11 August 1974
When rainbow destroyer was a very small child, his parents took him on aday hike. They told him that it would be a good experience for him: walking in nature, away from the smog of the city. Once he was seated and buckled into the back seat of their Ford Explorer, the adventure began.
Rainbow destroyer watched as the garage doors of his suburban neighborhood flashed by. Each wooden door had a slightly different pattern—some were plain, some were ornamented with slats of wood, and others were painted bawdy colors. When he let his eyes go out of focus, the colors and lines passing him outside the car window blurred together into a miasma of seething shapes. People flashed across his vision. They walked or sat or laughed or mowed the lawn, and rainbow destroyer had but an instant to let them into his consciousness before they disappeared, left far behind the speeding Ford. Rainbow destroyer saw one small girl that looked exactly like an old friend of his. For a fleeting instant, their eyes met through the tinted glass, and he was hit with a wave of nausea as he thought back to the girl he had once known. Her name had been Pricilla, and she had been rainbow destroyer’s only friend. They used to play for hours in the tall grass behind her house. They never played with other children, because no one else knew how to make themselves happy. Rainbow destroyer had never thought about Pricilla leaving, but one day she died for reasons that he was never told. The last time he had seen Pricilla was in a casket, and the girl that he saw outside the car window made him think of that moment.
The Ford Explorer drove for an hour before reaching the Interstate 5 freeway. It turned north and continued driving for another hour. After reaching Los Banos, California, it stopped at a small fruit stand by the road.
Rainbow destroyer leapt out of the car and ran past the fruit stand and past a Chevron gas station. He kept running up a hill behind the gas station, and disappeared over the top. His parents called for him, and then went to look for him. They searched for hours, but eventually had to call the police. The police organized a bigger search party, but rainbow destroyer was not found. After the police left, rainbow destroyer wandered back into Los Banos, and was promptly taken home.