Thrust Read Online Free PDF Page B

would take you out of action, or toss you right back in.   A teenager named Dawn.   Hey.
    He didn't know who he was under his heart.   Maybe it was all there, his whole history, real and unreal, jammed in beneath the aorta.   One day it would bloom and tear through his chest and it would all end on the floor with a massive coronary.   Dying, staring up at Shake's face, the audience applauding.
    Or maybe nothing about who he'd been and was now played any real part in who he was supposed to be.   It didn't feel like that, most of the time.   As if this was just a stop along the way until he could figure out his next move.  
    He kept trying to get back to where he'd once been, even though he'd hated it there too.   Three years ago.   Five.   Twenty.   But maybe the beginning was still the place to start.
    So, be honest.  
    He shrugged, cocked his head.   It was his father's mannerism, the I totally give up sign.  
    "Beats the hell out of me, Dawn," he said.   "If I knew, I suppose I wouldn't need to put it on the page.   Thrashing it out is the only way I can think of working through it."
    "Through what?"
    Her lovely eyes zapping him now, giving him little shocks, throwing green and blue sparks.   What do you say?   You couldn't sound hip anymore talking about the human condition, the state of mankind.   "All my hallucinations."
    "Yeah?"
    "I'm schizophrenic."
    "Oh," she went.   "Cool."
    Goth Chick #1 who knew he had no talent had been listening in.   She turned on him, standing out in great contrast to Dawn—the black lips moving in, eye-shadow like Egyptian kohl, dyed hair in tight ebony knots.   The forces of light and darkness clashing right in front of him.  
    "The hell does that mean?   You got other people living inside you?   Fourteen different versions of yourself?"
    "No, see—"
    "You go on a rampage and kill somebody and you say Fred did it?   You save a cat from a tree and it's because Cindy made you?   You a transvestite too?"
    One of his symptoms was that he couldn't answer in the short form.   He had to run the whole thing out.   Every time.   Always the same.   Jez had given it to him the first week in the hospital, and now it was another trigger.  
    He pulled it and the bullet came out the same way each time.   "It's a disease of the mind characterized by a constellation of distinctive and often predictable symptoms. Those most commonly associated with the disease are called positive symptoms. These include thought disorder, delusions, and hallucinations."
    Now he had to pause and wait for the question he'd originally asked Jez , and it had to be played out the same way.
    Dawn said, "What's…?"
    Okay, now he could go again.   "Thought disorder is the diminished ability to think clearly and logically. Often it is manifested by disconnected and nonsensical language that renders the patient incapable of participating in conversation, contributing to his alienation from his family, friends, and society.   An affected person may believe that he is being conspired against, called paranoid delusion."
    Even as he spoke aloud he could hear Jez's voice saying the words, the room going white as the walls of the ward.   "'Broadcasting' describes a type of delusion in which the individual with this illness believes that his thoughts can be heard by others. Hallucinations can be heard, seen, or even felt.   Usually they take the form of voices heard only by the afflicted person. Such voices may describe the person's actions, warn him of danger or tell him what to do."
    Thank Christ, he was coming to the end of it, rattling faster and faster, trying not to take another breath because it would throw off his entire rhythm.   "At times the individual may hear several voices carrying on a conversation. Less obvious than the 'positive symptoms' but equally serious are the 'negative symptoms' that represent the absence of normal behavior. These include flat or blunted affect, such as a lack of