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Before he was discovered,
before the press exploded things, before he was a name, he was just a smell
on the interstate. He was drift-body, private, lump in the eddies, flesh
swelling out. The discolorations around his neck, wrists and ankles were of
no interest to anyone. Is it worth the loss of so much to gain discovery? He
couldn't say. He has no tongue, no ability to produce comprehendible speech.
If he could speak, would he? This is the question that sets their pens
jittering. They imagine his head twisting up out of the water, the bits that
used to be lips opening. They imagine profundity. This is where they've got
it wrong. Someone told some men to come and take him. He's not even in the
river, now. He's in a hole somewhere. But after they took him, the smell
lingered for hours. This was his speech, but none of them were there to
transcribe it.
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