Dear Grace,
Save me Grace, I’m hopeless.
David
The Pit (or The Hole)
A Stupid Movie Idea
In the near future, Canada becomes the 51st state through an amazing deal—Canadians don’t pay income tax for decades, debts are wiped out, and every Canadian alive gets acres of land based on their age.
Daryl, age 64, inherits 64 acres of Saskatchewan pasture land in the big merger between Canada and the U.S., chosen as a perfect square like a chess board.
Daryl, retired with a pension, doesn’t have to pay income tax and owns 64 acres of prime, basically useless Saskatchewan pasture land.
Having lived in the city his entire life, born and raised, Daryl wants some alone time, single, and buys a truck and trailer to live on his land, miles away from anyone else.
With his pension, Daryl is self-sufficient—food, shelter, etc.—hates Elon Musk but gets Starlink satellite for $79.99 a month because it’s the best service out there.
At first, Daryl considers inviting family and friends to his free land, then declines, enjoying watching Netflix at night with a big outdoor viewing system slid outside his camper van.
One night, Daryl calculates the exact center of his property with GPS on his phone, digs a small hole, and throws his cigarette butt in it—up until now, he’d been throwing butts all over because he didn’t give a shit.
Thinking, “This is my land, I’m gonna take care of it,” Daryl digs a hole, throws his butt in, and by the end of the night, it’s full of butts, just containing the mess.
Being a man, he takes a bottle of butane, soaks the butts, lights them on fire, uses too much, and almost burns off his eyebrows—maybe too much of a cliché.
The next day, Daryl digs the hole a little deeper, uses it for cigarette butts and trash around his camper, and every night has a ceremony where he burns whatever he fills in the hole.
This goes on for days, weeks, months, years—same thing every night, until Daryl realizes digging by hand is stupid for a 64-year-old man.
He considers buying thermite but lacks funds, so he buys the most powerful laser he can find on Amazon, tapes them above the hole pointing down, burning whatever they reach.
Off the grid, Daryl gets solar panels to charge the lasers continually—anytime he can afford it, he adds another laser and solar panel, and the hole keeps getting deeper.
No longer needing to burn, Daryl feels satisfaction as the hole, now the width of a human, gets so deep that when he throws a grenade in, smoke barely comes out the top.
Daryl realizes this hole could be a gold mine—throw a landmine in, it explodes, and nobody knows the difference; if you have one in your closet, pay Daryl to take it away and throw it down the hole.
Anytime someone wants to get rid of something, Daryl disposes of it for a cost—not picky, even a dead body, no problem, thrown in the hole, gone forever.
Over years, the hole expands from person-size width to car-size, making it easier for Daryl to set up a conveyor belt into the hole.
Semis full of dangerous chemicals or whatever people want to hide—like chemtrails—Daryl accepts it all, the hole deeper than any ever, past water tables, into nowhere land.
Nobody figures out what Daryl’s doing because they don’t care—as long as it’s not in their backyard, they don’t give a shit.
Daryl starts buying semi loads of shit—people pay him to dispose of their whatever, he takes the trailer, backs it to his system, dumps contents into the hole sight unseen.
Being a genius, Daryl automates the process so nothing explodes till it’s far enough down, then takes empty trailers, flips them on their sides, stacks them around his 64 acres like the Great Wall of China.
Stacked trailers, wheels facing inside, can be righted if needed, layered as high as Daryl wants around his 64 acres.
Drones sent down melt from the Earth’s heat, though lasers measure he’s not at the core yet—it’s awfully warm down there.
Daryl decides he’ll be the first man to dig a hole to the center of the Earth.
A police agency asks Daryl to dispose of a trailer full of marijuana—he accepts, but instead of the hole, creates a massive bonfire, and woodland creatures visit, all getting stoned together.
As years go by, Daryl goes nuts with lasers—one of his 64 acres is covered with solar panels and batteries, unnoticed by neighbors since he has none.
Before getting caught, Daryl makes it to the Earth’s core—the hole’s top is the width of a bus or football field, down to a pinpoint at the center, confirmed by laser readings.
When inspectors come, they find Daryl’s thrown everything under the sun in the hole, but no radiation or poisonous gas comes out, no groundwater contamination or health issues.
They could charge Daryl for illegal dumping, but with no cameras or paper transactions—just cash—it’s tough to prove he dumped the shit.
Daryl admits he dug the hole—nobody’s business why, he’s a free American/Canadian citizen to do as he pleases on his 64 acres—so prosecutors are fucked, and he gets off.
Since it’s impossible to fill the hole, Daryl says, “Fuck it, I’m just gonna keep digging,” now going for width at the top, from bus-size to football field-size.
Daryl offers a counterproposal—give me your nuclear weapons or used fuel rods from reactors, I’ll take care of them for a price.
Sure his hole will gobble up bombs, Daryl says send a couple for free—if radiation comes out, the deal’s off.
Russia and the U.S. give Daryl a bomb, he throws it in, it goes to the Earth’s core, explodes, but no radiation escapes—the system works perfectly.
The world realizes this can denuclearize the planet—Daryl does it at a discount, tempted to charge full price but only uses money for more lasers, still living in the same trailer, though he upgraded his truck.
To get Russian missiles to Saskatchewan, they shoot them into the hole—gravity sucks them to the core, gone; the U.S. and others could do the same, risking miscoordinates blowing up Saskatchewan, a risk Daryl’s willing to take.
Done on schedule via a website—people watch missiles launch or land in Saskatchewan, no accidents, all nuclear waste taken care of in a couple years.
Daryl realizes he’s an idiot with solar panels—should’ve used geothermal electricity from the hole, converts to it, and gives solar power to the local community, easing tension over radiation fears.
When hitting the water table earlier, Daryl threw bags of concrete down the hole to seal it off.
With no nuclear weapons, no point in any weapons—Daryl creates a rail line to his hole, rail cars full of anything people don’t want slip into the hole, never seen again, charged per car.
It becomes a tourist attraction—people throw whatever they want in the hole for good luck, no more dead bodies, just the world’s biggest wishing well.
Elon Musk invents a drone that withstands the hole’s heat, discovers Daryl reached the core—nuclear bombs and everything break down into basic elements, forming rings of gold, silver, iron, etc., sprayed against the hole’s walls.
Daryl never cared about mining, only the hole—lasers zapped through gold and diamonds, but he didn’t care about money.
At 96, Daryl lets Elon mine the gold and rare earth elements with a device that slides down the hole’s side, while he sits back in his trailer, watching thousands throw shit in the hole, sometimes actual shit.
Antisocial, Daryl might charge a thousand bucks a pop for pictures, then plans the most elaborate death to honor the hole.
He considers skydiving into it but might miss, or riding a nuclear warhead but would pass out from lack of oxygen before the finale.
Instead, he builds a sphere with four-feet-thick walls, gets in, rolls down a Hot Wheels track with a jump, falls into the hole, aiming for the core to be instantly particleized.
After Daryl’s death, the hole becomes a sacrificial grave—people dump bodies in it for luck, some fly over in helicopters to drop them, turning it into a mess.
Daryl’s glad he’s not part of it anymore, happy in heaven or hell, wherever he ended up.
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