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A pack of M&M’s can be seen sitting on the table, presumably bought for Chad and Daisy. And yet, for the entire scene, they go unacknowledged and untouched. The same bag of candy is later seen in subsequent shots — and while not the focal point this time, their continued presence to the very end come to serve as yet another representation of the growing distance between the Navidson family, and how the overwhelming weight of the house's own presence grows to rob even the smallest of comforts from them.⁶⁹
⁶⁹Oh god, M&M's. Been a while since I had those. I always thought they were sort of mediocre, only okay or possibly passable at best, but I don't have much of a sweet tooth (much less an incisor to spare) so I probably shouldn't be your first opinion for candy reviews.
I can't stand the damn things at all these days. M&M's, I mean. There's a whole story behind that, and I'm sure you're rolling your eyes, rolling in your grave at this point, wondering how I could possibly have some long, convoluted, stupid explanation as to why just seeing the wrapper makes my stomach turn like this, rolling in my grave too, the grave that is myself, and what I'll tell you is that it's my grave and if I decide I'm going to bury the lede it's on you for going with my grave robbery. I can also see your next thought coming, as if somehow you've found it in yourself to keep following along, shovel in hand at the ready, and I preemptively will address this by wondering how it took until the talking M&M to begin doubting the veracity of your source.
Fuck. I haven't even got to the point of my pointless diversion. Oxymoronic or perhaps just moronic as that may be. I've gotten pretty intimate with my own idiocy lately. And I mean, it was, could you imagine being the guy who hangs around the bar, looking to score, and out of the corner of his eye through the entrance, in walks literal eye candy, and it takes a dull moment before you back the fuck up, you rub your eyes to verify that yes, you are seeing things, not any different from the usual, the daily grind, day in day out just out of your peripheral vision, but guess what? Even Lude's out of the loop on what could only be some comic or cosmic prank, and he looks back at me and back at her and again back at me before only managing to mouth a disbelieving "The fuck?" Because, yes, apparently, we were both seeing what we were seeing then, this supposed reality, or suddenly now I wasn't the only one going batshit insane, both of us dragged into the delusion.
So I got up from my seat to talk to her. Which, in retrospect, may have been the looniest thing I've done in recent memory, even after everything I've already gone on grotesquely long enough about through the course of this whole book. But, hey, maybe my life was a toon at this point, and maybe this was some sort of fever-induced stress dream brought on from however many nights of bad sleep and incomprehensible dread, but if I had the option now then hell if I wasn't gonna try to make it a good one. That, and even today, I swear she was, still is beckoning me, waving me to come closer, get lost, consumed, like the creeping edges of shadow ever-constant at the corners of my eyes threatening to swallow me whole. Besides, she had legs for days, impossible be damned.
I remember very clearly what she said. And the sheer cold that passed over me as she said it.
"now listen to me young man, i am talking directly into your ear now. i need you to do me a favor. you will do this for me. i need you to go to gamestop, and i need you to ask the bastard working the counter if they have bambi on the ps2. if you come back empty handed youll be in big trouble mister. you will never see the light of day."
Before I could respond, before I could begin to formulate even the scattered idea of a response, I woke up. Left to pick up the pieces. Left to wonder what she meant, what it meant something more. There's no way it couldn't have. Was this just another manifestation of how thoroughly I've fractured my psyche, pouring endless hours into questions constantly unanswered? Why allude to Thumper? I'll never know. Maybe I was already doomed never to see the light of day. I said it was a dream earlier, but in all actuality it felt far too real. I haven't been remembering my dreams, the exception being this, but it couldn't mean, it shouldn't mean, it can't mean anything.
I haven't asked Lude about this yet. At this point I'm almost scared he'll say he remembers.
[What??? — Ed.]