Secrets. Goddamn secrets are going to be the end of this whole trip. Hushed whispers everywhere -at the diner I overhear quiet conversation between Rob and Ryan, something about a letter. Bates constantly mumbling about the body -"gotta keep it fresh". Cliff steals off on his
own secret mission, returning with lunch and a private package wrapped in brown paper. Bates and Sally argue in hushed tones; I think they might fink. Nate hasn?t said a damn thing yet.
Chris and Ryan had a secret, always sneaking into the back of the van and digging around. Chris and Ryan had a secret and it turned out to be guns, passing them out like door prizes at a birthday party. 45's and 30-30's and 12's and numbers, all those numbers and I'm just sitting there ducking below the windows in the corner of the van, waiting for God knows what secret to open itself up like a wound, with a gun in my lap. Chris and Ryan had a secret and it killed a man. That man had a secret too. He just kept laughing, buckled over laughing so he could hardly
breathe. I think that was one secret that Ryan couldn't stand, so Ryan's secret killed the man and left his secret stuck. Now I'll be damned if we'll ever make it to the end. Whose secret will come out next? If that
was the easiest one to let loose, the one that killed the laughing man, then what will come of the ones still hidden?
I think Ryan wants the secrets. He wanted the laughing man's secret and shot him out of frustration when he realized he would never get it. Now he wants our secrets and has bought us all this head gear; thought transmitters hooked up to the computers on the bus, scanning, searching,
probing for our secrets. I won't wear mine, but I keep it just in case. I won't use my gun either, but I keep that just in case too, in case the pressure gets too high and someone comes after my secrets...
I thought of bolting; splitting the scene and not looking back. A few minutes ago I was leaned up with my back to the corner of this rusty old warehouse, watching everyone from across the room with the headset in my pocket and the gun in my lap. Then Rob came over, thundering across the floor, and I thought sure that they had all talked it out over their headsets and decided that it was time to take my secret from me, to extract my secret from me, and that that was what Rob was coming to do now.
He came over, set his giant hand on my head (I was feeling for the trigger) and said "Hey, we need to get this thing painted. You gonna help?" That's when it hit me that we're all safe here, safe with each other because we've got a bigger secret together. We've got a secret that we're all in on and that we've got to keep hidden from the
rest of the world. That makes us a team and we can trust each other because we've got no one else to trust. And now we've got to paint over our secret, paint it all in white and keep it hidden, just for us. Just like the man kept his hidden by laughing.
But we got to clear some things up to, between us. So we're gonna stop on top of that big high plateau where everything is exposed and visible and there's nowhere to hide things. We're going to spend the night there and clear things up, cause the secrets can getcha, they can getcha dead.
-the gilded frame-
--Letters from a Savior; Offer for a few--
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