Rant

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Book: Read Rant for Free Online
Authors: Chuck Palahniuk
have another…”
    From the Field Notes of Green Taylor Simms: If you must know, the hidden message written on my egg was “Fuck You.”
    Irene Casey: “Yes,” he said, his chin grinding whiskers against the side of my neck. He said, “Yes. Yeah. Oh yeah.” He said, “Please.”
    His hips bucked against me so hard, one crack, two, three lightning-bolted through the ice underneath. Water lapped up from under. White cracks, zigzagging toward shore.
    Shot Dunyun: I didn’t know why, but my egg said, “Green Taylor Simms.”
    Irene Casey: When he lifted up on his elbows, the man looked down and said, “You’re bleeding.”
    He looked at my hand, how inside my fist, from holding the coin so tight, I made the gold cut open my palm skin. The edges carved a perfect round scar, deeper at the top and bottom of the circle. The man pried my fingers back, and inside them, the gold coin looked like Christmas in my bright-red blood. Weeks into the new year, I’d have a purple bruise dated 1884.
    And the man told me, “Keep it. To pay for cleaning your sweater.”
    From the Field Notes of Green Taylor Simms: Until now, Party Crashing hadn’t a face, and it seems imprudent to give it one. There is no such phenomenon as “flashbacks.” No immortal “Historians” exist. Which is more likely—all this time-travel rubbish, or the fact that one young man went insane?
    To profess otherwise would be extremely reckless and irresponsible.
    Irene Casey: The man pulled up his pants, his thing still steaming with pee and blood. Still dripping sperms. He pulled up the zipper and looked his head around. Looking down at me, he said, “Stay until I’m gone.”
    And he walked upriver on the water, all the way to over the most far-off horizon.
    Tina Something: No, the real lie, the real liars, are Echo Lawrence and Shot Dunyun, because they know the truth but won’t tell. You can flashback in time and tinker with events. And every night, they still try.
    Irene Casey: My legs, open to the blue Christmas sky. My sweater was froze, stitched into the ice a bunch of places. Half sleepy from not breathing, my eyes watched the water bubble up through the cracks around me. My ears heard the whine and moan of the river pulling apart the broke pieces.
    The living, alive blood and piss of me, freezing. The man’s sperms. The river ice shifting, breaking up. Coming to life.
    Tina Something: That’s how most of the people in power have anticipated and profited from current events. It could be, this is how people have always taken control. Or this dropping back might be limited to modern history. I don’t know. You can’t know. All I know is: People do this. And they don’t want you to.
    Irene Casey: Me, just letting the ice sink me lower into the deep cold, my ears hear a voice come out of the bushes. In the cattails along the edge of the froze river, a voice said, “Mrs. Casey?” Said, “Irene?”
    The voice said, “Mom?”
    And a mostly naked boy stepped out, shaking and wrapped in his own arms.
    A blue sheet of paper hid the front bit of him. A hospital getup. He stood in paper slippers, saying, “I couldn’t catch a ride.” His teeth rattling together, the boy said, “I’m too late.” He said, “Am I too late?”
    Echo Lawrence: The hospital ID bracelet that Chester wore that day, it’s dated from the day they pulled him out of the river. Nineteen years to the day before Rant plowed his car into the same stretch of water. I still have that bracelet. Chet gave it to me. The day Rant disappeared into the river, and the day Chet washed up, both days December 21.
    Irene Casey: The boy stood pigeon-toed on the froze mud, both his hands knotted in the steam coming out of his mouth. His whole body clenched and shaking, like a skinny fist, he said, “It’s going to be okay…You’re going to be okay…”
    Scars running up and down his arms. His chattering teeth black. Maybe only old as a high-schooler.
    Except for some blue paper,

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