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North American (General)Transcript
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Don Kendrick. A necked narrator This is from with the old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa by Eugene Sledge. We moved rapidly in the open amid craters and coral rubble through ever increasing enemy fire. I clenched my teeth, squeeze my carbon stock recited over and over to myself. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me. The sun bore down unmercifully. Smoke and dust from the barrage limited my vision. The ground seemed to sway back and forth under the concussions, I felt as though I were floating along the vortex of someone. Really thunderstorm Japanese bullets snapped and cracked. Tracers went by me on both sides at waist height. The farther we went, the worse it got the noise and concussion pressed in on my ears like a vice. It seemed impossible that any of us would make it across. To be shelled by massed artillery and mortars is absolutely terrifying. But to be shelled in the open ist terror compound and beyond the belief of anyone who hasn't experienced the attack on pillow lose airfield was the worst combat experience I had during the entire war. This is from a death by Stephen King. Sheriff Barclay stood in the doorway, almost filling it up. Come out of there, Jim, and do with your hands up. I ain't drama pistol when I don't want to. Truesdale came out. He stood there looking at the sheriff with his flat gray eyes. The sheriff look back. So did the two on the seat of an old buckboard with Heinz Mortuary printed on the side and faded yellow letters. I noticed you ain't asked why we're here, Sheriff Barclay said. Why are you here, sheriff? A cold breeze kicked up, blowing the horses, manes and flattening the grass in a wave that ran south. You need to get in the back of wagon, the sheriff said. I don't want to ride No funeral hack, Truesdale said. That's bad luck. You got bad luck all over. You're painted in it. Get in. This is from a world of light by flights glute. More than 15 years have passed, and I remain totally disabled. Neuropsychological testing confirmed that my abstract reasoning powers long and short term memory visual learning capacity and ability to make sense of what I see had all been severely compromised. My i Q. Diminished by almost 20%. I couldn't keep track of ongoing mental activity, couldn't calculate spun and knotted loops of thought, though I've really learned to read and write and just recently have begun to walk again without a cane, surely the most significant advance has been to embrace fundamental changes in who I am, how I work and live and what is important to me. I know we all live in a shattered world. I'm not alone in this. For some, the shattering works from the outside in for others. As for me, the shattering works from the inside out. I can't make things go here, so reality often seems craze, explosive arriving, and I must abandon the impulse for order. When perception is in tatters and time sundered, it's hopeless to see coherence. I've learned to savor the fragments themselves and to live in the moment to find harmony and the sense of being at home smack inside the splintered spaces. This is from stiff MMA, Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. I. Caps were invented by a mortician to help dead people keep their eye shut, and I cap is a simple 10 cent piece of plastic. It is slightly larger than a contact lens, less flexible and considerably less comfortable. The plastic is repeatedly lanced through so that small, sharp spurs stick up from its surface. The Spurs work on the same principle as those steel spikes. The threatens severe tire damage on behalf of rental car companies. The island will come down over a nightcap, but once closed will not easily open back up. There have been times this morning when I wish that someone had outfitted me with a pair of eye caps. I've been standing around eyelids up in the basement and bombing room of the San Francisco College of Mortuary Science.