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CZ Studio and Radio Verte presents The Wild Wind by Corey Zimmerman.

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Chapter 6

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The Wild Wind

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I did not watch Kennedy land on the moon, nor did I give a damn about the Cold War or lose any sleep over a nuclear winter.

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By the time the last brick of the Berlin Wall was in place, America was utterly occupied by a suicidal standoff with communism,

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a political theory advocating a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities in need.

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In the meantime, the Nazis swooped in like vultures, while I was still under the impression the Allies left them to rot in trenches, spreading from Spain to Stalingrad.

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When the blonde-haired blue-eyed nurse in her starched and stale uniform pushed Ricci out of Ward E. stiff with rigor mortis, right up to a hole a drunken Russian could have dug deeper in the frozen Siberian tundra and dumped him right in.

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My dear Ricci, snapping like a twig. His cockeyed tombstone read 4824.

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I suppose I could have straightened it out with a kick, but I walked away, the atomic blast tearing the flesh from my cheeks, red like a spanked ass, delighted in the comfort of the nuclear winter numbing my bones.

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Ricci's family didn't attend the funeral. No one did. No one but me, three gravediggers, and a godforsaken priest in those nimble pages, wanting nothing more than to tear away in the wind.

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It was then I spotted a stranger out of the corner of my eye staring over at me. I turned and walked away, unaware if Ricci's family knew of his timely death, or if they were dead themselves, the whole damn lot.

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Whatever the case, Ricci was now amongst the nameless, the forgotten, as my shroud flapped about, crossing the tundra for the old farmhouse, creaking in the cold, howling hell like the joints of my knees.

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It was 1962, but in reality, Ricci's mind died in the year 1918, and I faithfully gave over four decades to his breathing corpse, all the while, dreadful hope tearing my heart to shreds with its claws.

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It was time to let go. It was time to forget all about hope. Ward E. in that damn chair.

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It was time to forget about Ricci, as he had me when his mind marched off somewhere in France, or maybe Belgium. Who the hell knows?

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Nonetheless, I had hoped he had come to his senses and made his way south for the sea, the Isles of Delos, Helios, or Mykonos, anywhere.

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No more lips to feed soup, to wipe clean with a blinding white napkin, no blinding white windows, no pure white bedsheets, stained with blood and saliva.

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Like a whisper into a deaf man's ear, we are gone before we even arrive.

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Finality, the only truth ever told.

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The first shovel full of dirt tossed on Ricci's pine box. Truth. A weight I carried since youth, like a mule. Truth.

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Calloused yet gentle hands holding the ticket to No Man's Land, a ticket made of paper, yet as mighty as a tree. Truth.

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Pleading silently to God, I want to go home. I walked on that frozen ground, and I shut the door behind me. No shame.

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Nazi pills, all shapes, sizes, and colors, await.

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The one worthwhile thing the doctors brought with them when they crawled out of those muddy trenches, put on white Hippocratic jackets, and invaded the hilltop with degrees and specialties, with hypnotizing colors, all shapes, and sizes.

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After all, little white paper cups. A soft surrender.

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The only war worth fighting is a war worth losing.

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The poetry of pills, relishing in the strange and twisted numbness.

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My old twisted mind, my twisted reasoning, branches of confused memories.

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Frayed rope, a bolt of lightning bursting into flames.

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I could see him staring over at me, yet I turned away.

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I walked away from the crooked tombstone, said no goodbyes.

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It made my way to the farmhouse, where I swallowed a red one, a yellow one, a blue one, two round, one oval, and I began to dust.

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Dusting away memories, sneezing away the past, the future polished, keeping an eye off the reflection.

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A single knock at the door, I opened it but an inch, broom in hand.

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A ghost from the past.

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I shut and locked the door, and waited for him to dissipate.

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I laid upon my cold mattress and begged mama, please don't let me awake in the night, for I shall see the stars and remember who I am.

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Please, I beg of you, don't make me nail my feet to the floor, mama. I fear you.

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Beyond the curtain, the sun rose repeatedly, and the flowers bloomed every spring as the geese returned north.

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Behind the curtain, my daily routine.

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Scrubbing floors, washing already clean dishes, and splashing water on my face.

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Lying down and trying to breathe.

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Standing up and shaking my hands as my heart raced.

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Splashing water on my face again.

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Making tea.

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Drinking it cold.

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Drinking it scalding hot.

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All the while the whole room spun around and round, and I thought I might die.

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After the blazing heat of summer, the petals dropped one by one, and the elms shed like antlers in the ravine.

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A snake shed their skin in the rocks near the tracks below.

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Then the geese returned south, guided by the winter winds.

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Soon, the hilltop again would be blanketed in a fresh layer of snow.

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Time frozen over, while below, an icy crust of denial, and the truth carried on.

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The fish grew older, and the undercurrent washed away secrets to the sea.

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With the arrival of spring, the geese circled back around again, and the rabbits scurried about.

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The deer frolicked, yet frozen at the sight of a Nazi doctor or a lazy nurse.

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White, sterile, and starched, as cold as winter, as the oddballs no longer made snow angels.

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Their sad, empty eyes peering out from behind graded windows at the budding trees once more.

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The cars coming and going through the mud, mudkicking the soles of my shiny black shoes.

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Year after year coming and going.

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Back and forth.

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Round and round.

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South to north.

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East to west.

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West to east.

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North to south.

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My old worn out tiny feet slopping through the mud.

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In time I learned to blend in with the oddballs, screaming and moaning and cursing holy hell.

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As I stared with empty hollow eyes.

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As the animals of the zoo were released into the thicket to run free.

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As man was once again imposed behind bars.

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Locked doors.

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Stray jackets.

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And doped up on stupefying pills.

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Seeing that so many patients roamed about in a skeletal nude out of their damned minds.

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There was little about myself to gain any notice.

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Disheveled.

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Disoriented.

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None too troublesome.

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Yet just enough.

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None too dangerous.

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Yet just enough.

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With hands trembling.

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I anxiously waited my turn to grab a paper cup of pills off the tray and scurry away unnoticed.

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Ass bare in a stolen gown.

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The metallic taste of the pills drowned out the smell of feces smeared on the walls.

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And when a Nazi doctor passed by.

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I froze like a deer and let a tit slip from my gown.

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A little drool pooled upon their lip.

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A little froth upon my own.

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One of the long lost and forgotten.

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I fit right in.

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A lab rat wandering about the lazy maze of nurses smoking their cigarettes.

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Gossiping about Friday night.

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And Dick.

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Dignity had been tilled under with Dr. Zola's death.

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Someone must have been counting his days.

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Waiting around with a shovel.

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Flicking ashes.

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Checking out nurses asses.

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With thick globs of red lipstick and legs uncrossed.

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And before Zola was even cold in the ground.

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The hilltop had become a place to sit freely in your own piss and shit.

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At the same time.

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The Nazis acted out their sadistic fantasies.

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Displacing their inferiorities.

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And aiming their ice picks at the weakest and most vulnerable of us all.

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Cross-haired dicks.

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That kicked the weak while they were down.

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Shiny shoes.

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Right in the gut.

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Ribs and soul.

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Broken and bruised.

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The wailing terror filled screams of the strapped down.

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And rolled away where lit up or picked like ice.

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Silenced.

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Stupefied.

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Undone.

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And sat in a chair by a window.

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Birds chirped on the other side of the plane of glass.

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As fragile as reality.

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Covering in a grating to prevent said reality from shattering.

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Paper cups were arranged.

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And I grabbed them freely from trays and carts and counters.

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Rats scoured about.

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Snakes wrapping around the willing and unwilling.

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And unconscious.

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Making their way around legs for the sweet spot.

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For the mind.

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A dark wave heading for the heart.

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Where it would leave an institutional wasteland.

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In its wake.

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I moped about in a desert of misery and stupor.

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With my tit hanging out to appease the doctor.

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With perverse anonymity.

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Until I could scurry off back to the farmhouse.

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At an endless gray.

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I looked up and asked.

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However.

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The breeze carried no answer.

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As a blue dust in my eyes with a whisper.

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Go mix your wild drugs.

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Circle daughter of the sun.

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So I popped four red ones.

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Shiny and round.

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And I scrubbed my flesh raw of filthy humanity.

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As the moon rose somewhere beyond the curtains.

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I crawled upon the cold mattress wishing mama good night.

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I wish not to hear your whispers tonight mama.

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But as I might.

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I shall nail my feet to the floor.

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Civility.

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As thin as an old crone's skin.

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As thin as the silver plating brushed upon the skull of a coyote.

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Of which I gnaw.

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As thin as the air upon which the rain crows circle overhead.

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Teetering upon the tip of the needle of righteousness.

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Of sin.

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Of shame.

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Of redemption.

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Of madness and reasoning.

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Of life and death.

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Of man.

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And beast.

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Of truth.

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This journey.

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This world fabricated by the mind.

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By dreams.

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By nightmares.

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By worms in the brain.

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Truth.

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Drool.

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Frozen limbs.

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Empty skulls.

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Lies flies foes and fleas.

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Truth.

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Disturbed souls.

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Sleepwalking in immense heartache.

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Loss and desperation.

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Truth.

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Tracks that lead to endless trenches.

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Truth.

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Scurrying off like a rabbit at every drop of a hat.

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Truth.

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In the dark thicket of lies.

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We float about like ghosts.

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As the owls watch wide-eyed.

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As we chew the edges of pure white pages.

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Like nervous filthy rats.

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Truth.

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The swirling stalking spirit spoke through me.

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Unique speech once spoken in family homes.

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Words and phrases only loved ones could comprehend.

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Truth.

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Haunting thickets where the floor of the dead and the sun never meet.

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Truth.

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Rocking chairs and turning tables.

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Truth.

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Pages twirling and twisting in the wild wind.

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Truth.

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Wide-eyed children with rotten teeth.

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Souls blown away long ago.

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Swearing and pissing upon gowns.

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In graves called beds.

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Truth.

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Checkered tiles of black and white, good and bad, angels and demons.

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Men squat in corners.

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Shitting and spewing chicken blood.

210
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And God knows what else.

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Truth.

212
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Vomit.

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The drink of demons.

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Truth.

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The truth is that some wander wearily through vast deserts.

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Some seek refuge in dark corners, in shadows, cracks and crevices.

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Under night stands from vessel to vessel.

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It is true that night indeed speaks aloud.

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Fingers and hands like a briar patch.

220
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Latching onto anything and anyone within grasp.

221
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Lonesome and pathetic.

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Gows ceaselessly feigning for tongues to whisper.

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Leaving me to ponder.

224
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What horrid words are whispered into our ears in the dead of night.

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Mama you haunt me.

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Mama let me be.

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The old farmhouse creaks and breathes shallow breaths through sullen nights.

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As the old grandfather clock stands tall.

229
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Yet silent and dead.

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Face buried in the wall.

231
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The merciless wind thrashed the tiles from the roof.

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The shutters.

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The peeling paint as I wondered about the fate of the widow down the road.

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My dry breath chapped my lips.

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And tucking my knees into my sunken chest.

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I sought to ignore mama.

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Why do you whisper such wretched things I asked?

238
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The hoot of an owl sending chills down the spines of wide eyed rats.

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The chirping baby chicks with bellies as empty as my own.

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Somewhere beyond the curtain sang of sunrise.

241
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A single knock on the door.

242
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It is Saturday.

243
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No postman today.

244
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Nervous hands.

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Dead in a blue.

246
00:14:31,200 --> 00:14:33,200
A single knock at the door.

247
00:14:33,200 --> 00:14:35,200
I opened it but an inch.

248
00:14:35,200 --> 00:14:36,200
Broom in hand.

249
00:14:36,200 --> 00:14:38,200
As my eyes adjusted to the light of day.

250
00:14:38,200 --> 00:14:41,200
Before me stood a ghost from my past.

251
00:14:41,200 --> 00:14:43,200
I shut the door and waited for him to leave.

252
00:14:43,200 --> 00:14:45,200
Peeking through the curtain.

253
00:14:45,200 --> 00:14:47,200
I noticed two grocery bags on the porch.

254
00:14:47,200 --> 00:14:52,200
I tore into the bags throwing a few awful things to the crows and strays.

255
00:14:52,200 --> 00:14:55,200
I scribbled off a note and nailed it to the door.

256
00:14:55,200 --> 00:15:00,200
More bread and butter.

257
00:15:00,200 --> 00:15:04,200
I popped a yellow one that swept me off my feet like a broom across the room.

258
00:15:04,200 --> 00:15:08,200
The floor, the walls, the furniture, the chair, the bed, the pillows.

259
00:15:08,200 --> 00:15:10,200
The cold mattress.

260
00:15:10,200 --> 00:15:12,200
The voices, the words.

261
00:15:12,200 --> 00:15:19,200
My child, let me be.

262
00:15:19,200 --> 00:15:22,200
Reagan was nearly killed by a young man with the disease.

263
00:15:22,200 --> 00:15:30,200
Nonetheless, old Ronnie, born right here in the state of Illinois, star of the film Brother Rat, didn't much believe in schizophrenia.

264
00:15:30,200 --> 00:15:34,200
And closed the hilltop down in no time.

265
00:15:34,200 --> 00:15:38,200
I awoke to a loud clap of thunder on a sunny day.

266
00:15:38,200 --> 00:15:41,200
As the lonely cat's cry of the night was replaced by songbirds.

267
00:15:41,200 --> 00:15:43,200
The rooster's crow.

268
00:15:43,200 --> 00:15:44,200
A barking dog.

269
00:15:44,200 --> 00:15:47,200
And from afar, the whistle of a train.

270
00:15:47,200 --> 00:15:53,200
A daydream of the days when the squeaking brakes of a truck once delivered warm bread across the hilltop.

271
00:15:53,200 --> 00:15:56,200
But the Nazis, they knew nothing of bread.

272
00:15:56,200 --> 00:16:00,200
And it was rumored that they had used the ovens as crematoriums.

273
00:16:00,200 --> 00:16:07,200
As the bastards herded, carried, and wheeled the last of the patients out of the doors and chained them shut behind.

274
00:16:07,200 --> 00:16:13,200
They abandoned ship, leaving all to tread water in the middle of the sea.

275
00:16:13,200 --> 00:16:22,200
The patients succumbed to wandering about the lawns and gardens confused, disoriented, walking about in circles, pleading with themselves.

276
00:16:22,200 --> 00:16:27,200
With straps of leather cinched tightly and buckled around their minds.

277
00:16:27,200 --> 00:16:30,200
Birds searching desperately for a cage.

278
00:16:30,200 --> 00:16:34,200
While others sat motionless in wheeled chairs, content to die.

279
00:16:34,200 --> 00:16:36,200
Content not knowing why.

280
00:16:36,200 --> 00:16:38,200
And I thought of Ritchie.

281
00:16:38,200 --> 00:16:40,200
Long perished in the earth.

282
00:16:40,200 --> 00:16:42,200
I felt freedom.

283
00:16:42,200 --> 00:16:47,200
I felt pity for the utterly lost souls afraid, abandoned by the state.

284
00:16:47,200 --> 00:16:51,200
With winter fast approaching, soiled gowns blue in the breeze.

285
00:16:51,200 --> 00:16:57,200
Shitty butt-sheets exposed to the chill. Goose pimpled.

286
00:16:57,200 --> 00:17:04,200
Lightning white static hair of disheveled old women uttering the names of their long-dead husbands and estranged sons.

287
00:17:04,200 --> 00:17:10,200
With memories forgotten, shivered in the nude, vile and blue.

288
00:17:10,200 --> 00:17:12,200
Erased by the overexposure of light.

289
00:17:12,200 --> 00:17:15,200
Unable to place one foot before the other.

290
00:17:15,200 --> 00:17:17,200
The blank slate before them.

291
00:17:17,200 --> 00:17:18,200
All the same.

292
00:17:18,200 --> 00:17:19,200
Empty.

293
00:17:19,200 --> 00:17:20,200
Unknowing.

294
00:17:20,200 --> 00:17:21,200
Foreign.

295
00:17:21,200 --> 00:17:23,200
Dislodged and distorted.

296
00:17:23,200 --> 00:17:25,200
North, south, east or west.

297
00:17:25,200 --> 00:17:28,200
No longer arrows pointing any which way.

298
00:17:28,200 --> 00:17:31,200
Not toward homes of uncles nor aunts.

299
00:17:31,200 --> 00:17:33,200
Nor distant cousins.

300
00:17:33,200 --> 00:17:35,200
No homes with doors to wrap upon.

301
00:17:35,200 --> 00:17:37,200
Let alone step forth within.

302
00:17:37,200 --> 00:17:43,200
As the medications wore off, their subdued minds awoke and the disease took hold once more.

303
00:17:43,200 --> 00:17:45,200
Full-blown hallucination.

304
00:17:45,200 --> 00:17:46,200
Hunger.

305
00:17:46,200 --> 00:17:47,200
Enraging thirst.

306
00:17:47,200 --> 00:17:48,200
Joy.

307
00:17:48,200 --> 00:17:50,200
And paranoia.

308
00:17:50,200 --> 00:17:53,200
In time the patients went down with the ship.

309
00:17:53,200 --> 00:17:55,200
Making their way by the law of gravity.

310
00:17:55,200 --> 00:17:57,200
Down the ravine to the old wagon trail.

311
00:17:57,200 --> 00:17:58,200
Train tracks.

312
00:17:58,200 --> 00:17:59,200
Roadside.

313
00:17:59,200 --> 00:18:01,200
In the river below.

314
00:18:01,200 --> 00:18:03,200
Many swam for it.

315
00:18:03,200 --> 00:18:06,200
Or strolled along the shoulder in tattered gowns.

316
00:18:06,200 --> 00:18:09,200
Tractor trailers rasping at the fresh layer of tar.

317
00:18:09,200 --> 00:18:12,200
The draft leaving genitalia exposed.

318
00:18:12,200 --> 00:18:16,200
The twisted necked children in the back seats of station wagons.

319
00:18:16,200 --> 00:18:23,200
And bewildered mothers covering innocent eyes to the undesirable fallacies of society.

320
00:18:23,200 --> 00:18:25,200
Fallacies escaped from the shadows.

321
00:18:25,200 --> 00:18:27,200
Faces with their wild eyes.

322
00:18:27,200 --> 00:18:30,200
An army of madness let loose by old Ronnie.

323
00:18:30,200 --> 00:18:35,200
An absolute lack of reasoning haphazardly making way for the city of Grandview.

324
00:18:35,200 --> 00:18:37,200
A tidal wave of unreality.

325
00:18:37,200 --> 00:18:38,200
A reckoning.

326
00:18:38,200 --> 00:18:41,200
An assault upon the senses of the light of day.

327
00:18:41,200 --> 00:18:44,200
Upon the sidewalks which man walked in suit and tie.

328
00:18:44,200 --> 00:18:47,200
Man in denial of his own misdeeds.

329
00:18:47,200 --> 00:18:51,200
For the sake of pseudo-sanctity and civility.

330
00:18:51,200 --> 00:18:54,200
Huddled down in the stoops and alleyways.

331
00:18:54,200 --> 00:18:59,200
The diseased were forced to eat from garbage cans and dumpsters like strays.

332
00:18:59,200 --> 00:19:03,200
Like beasts left to their own means in ultimate demise.

333
00:19:03,200 --> 00:19:08,200
Ruin as the whole community awaited winter to purify the streets.

334
00:19:08,200 --> 00:19:10,200
And when winter did arrive.

335
00:19:10,200 --> 00:19:18,200
The blue lipped, blue toed and frozen solid were carried off by those hoping the lice neither withstood the freezing January night.

336
00:19:18,200 --> 00:19:22,200
Once nailed shut within the darkness of plain pine boxes.

337
00:19:22,200 --> 00:19:26,200
The forgotten were buried in back corner popper plots.

338
00:19:26,200 --> 00:19:28,200
Where no stones were placed.

339
00:19:28,200 --> 00:19:34,200
Nothing but mounds of dirt that sank back into the earth with the melting snow.

340
00:19:34,200 --> 00:19:37,200
Souls not laid to rest but tossed.

341
00:19:37,200 --> 00:19:39,200
And tossing and turning about.

342
00:19:39,200 --> 00:19:42,200
Hollowed bones shattered as new holes were dug.

343
00:19:42,200 --> 00:19:45,200
A casserole of the unwanted by all.

344
00:19:45,200 --> 00:19:47,200
All but the worms.

345
00:19:47,200 --> 00:19:50,200
With a heart grown as cold as January.

346
00:19:50,200 --> 00:19:52,200
The city itself fed those worms.

347
00:19:52,200 --> 00:19:53,200
Which fed the earth.

348
00:19:53,200 --> 00:19:55,200
And come spring buds.

349
00:19:55,200 --> 00:20:00,200
Blossoming flowers perfumed with the stench of great shame.

350
00:20:00,200 --> 00:20:02,200
Those who survived the harsh winter.

351
00:20:02,200 --> 00:20:05,200
Burrowing down in boxes and back alleys.

352
00:20:05,200 --> 00:20:06,200
Lived to become targets.

353
00:20:06,200 --> 00:20:09,200
As open hunting season began for the moralists.

354
00:20:09,200 --> 00:20:11,200
And hate fueled drunkards.

355
00:20:11,200 --> 00:20:13,200
And teens to run down in the night.

356
00:20:13,200 --> 00:20:15,200
Flattening the mad like toads.

357
00:20:15,200 --> 00:20:19,200
Under the tires of their chevys and fords.

358
00:20:19,200 --> 00:20:22,200
A curse that undoubtedly been cast upon the city of Grandview.

359
00:20:22,200 --> 00:20:24,200
A plague unleashed.

360
00:20:24,200 --> 00:20:25,200
Revenge.

361
00:20:25,200 --> 00:20:29,200
As the spirits never forget nor forgive.

362
00:20:29,200 --> 00:20:35,200
Nor had I ever stopped wondering just who were the diseased.

363
00:20:35,200 --> 00:20:39,200
Mercy had been pawned for an acceptable currency of cruelty.

364
00:20:39,200 --> 00:20:42,200
At the trading post of the crossroads.

365
00:20:42,200 --> 00:20:45,200
The disease had not only swept across the city.

366
00:20:45,200 --> 00:20:48,200
But the nation from coast to coast.

367
00:20:48,200 --> 00:20:50,200
America, America.

368
00:20:50,200 --> 00:20:52,200
God shed his grace on thee.

369
00:20:52,200 --> 00:20:54,200
And crowned like good with brotherhood.

370
00:20:54,200 --> 00:20:59,200
From sea to shining sea.

371
00:20:59,200 --> 00:21:01,200
Brother rats stepping over brothers.

372
00:21:01,200 --> 00:21:06,200
Sisters, husbands, daughters, aunts, uncles, wives, neighbors and sons.

373
00:21:06,200 --> 00:21:10,200
Ravaging upon each other in unthinkable ways.

374
00:21:10,200 --> 00:21:12,200
Whirling about in one shoe.

375
00:21:12,200 --> 00:21:14,200
Neither going to nor fro.

376
00:21:14,200 --> 00:21:16,200
As out of the corner of the eye.

377
00:21:16,200 --> 00:21:18,200
The vast blue had turned gray.

378
00:21:18,200 --> 00:21:22,200
As the sun nestled into the trees for the evening.

379
00:21:22,200 --> 00:21:25,200
I made my way for the graveyard and what light remained.

380
00:21:25,200 --> 00:21:29,200
The towering elm budding high above the silence at my feet.

381
00:21:29,200 --> 00:21:33,200
I placed my palm upon the rough bark and felt his soul within.

382
00:21:33,200 --> 00:21:37,200
I wiped my teary eyes on my sleeve.

383
00:21:37,200 --> 00:21:39,200
And carried on to the old twisted tree.

384
00:21:39,200 --> 00:21:42,200
Spun like the rope that mama once swung from.

385
00:21:42,200 --> 00:21:44,200
Long frayed to nothingness.

386
00:21:44,200 --> 00:21:48,200
My heart sank as I noticed the tombstones in the ravine.

387
00:21:48,200 --> 00:21:50,200
I scampered through the fallen branches.

388
00:21:50,200 --> 00:21:52,200
Crossing the tracks and the highway.

389
00:21:52,200 --> 00:21:54,200
Then through the willow to the river.

390
00:21:54,200 --> 00:22:05,200
Swollen high above its bank.

391
00:22:05,200 --> 00:22:09,200
The days of old steamers braving its swift currents long past.

392
00:22:09,200 --> 00:22:13,200
Made way for the slow convoy of rusty barges.

393
00:22:13,200 --> 00:22:16,200
Bolts of light searching their way through the night.

394
00:22:16,200 --> 00:22:18,200
Groping the shoreline.

395
00:22:18,200 --> 00:22:25,200
The blinding brightness illuminating the dark swirling in the eddies of the mind.

396
00:22:25,200 --> 00:22:27,200
I bowed my head with a nestled geese.

397
00:22:27,200 --> 00:22:29,200
Snug in tall grass.

398
00:22:29,200 --> 00:22:34,200
In ease in a sense of peace.

399
00:22:34,200 --> 00:22:36,200
The moonlight reflected off the tide.

400
00:22:36,200 --> 00:22:39,200
The moment shined bright and I grabbed a handful of clay.

401
00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:42,200
I rolled it between my palms into a ball.

402
00:22:42,200 --> 00:22:50,200
And with a great slap I flattened the clay into a Swedish pancake and tossed it in the Illinois.

403
00:22:50,200 --> 00:22:56,200
A large catfish leapt just high enough above the water surface to gaze its dark eye upon the stars.

404
00:22:56,200 --> 00:23:00,200
Before plummeting back into the muddy abyss with a splash.

405
00:23:00,200 --> 00:23:05,200
A ripple across the current of time.

406
00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:07,200
In the stillness that was night.

407
00:23:07,200 --> 00:23:14,200
My own reasoning by the great hour had long washed away for the sea.

408
00:23:14,200 --> 00:23:22,200
Yet words nonetheless circled round and round like that ferris wheel at the St. Louis World's Fair.

409
00:23:22,200 --> 00:23:48,200
And I listened and I heard and I felt sad poetry.

410
00:23:48,200 --> 00:23:48,480
A Physician Red