs his lap top and starts typing.

[Narrator ME] Dinner is made, served and over. The family is tucked away in the one air conditioned room of the house, watching Dr. Who or something and I am at the keyboard, still trying to figure things out. If I was a smoker, this is the time I would light up a cigarette, and try to get lost in thought. 

(fade to black)