They’ve a long walk ahead of them…

An afternoon of Good Fun, which none of them are prepared to forgo ‘cause of something so minor as a thunderstorm. They are not babies. Still, by the time they arrive in Studio City, the plans will have changed at least twice. Probably, they’ll just end up behind the CVS, chiefing the ol’ GaspMechanik™, talking about how much they’d love to find themselves a matching group of pretty and/or boyfriend-free females.

Along with that ‘hidden urgency,’ the rain also seems to have unearthed a kind of hidden strangeness, converting Ventura Blvd. into even more of a bizarre purgatory than usual, occupied only by folks who aren’t afraid of getting wet; the kind of people, in other words, who might consider their various personal missions and activities as taking precedence over safety or shelter or warmth: joggers, missionaries, influencers, dog walkers, vagrant children—various characters from the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood Hills, hovering, loitering with zero intent, zero plans, nothing to do. The marginalia of  a world ruled by vehicle traffic, where anyone with anywhere to be is sheltered in cars or rideshares, snug inside their various vehicles… not unlike the people in that bus there, idling two cars up from Mother in the Volvo; the bus, upon whose exterior someone’s graffitied the phrase DANDGER! [sic.], alongside a sloppily-painted skull and crossbones. That bus full of people, eyes drawn towards their phones, or else gazing out towards the rain-slicked streets; streets whose denizens appear, through windows, as facsimiles of themselves, blank agents roleplaying abbreviated versions of the People They Really Are. Skew and The Double Cs, for instance, have adopted the roles of Sketchy Delinquent nos.1, 2, and 3, respectively.

— EXCERPTED FROM A SHORT STORY OF THE SAME NAME