“Night after night she listens to the howling in the pipes. It gains a bloodcurdling cadence. She hums along. She can almost sing the words. She scratches the pimples dotting her body. They swell to boils. They burst, revealing new eyes. The eyes show her unutterable truths. Soon, she sticks thumb tacks into her tongue so she can better explain these truths to the weeping children whose beds she hides under.”
