Pleasant Dreams

Last night, I was part of a undersea rescue mission investigating the recent increase in both intelligence and violent anti-human behavior in the world's fish. While mini-subbing down to the Lab at the bottom of the Pacific, we were attacked by angry goldfish, who suicide-rammed our motors and broke them just as we were about to dock. "We're stuck here until it can get repaired," said the captain, and I'm thinking, "Oh God, I'm never getting out of here. This is it. We're so far down we won't have time to feel the pain when all that water breaks through and crushes us like eggshells. We'll have about half a second and then SQUASH!!!"

One of the goldfish managed to get into the sub and chew at a crewman's arm, which now has to be amputated. He's taken to a decompression coffin where we all have to take turns standing next to him while the surgeon sharpens his saw by cutting through a concrete block. Every now and then we get a radio report of more fish attacks along the coast; it's like Hitchcock's The Birds, except with gills and scales.

After the crewman gets his arm amputated at the elbow, we all adjourn to the central chamber of the Lab, which is all glass and neon lights -- the big movie reveal as we enter the chamber is that you can look up and see nothing but dark ocean over your head, with shadowy sharks and octopi swimming around just outside the reach of the lights. Then a shark swoops in and whacks the glass, causing a bell-like noise to reverb throughout the Lab.

"We're sitting here like kelp," I say, and when everyone else laughs, I realize that I am the comic relief in this movie, which means I am going to die a lonely black-comic death about two-thirds of the way through. Which is when I wake up.