Into the Whirlpool

Walking Through Town
I'm walking down Salem St. toward Medford Square. There is a quadriplegic sitting/lying on a bench on the sidewalk. Several other people I pass seem to have physical or mental problems of their own. As I near the four-way intersection I can hear several kids running aimlessly across the street in my direction. "Filio! Filio!" they call out, trying to get my attention, but I know not to give it to them since they're just going to try to pickpocket me. The kids' parents call after them sluggishly, telling them to slow down, and as I keep walking I am very aware of my wallet in my front pants pocket.

I turn the corner and... something about wanting to go to the movies. There's a line of people standing a little ways down the sidewalk from me, and I can hear whispering. As I walk to where I think the theater is, a strange thing happens: every time I stop, thinking I've arrived, I'm actually standing in front of a small decrepit shop with a hole in the wall where the proprietor, an older black woman, looks out. She shushes me and tells me as quietly as possible that the theater is actually further down the road (with the implication that it *used* to be where I'm standing but something happened to change things). This odd sequence of events happens four or five times. By the time I actually get to the theater, which I think is called the Showbug?, I have lost all desire to see a movie and just want to get out of here.

Cinnamon Sticks
In the kitchen. A. is taking a shower, and he's taking forever, so I decide to have a bowl of cereal while I wait for my turn in the bathroom. Something is wrong with the cereal because the milk gets all sludgy and brown, but this doesn't bother me. What *does* bother me is that while I eat, I keep finding these long, hard black bars in the cereal that look like plastic (but I think to myself that they're cinnamon). Somehow I keep finding these "cinnamon" sticks, even though each time I fish one out of the bowl it looks like I've gotten all of them. I find four or five at least.

Once A. is done with the shower he goes into his room (which is across from mine, for some reason) and tells me to come in so he can show me something. He shows me a very primitive DOS-era computer game with bleepy PC speaker music apparently done by Masashi Hamauzu. The music is very simple and repetitive, and really annoying; the game itself doesn't even look finished (graphics don't seem like they're all there) and I'm not sure how A. is managing to play it in its current state. I'm starting to get annoyed because I know I'm going to be late for work.