A Choir of Ill Children Read Online Free PDF Page B

time.
    God was there with him, he said, and I have no reason to disbelieve him. The hospital was completely empty except for one pack of bandages, which was just enough for him to tie off his flowing wounds. That kind of coincidence would have made me think twice too. I sold the place to him for a dollar, and he immediately converted it into a monastery.
    Spiritual seekers from all over the world have made their pilgrimages to Kingdom Come and settled into the order. The races, religions, and shades of their features are as varied as any in the world. Some are prophets, or might be. Others are acolytes hoping to pierce dimensions and stand between the pillars of heaven. Some are alcoholics and drug addicts looking for a last chance at redemption.
    In meditation anything is allowed. They sweat before fires and pentagrams, and they speak in dead dialects. They struggle with complex intonations of the Kabbalah. The journey is arduous.
    A few have bathed in blood, and the ghosts of their victims prance inside the shadows of the empty wards. Lucretia Murteen has become a nun—a bride of the Flying Walendas—and she can see the needy apparitions from her empty socket. Sister Lucretia says she hears babies crying in the nursery.
    I am technically a monk, by proxy. My name is still on the building and Abbot Earl feels that I am a benefactor, at least, if not a true believer.
    I attend the occasional meal with them, and observe their rules while I’m among the order. I wear a cowl and robes with thistles and barbs woven into them. I chant. I only speak between sixth and seventh hour. I remain chaste. I do not take the holy name of Walenda in vain.
    Anything is possible here, as it is on the wire in the savage wind.
     
    J ONAH RECITES THE NAMES OF SYMPHONIES, POEMS and sit-coms, from the core of his third of that brain. It’s almost all he can do on his own, but that doesn’t matter. His words are passionate and true. The execution, the intent, the subtleties of tone and finesse of his tongue add new depths of expression. For Sarah, who sleeps with Fred down the hall. “
The Love Song of
J. Alfred Prufrock, The Odd Couple, please, Barney Miller, In a Disguised Graveyard,
Toccata, Mandoline Concerto
. . . Because I could not stop for Death, please oh please, Three’s Company, I Love Lucy,
‘Waltz of the Flowers,’
Liebestraum, Gilligan’s Island, Will and Grace,
‘Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night’
. . . McHale’s Navy, Burns and Allen,
‘The Moon and the Yew Tree,’
Seinfeld,
Adagio, ‘Arrival of the Queen of Sheba,’
please come to me, I await you, I am always waiting, you see . . .”
    He is sobbing madly, the tears corrupting his throat, while Sebastian cackles in whispers and Cole remains oddly silent.
     
    A WIDE BUT DULL MOON DOESN ’ T HAVE WHAT IT takes to illuminate the inside of my truck. Whoever she is, she’s doing all right in my lap without me. She smells of death, but that doesn’t matter a hell of a lot at the moment. Her hair is a fiery red that might only be orange in the daylight, but for now it is a mass of bobbing flame that spills across my belly to my knees.
    She’s producing noises that could be ecstasy, or perhaps this is only an agonizing murder. It’s hard to tell. There weren’t any women in the bar tonight, so how did she find me? The woods. I think she moved on me from the woods. She drags her nails down my legs and back up again, making other little motions as if she’s scratching sparse but powerful sentences into my skin. I try to make them out. It’s a cursive script with well-defined curves, crossed t’s and dotted i’s and hanging g’s. Lots of passive verbs. There are a meager number of semicolons but a fair amount of emphasis is drawn to certain words via italics.
    Each new section, with chapter heading, begins with capitalization done in an ostentatious biblical-style calligraphy. There are extensive footnotes designating sets and subsets for further