m
READS
RINGS
I was just on the homepage of my little webtv that could when I was struck by one of the headlines. I typically skim the contents of the homepage daily, but I am a firm believer that most news is not good news, so I rarely follow the links to any of the news stories. However, this particular headline sparked my morbid curiousity: "Girl dies after 2nd head is removed." Pictures of the 2-headed Sesame Street monster popped into my head. I pictured an obstinate little girl arguing with the twin-head that was sprouting from her shoulder. Doesn't that sort of thing only occur on South Park? The headline sounded so fantastical to me that I thought the real story couldn't possibly be that bizarre.
Indeed it was. A seven week old Dominican girl was born with a second head sprouting from the top of her own. It was, apparently, a grossly underdeveloped twin. The second head had a partially developed brain and facial features. The second head was growing at a faster rate than the infants head and had to be removed so that she would survive. It was a complicated operation as the two heads shared several arteries. The girl survived the operation itself but unfortunately died a few hours later.
The story itself made me a little queasy and I felt sad about the whole situation. But then the Americanization of the story popped up in one, lone, one-sentence paragraph. Allow me to paraphrase: The infants mother works in a grocery store and the father is a tailor. They make about $200 per month and have 2 other children.
What does that have to do with anything?
design by fergie
Bits of fire in the sky push me east back home. I used to live in flames
but it's hard on the wings. Choke me. Smoke me. Scare me back. You try
but you just can't. I peel the layers in my spare time, and you're easy
to see through. I can fly, I've discovered on my own. I may be the lesser
butterfly but my wings are just as strong. Who are you to tell me to find
a place to land? I may be the lesser butterfly but baby watch me glide.
