Chapter 25 Chapter Twenty-Three

Donna Duerr was no longer in pain.She is swimming in a warm well of hallucinations, revisiting memories through distorted lenses.Her father was alive, alive and throwing her into the air in the park.The trees in the park were waving at her.Branches become arms, and Donna is among a circle of friends playing party games.Everything seemed bigger than usual because she was only six, and when you're young things always seem vaguely bigger.All the colors merged together. At this time, it was the Decoration Week, and the carnival floats were like jelly left in the sun, melting and flowing on the street.

She was in the middle of the parade, on the ledge of a pickup truck adorned with crepe-paper flowers.In her frenzied insanity, the paper flowers swelled like western roses.She is Princess Rose, dazzled in layers of petticoats.The glory of the event outweighs the discomfort of the prickly fabric on a warm summer afternoon, and the pain of the plastic crown biting into the tender flesh behind the ear.In the intertwining of dreams and reality, Donna wondered why the sun was shining so passionately, making her sweat and trembling. Outside of her consciousness, the arm hanging beside her swelled and discolored, and continued to decay, sending more toxins into her body, which was constantly tug-of-war between toxicity and survival.Fetid and tainted meat is just a symptom of a deeper corruption.

Her body couldn't wait for the arrival of death, and could not wait to start the great cause of decomposition and decay.