The Residents: Their Early Years

Once when we were on a bus between some cities we discussed the things
that happened in their early years. Their youngest time was spent alone
while living with an uncle only half remaining from a foreign war. His
upper half was wel enough, but in the pants between his cuffs where his
zipper stopped, his legs were gone. And so he rolled around on wheels,
self sufficient in a peeling little house he could not paint again. But it
was spotless to the point of two feet above the floor and warmth was in
his laugh and in his smiling face. The people that they met were few and
might have been disturbed by two who looked so strange, but they were not
aware. For living with their stumpy uncle, who was unconcerned and
rumpled, made them see things differently. They thought that we were put
together randomly, just like the weather, with no uniformity in mind. But
that vision only lasted for a while until he passed away and they were
sent off to a home. The children there did not have parents, were all
alike and always staring, as they sat on chairs above the ground. So they
cried and then with drew fromhose that shouted, laughed and who were mean
because of suffering inside. Once alone they heard some children shouting
that a car had killed one of their pets out in the road ahead. As they
approached the fallen body, blood appeared and then they saw a leg that
had been torn away somehow. So they kneeled upon the ground and lifted up
the leg they found and wedged it gently just below the spot where both
their shoulders joined together. Then the sun, which had been setting,
winked and for a moment all was dark. And when the sun returned above
them, no one laughed and made fun of them, for the dog was licking at the
joint, barking loud and resurrected and causing them to be respected by
those who had avoided them before.
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