Amanda Palmer
The Tragic Events of September - Part I
[Voiced – Evelyn, Evelyn, both]
Are you there, Evelyn?
Yes, of course I am, I'm always here. What's the matter, Evelyn?
I'm frightened. It's that time of year again, isn't it, Evelyn?
Yes, it is that time of year again, Evelyn
Tell me once more how it all happened, Evelyn
Hush now. We don't talk about that because it makes us sad, Evelyn
I won't be sad this time. I promise. Please?
Tell me again about the tragic events of September, Evelyn

The year is 1985. ”St. Elmo's Fire” is at the top of the charts
The wreckage of the Titanic has just been discovered at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean
And on a small farm on the Kansas-Colorado border
A young mother is about to give birth

The local doctor has predicted twins
Which gladdens the hearts of the woman and her husband
Who could certainly use the extra help around the farm
But the birth does not go well
The terrified father drives his screaming, hemorrhaging wife to the local clinic
A poorly funded facility housed in a converted Airstream trailer
The presiding physician is Dr. Charlie Von Kook
A local denture maker of dubious training with eccentric religious beliefs

The labor is long and painful, and Louisa Neville, a Mennonite girl
Who had given up a promising career as a legal assistant
To join her first and only love on the rundown farm that was his only inheritance
May her soul rest forever in peace
Is pronounced dead by the doctor
“She has died”
At 11:23 AM, on the 11th day of September, precisely 12 minutes after the birth of her twin daughters
The girls are parapagus, tripus, dibrachius twins
Conjoined at the side and sharing between them:
3 legs, two arms, two hearts, three lungs and a single liver
Without hesitating, Dr. Von Kook places the infants on the operating table
Muttering biblical quotations of doubtful accuracy, the doctor leaves the trailer and returns with a gas powered chainsaw
The noise is deafening in the small space as he starts the engine and prepares for the gruesome operation
“Dear Father, guide my hand”

At this very moment, Sheriff Wilbur Owens notices the Neville's car parked outside
Steps in to see if he could be of assistance
“What's going on in here?”
Seeing the crazed doctor hovering above the newborns with the teeth of the chainsaw about to connect with their innocent flesh, the valiant sheriff draws his pistol and fires
As the bullet pierces his heart, Dr. Von Kook emits a cry and stumbles backwards

Samuel Neville, a timid, nervous man, who wanted nothing more than a quiet country life with many children, is still in a state of shock over the death of his young wife and the alarming physiology of his daughters when he is struck in the neck by the chainsaw blade
Killing him instantly

Distraught, the good sheriff takes the crying infants to his car
“Betty? You are not gonna believe me this time.”
He radios back to the station where it is arranged for the twins to be admitted to the Bethany Center for Developmentally Disabled Youth into Topeka
Sheriff Owens decides to deliver the twins to the Bethany Center personally
Less than an hour into the drive, an oncoming truck swerves, crosses the median, and strikes the sheriff's car
The sheriff is thrown into the windshield, knocking him unconscious
He will die thirty minutes later from loss of blood

Meanwhile, the world has become a sea of feathers as the truck's cargo of live chickens, many among them now seriously injured or dead, spill into the road
A small, awkward man limps out of the truck's cab, and cautiously approaches the sheriff's vehicle
The man's eyes focus on the twin girls, calmly looking up at him from the back seat
Ignoring the dying sheriff, the truck driver lifts the infants into his arms and sets them in the cab of the damaged vehicle
He unhitches the trailer, climbs into the cab, abandoning the defenseless chickens to their grim fate on Interstate 70
A smile forms on his lips as he puts the truck into gear and continues down the highway