i was once on the island of kauri freediving in the andaman sea i felt terribly ill stung by a lion lionfish and i was dehydrated in excruciating pain i'd lost all sense of time and place it's completely disoriented but i knew i was dying so i readied myself for it and in that moment at death's door i looked up and standing over me in the brightness was this landless broken sea gypsy just standing there smiling she and her tribe nursed me back to health good as new when i left the island she kissed me like a burst of sunlight on my cheeks it made merely dying well worth it that's how i feel now. this has been a long time coming i hope it's been worth it what a terrible waste time blood money in the end for what revenge that's my passion revenge isn't a passion it's a disease that eats at your mind and poisons your soul i attended summer camp with this little stick of a girl twyla stansberry hell of an athlete capture the flag had an unrelenting passion for fitness never skinny enough a pound here a pound there ran like a deer until she couldn't could barely walk turns out she was anorexic the disease caused her to lose her sight i've never known anyone more obsessed with their body than twyla spent her entire life chasing something that destroyed her make sure your passion isn't your sickness
you know when i was 15 i had a summer job installing carpets for albert cote goliad on lake charlevoix horrible job hot indoors forced to listen to the gambler on eight track while the rest of the world was at the beach three days into the job i knew i had to quit i asked my father for advice all he wanted to know is whether i'd given my word to mr godigolian that i'd work the summer i told him i had my father suggested i stick it out i've given my word worst eight weeks of my life until the last day mr kotigolian shows up at the job site pulls me aside and tells me that in 27 years no kid has ever made it through the summer gives me a bonus 40 dollars the most valuable money i've ever made a priceless lesson about life value loyalty above all else
i need you to come in
i found your girl
number 84. the picture you gave me the one in the
girl
i had it aged up in the system and
marked as an fbi inquiry five weeks ago
the vending machine is still not working
dolly goes in for hair plugs

she's the
only one in the southwest service center with access so i'm frozen out the woman grading the written tests
needs to shower this morning dolly comes
back and guess what oh dolly got a hit a 97 match on your girl
zoe dantonium as i said these things take time
what the hell is that it's a new vending machine
yours is broken considered a bonus
you know
29 years ago when sierra leone
there was a farmer named samwell zuma
who had the audacity to identify several
low-level mumbasa operatives to local
authorities
the cartel massacred the entire family
all with the youngest son he was sold to
a local ring of flesh peddlers
the majority of children in those
circumstances don't last more than
nine months he survived eight years
he was 14 when i found him
too old too tall
too angry and dangerous to be of any
further value
he was left to die chained to a
standpipe in the basement of a
squalid brothel in nairobi branded
burned
barely alive
so i took him
made him well so to his education
he graduated university
with a bachelor's degree in english
literature he speaks four languages
fluently
and can get by and half a dozen more he
is
splendid
his name is dembe
dembe zuma
raymond don't
that was then it serves no purpose to
kill him now
you see that jeff that is what a good
man does
that is what separates men like him
from men like you
and make

yourself [Music]
it may be hard for you to imagine

but i
once had a relatively normal life
bills to pay playdates family some
friends
people that care about him
lost all that lost how
in mexico there are these fish that have
colonized the freshwater caves along the
sierra dalabra
they were lost they found themselves
living in complete
darkness so they didn't die instead they
thrived
they adapted they lost their
pigmentation
their sight eventually even their eyes
with survival they became
hideous
i've rarely thought about what i once
was
i wonder
if a ray of light were to make it into
the cave
would i be able to see it
feel it would i gravitate to its warmth

[Music]
and if i did what i become
[Music]
less hideous