Backseat Driver: Scene Outline

A deer and then another run across the road. L swerves hard, misses the first, but catches the second and seems to about to lose control, cutting across the shoulder and then stops.There is a long moment. No one says a word. Backseat Driver: Scene Outline(Description details digging into the trapdoor of fear, the foundation of what it is that terrorizes the back of the brain, freezes the heart and lungs when the deep steps loom down, sucking everything in, stepping deliberately into it, terrified of the monsters and evils that haunt the shadows and walls, and continue into the dank cut-out pit, pressing face and limbs forward to look into the long rectangular holes where it lives, wanting to scream and scream and run but looking down into it, expecting the claws and horned head, the hunched back, the bloody arm to wrench you down and find nothing, nothing, but still held in the black, knowing that it will come from somewhere.) Backseat Driver: Scene OutlineL opens the door to search for the deer. It is raining hard. H follows her with a flashlight and then R. They can hear a rustling in the brush. L moves toward it. Three cars pass by. H continues to move toward the bushes, but she can’t hear anything. H shines the light. Another pair of cars (mobile homes) pass. R catches a glimpse of the animal fleeing. It is quiet. R mentions going after it. H disagrees. L says nothing and goes back to the car. H and R get back in. H offers to drive. L refuses. They continue on.

Hurricane Sandy in The Hamptons

Hurricane Sandy’s devastating effects have been well documented in New York City and the surrounding environs. The New York Times published a fascinating map on the flooded areas just today. But Hurricane Sandy’s damage is even more far-reaching, as it goes all across Long Island, to the Hamptons and beyond.

Flying Point Beach, Southampton, October 13, 2012 (Two weeks before Hurricane Sandy)

Flying Point Beach in Southampton, shown above, had been some 40-50 yards wide, all of it long and flat. It has since been pushed back at least 30 of those yards, right up into the dunes in parts. It has torn out fencing and grassroots, leaving behind a dark black residue. And while the ocean still breaks at the same edge, the water now flows across a wide shallows where there once was sand. There are also hundreds of trees down all over the region There is a certain beauty to all of this, even if it’s broken scattered, or just detritus. But even if it isn’t appreciated by all, as they say, life does go on.Â