Limelight Features

Below is a recently discovered excerpt from the 19th-century chronicle entitled Unfortunate Happenings. The text being regarded as notably mysterious, this new blurb, unfortunately, does little to clarify itself:

“On July 4th, [1865,] Guy Gunnahange was brought before the gallows,” read one yellow-press paper [the newsprint here referenced is unknown]; “Only a day prior was his death warrant officialized.” 

Just twenty-four hours! What permissible cruelty is this? Mr. Gunnahange ought to have lived a little while longer. The same bulletin even says, “Because of his crimes, he was offered no last meal.”

Hadn’t they a clue how hungry I was!

“Has your brother ever tried to do you poorly—have I? Tell me, who is it making those drums go a-hollerin’, beating up alongside your red-hot twanger?

“Man, we’re closer than close; you oughta know I’m only human, made by the same God you are. Our minds, our veins—they ain’t so different…. Can’t you see my sweet Apple Juice Girl doesn’t ever hurt me? She just sways on inside and makes me warm. There’s no pain with her in my blood; I play better, too.

“Go ahead, now, take it: Before you know it, she’ll have you ringing like a bell.” 

I never knew the sky so blue, nor the clouds so white, nor the sun so bright. Yes… I think They were right, calling me foolish, that I failed to see this world so gorgeous: of noontide beams a-glint with dust—dust as diamonds above the rough. 

On my back, these things I saw; part of me hither, part of me thither: a red-tattered scrawl, upon the earth, where the bomb went off. 

I don’t know if Their chiding will cease, as my eyes shut for the Long, Long Sleep. Still, much peace I find, knowing I—indeed I—did save Their lives.

“There are only two.”

“Why do you say so?”

“C’mon… it’s obvious!” 

“Not everybody is born with them, you know. And what if they should be later removed? Why use shaky, corporeal things to assert an absolute truth?”

“You speak verbose nonsense! Everyone tells me it is so, so it is!”

“Who tells you thus, if I may ask?”

“Why, the billion-dollar corporations who profit from my ignorance, imperious politicians who desire the squashing of individuality, debaucherous clerics who want nothing more than to be seen as correct, pseudo-intellectuals who pride themselves on themselves, and my own parents, of course!”