On the Many Deaths of Amanda Palmer by Rohan Kriwaczek Read Free Book Online Page B

for her by now painfully disfigured feet, she had to keep earning whenever the opportunity arose. Meanwhile Silas turned his attention to his next main attraction: a parrot called General George that could recite the entire Bill of Rights. He planned to market it as the reincarnation of George Washington.
    A year passed and the visitors became ever more infrequent. Amanda took to spending much of her time dancing in the fields around the compound. One day she came upon Fluffy’s old cage, buried under a pile of crates and tarpaulins in a ditch, and had it moved next to her trailer, and an awning put up over it. There she would sleep between the dancing frenzies, and dream of her childhood. But by now her body was worn and her feet were barely functional. Over the past year she had received too many fractures and her spine had slowly become crooked from exertion. She knew she couldn’t keep this up for much longer, and perhaps that would really be a blessing.
    Then one morning, shortly after the dancing began she felt an immense pain shoot up her right leg as her achilles tendon snapped. She fell to the ground but continued flailing for the compulsion to dance was still burning within despite her body’s inability. Silas found her rolling in the courtyard and had her carried back to the cage. The nurses gathered to see what could be done,but it was agreed in whispered tones that the cost of all the necessary surgeries to her feet, legs and spine would be prohibitive. Within a week Silas decided to let the nurses go. A few days later a car pulled up and paid the requisite $50. Silas had the cage moved onto the stage for their entertainment but the spectacle of Amanda writhing and jerking upon her back disturbed more than it amused and so he had a blanket put over it and ordered the road signs taken down.
    By now General George was becoming a star and had been offered a part in the latest
National Treasure
movie. Naturally Silas’s entire entourage went along to enjoy the Hollywood glamour, and thus Amanda was forgotten. No one knew when she died, but upon their return she was found to be still, her twisted broken body contorted beyond recognition, and yet there was the smallest shadow of a smile stretched across her drawn and emaciated face, perhaps a look of relief, or even revelation.
    Her death was widely reported, and Silas sold the film rights to her life story for a record figure. Many newspapers described her as a martyr to the cause of world peace, and a motion for a day of international pan-global ceasefire was even proposed at the UN in honour of her efforts, although it had no chance of actually being ratified.
    She was cremated at the Jonah Crematorium, Malibu, on Friday May 13th, 2002, and Silas had the larger bone fragments mounted as relics in Perspex blocks, on the off-chance that she might be canonised at some point in the future. The smaller ashes he had baked into cookies and sold on Ebay to her remaining fans, with one reaching over $500. No stone was ever placed to her memory. Today all that remains of Amanda Palmer is her recordings, which can still occasionally be heard on light music radio stations around the world, and, from time to time, might even inspire someone to get up and dance, confident in the knowledge that they can stop whenever they wish.
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A Personal Extroduction from Text Number One
    By XXXX XXXXX
    Having read through nearly eight hundred texts it is clear to me that the phenomenon of the
palmeresque
is more interesting than the many individual writings themselves, for most, at least amongst the selection I was given, seem to be very similar and seep that brand of two-dimensional fan adoration that has always made me feel a little queasy. That said, there were a number of texts that stood out for various reasons, and in this case it was both the quality of the writing and the parabolic (in both senses of the word) nature of the storyline.
    Strictly speaking this text is