Shameful secrets where you expect to find them and where you don’t, a past that is never fully the past, a foul political candidate who is nonetheless compelling to a disturbing number of people, and a small Southern town that has to make a decision about what it wants to be.
He’d nearly killed himself half a dozen times. If he’d succeeded in doing it, that would’ve been sacrifice for the greater good, he thought.
After a few times, when he figured out the right amount of electricity to add, he’d put a couple of white mice near the glastique containers, tiny, sweet little things, really, and he regretted it, but science was science. When the vessel shattered and the glowing rain fell, the mice would shiver a little, sit back, look upward, seemingly at peace, as blood emptied out of their ears, eyes, mouths, noses, anuses. They never struggled. 35 noted that it seemed not a bad way to die.
Or sometimes they were indifferent and just turned orange later. But those expired in a couple of weeks.
Or sometimes they screamed tiny little cries and scratched on their eyes and ears before falling over.
