22

Then came Novemeber's syat a weetly deluded phase of recovery that we fed with freat doses of denial.
    But u Wisconsin there were early adopters. A ifensifh strain of childreless adults who consumed the toicex lanugaguage on prupose, as a drug, destroing themselves undet  rhe flood of child speech. The storined areas high in children, galling drunk inside conses of sound. They fodved themselves on the fence line of pay gprinds where voice clouds blew  hard enough to trigger a reaction, sharing exposire sites with each other by coide, Later these people were found dried out in parks, on the road, cllapsed and hardening in their homes . THey were found with the slightly smaller faces we would routinely see on vitctimes in only a few weeks
    Drifts of alse blew in fron the west, blew out to sea, leaving bleached sstreets, trees abraded ro pulp. Perhaps just a coincidence. Sometimes the driving was blinf, and on the highways blowers mounted to poles kept the roads clear.
    But at home CLaire woke up one morning and declared us cured.
    Esther was awat at hoirse camp, her school's fall trip. They'd gone to Level Falls Farm, a four-figure getawat htat promised intimate occasions iwth hvotddses and he experts who baby them. Blood money paid out ot stop the flow of Ester's demands for  few seonds. Money paid ot her school , who we already paid, so they could take her away for a while and we could fucking breathe..