TRAGEDY AT FAIRGROUNDS KILLS THIRTY.
Local residents try to wake up from what can only be described as a nightmare...
EXT. MARTIN COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS -- DAY
Subtitle: October 30, 1997
Abandoned parking lot. Lamp-posts spaced out between empty spots like naked trees. The fairgrounds entrance in the distance, the ticket booths are empty, a trash bag caught in the breeze floats by. Clear skies. Bright sun. The view moves forward, slowly at first, moving toward the entrance. Cut to shots of old carnival game booths barely standing upright; garbage on the ground; the skeletons of partially taken-down carnival rides; a child's teddybear in a mud puddle. Eventually the view stops on the ticket booth.
Shot of a Ferris Wheel -- black and white, grainy -- ominous.
Ryan Dweller:
Host:
Ryan Dweller:
Host:
Ryan Dweller:
Host:
Ryan Dweller:
Host:
Ryan Dweller:
Host:
Ryan Dweller:
Host:
Ryan Dweller:
Host:
Ryan Dweller:
Host:
Ryan Dweller:
Host:
Ryan Dweller:
Host:
Ryan Dweller:
Host:
Ryan Dweller:
Host:
Ryan Dweller:
The Ouroboros was a snake that ate its own tail. I felt like I was causing more harm than good, especially when I was younger. With every good step forward -- when I felt like I actually stopped a disaster -- there were two steps back, when my efforts failed. Like that door I was telling you about. I didn't want to waste a whole tank of gas so I pulled over and tossed the door off the side of the road. The crazy thing is that I was followed by a hotel security guard who must have gotten the door out of the bush when I left the scene. I heard the story the next morning because the manager of the hotel came straight to me and accused me of being responsible for the guard's death. He slammed on his brakes during the drive back to the hotel and the door slid forward from the back of his small car and splattered his face against the steering wheel. Killed him instantly.
Host:
Ryan Dweller:
NARRATOR (V.O.):
At 9:45 PM, entry to the fairgrounds was closed on account of too many people having shown up for Martin County's annual Halloween Bash. When the last ticket was sold it was estimated that seventy percent of the county's residents were strolling the aisles of games, shows, and amusement rides. A wonderful turn-out for what seemed like the perfect night. The weather was a comfortable seventy-two degrees even after the sun went down, inviting more people to stay at the fair and stay on the rides. The most popular ride, of course, was the Ferris Wheel.
Shot of a Ferris Wheel -- black and white, grainy -- ominous.
EXT. LINCOLN AVENUE -- DAY
Insert photographs of Jason and Ryan Dweller.
INT. BEDROOM -- DAY
Residential neighborhood. Quiet. Small houses with fenced lawns, sprinklers spraying mist into the air, a few parked cars. The view moves forward down the center of the street. The asphalt is cracked and sundried with weeds sprouting through in places. The view moves past three houses before turning toward an off-green house, number 220, in front of which a red Toyota pick-up truck is parked on cement blocks. Cue a montage of interior shots within the house as the narrator continues.
NARRATOR (V.O.):
The story begins here, at 220 Lincoln Avenue, the home of the Dweller family. This unassuming family moved to Martin County from Chicago in 1985, the year their first son was born. Jason Dweller proceeded to get good grades in school and eventually became quarterback for his highschool football team. His untimely death during his senior year would scar Martin County forever, but no one more so than his younger brother born in 1987, Ryan Dweller.
Insert photographs of Jason and Ryan Dweller.
NARRATOR (V.O.):
October 30, 1997 is a date that Martin County will never forget. Eight months before the death of his older brother, this was the night that changed Ryan Dweller forever.
INT. BEDROOM -- DAY
Jason and Ryan's old shared bedroom, kept in museum-display condition by their parents. Two beds on opposite sides of the room. Jason's side of the room is decorated with an assortment of posters of athletes and supermodels. Ryan's side is decorated with illustrations he drew himself, sketches of imaginary creatures and locations. Jason's side is clean and orderly. Ryan's side is not. Close-up shots of Ryan's drawings. Close-up of the drawing of a Ferris Wheel with a black X scrawled over it.
NARRATOR (V.O.):
The morning of the accident, Ryan woke up and found this sketch taped to the wall beside his bed -- the black marker he'd drawn with was still in his hand. Ryan admitted that he hid the drawing from his parents because he was embarrassed to tell them that he'd been sleepwalking. That very night, an unexpected gust of wind came through Martin County like a rogue wave, reaching a hundred miles per hour, which uprooted the Ferris Wheel from its base and sent the ninety-foot-tall structure toppling down onto the frightened crowd below. Thirty people were killed.
(pause)
It was Mrs. Dweller who first noticed the sketch her son had drawn. When she asked him why he would draw "about sad things like that" he told her that he'd been asleep when he drew the sketch the night before the accident. And trying not to look too far into the coincidence, Mrs. Dweller said nothing about the sketch to anyone else. Ryan's nighttime habit was kept a family secret.
Host:
Hello and welcome back to The Horse's Mouth. I'm your host and today we've got special guest Ryan Dweller with us and he's going to be talking about his new book: "The Ouroboros Solution -- How to Simultaneously Save and Destroy the World." Let's have a nice round of applause for Ryan Dweller.
Ryan Dweller:
Thank you, thank you.
Host:
Thanks for talking with us, Ryan.
Ryan Dweller:
My pleasure.
Host:
You seem like you're doing well.
Ryan Dweller:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I am. I am. Thanks.
Host:
You've been staying busy, have you? Saving the world?
Ryan Dweller:
I wouldn't say that. I've been doing other things.
Host:
You're saying the visions don't come as often as they used to?
Ryan Dweller:
Well... First of all... They're not visions, exactly. Not really. When you call them visions you start to think that I actually saw something. I never see anything. It all happens when I'm asleep. And... Yeah... I guess it just hasn't been happening as much these days. I'm okay with that, though. I'm tired of it, you know?
Host:
We can all imagine.
Ryan Dweller:
It's nice to just live like everyone else.
Host:
It still happens sometimes, though, doesn't it?
Ryan Dweller:
Sleepmarking? Yes. It does still happen.
Host:
When was the last time?
Ryan Dweller:
Two days ago. Two days ago I was in a hotel in Texas -- I was going to give a lecture in Houston -- and I woke up and saw that I'd drawn a big black X on the inside of the door. Now the way it's worked in the past is that whatever I draw an X on will be involved with some sort of destructive event. If I left the door where it was, it would somehow find itself broken by the end of the day. I was guessing maybe a fight in the hallway would end with someone crashing through the door. It could have been anything, really, at that point. But whenever I mark something inanimate like that, I figure the safest thing to do is bring it somewhere secluded and make sure it doesn't harm anyone else, right?
Host:
You took the door off?
Ryan Dweller:
I took the door off the hinges and took it down to my Jeep and threw it into the back. I was going to take it to a field or a ditch somewhere and drop it off. I've sometimes buried things in deep holes because I wouldn't have felt safe just leaving it around -- like this one time I marked a box of carpenter nails. So as I'm driving the door around Houston looking for a place to ditch it, I realize that I'm running out of gas kind of quickly. And that's another thing that I have to deal with: resistance. If I take a marked object and try to isolate it, the universe tends to fight back and do its best to stop me. I --
Host:
The universe tries to stop you?
Ryan Dweller:
Yeah, the universe. Or whatever you want to call it. Some force. Some of my friends have said it's God trying to unobtrusively stop me from changing his plans. He's not about to strike me dead with a lightning bolt, but He'll drain my gas tank a little faster so that I can't get outside city limits.
Host:
So God wants the door to break? He wants something bad to happen?
Ryan Dweller:
That's not what I mean... It's... It's like this: everything is part of an equation. You, me, the audience... The door from the hotel, that box of nails I buried... And math is a pretty solid concept, yeah? The equation has to balance out. So if I'm on this end of the equation getting hints about the outcome, and then doing something about that, you can imagine that whoever or whatever wrote the equation is annoyed with me. In an attempt to balance the now unbalanced equation, the universe tries to make me fail.
Host:
Can't we all change the equation? Couldn't I quit my job and move to Paris and change the plan of the universe?
Ryan Dweller:
That wouldn't be a change at all. The universe would have foreseen that.
Host:
So what makes you different?
Ryan Dweller:
I'm not sure. I'm still trying to figure that out.
Host:
Your book, "The Ouroboros Effect" --
Ryan Dweller:
"Solution."
Host:
"The Ouroboros Solution," sorry. This is three hundred and seventy pages and you're saying you wrote this much and still didn't figure yourself out?
Ryan Dweller:
The Ouroboros was a snake that ate its own tail. I felt like I was causing more harm than good, especially when I was younger. With every good step forward -- when I felt like I actually stopped a disaster -- there were two steps back, when my efforts failed. Like that door I was telling you about. I didn't want to waste a whole tank of gas so I pulled over and tossed the door off the side of the road. The crazy thing is that I was followed by a hotel security guard who must have gotten the door out of the bush when I left the scene. I heard the story the next morning because the manager of the hotel came straight to me and accused me of being responsible for the guard's death. He slammed on his brakes during the drive back to the hotel and the door slid forward from the back of his small car and splattered his face against the steering wheel. Killed him instantly.
Host:
How terrible...
Ryan Dweller:
That's not the first time someone's been hurt because of something I've done. Years ago it would have bothered me more, but I've come to terms with the way the universe works. It's a tough decision. It's like every morning I wake up and I have a choice: save something or someone from being hurt, or do nothing and let the universe's plan unfold. People will be angry with me for choosing either option. No one's ever going to think I made the right choice because, in the end, something bad will always happen. Nothing taught me that lesson better than the death of my brother, Jason.
