“It’s the plumber. I’ve come to fix the sink.” In case you’re not familiar with the joke, this goes back and forth for a very long time, long enough for the plumber to die from sheer exasperation on the front porch. When the homeowner returns to ask, “Who is it?” meaning the dead man on the porch. The competent parrot repeats the words of the plumber. “It’s the plumber. I’ve come to fix the sink.”

He slid his dry tongue against the bottom of his top jagged teeth, and, of course, it bled, and it obviously tasted like it. Truth is, this was a daily ritual, something about how hope springs eternal with your own fluids in your mouth. It’s an archaic German expression, so it doesn’t matter. For the first time in the last hour, Emile Prattwell stopped everything. He was discombobulated by the apparent elephant in the room question: Would this be a completely different experience if he was a cannibal?

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