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Little Black Heart A ha - Minor Earth/Mayor Sky
Pulling at the wooden handle, you have to crouch down low, for the plain, featureless door is only waist-high. As you open it, you are surprisingly blinded by a glaring light, and the smell of burnt flesh reaches your nostrils. You squeeze through the tiny doorway into the small chamber behind, and, though shielding your eyes against the brightness, you nevertheless notice that the room has no windows or other exits. Every wall is completely covered with photographs, each of them showing a young African-American couple. They hold hands, kiss or are shown in even more explicit situations, and looking at them closely you discover that, while the girl is always the same, her partners are constantly changing. Your eyes slowly adapt to the glare, and as you turn to examine the middle of the room, you suddenly sense the extremely high temperature and dryness of the air. The heat, coming from five huge floodlights arranged around some kind of cubical object - one on each side and overhead. It seems to intensify as you step forward, and you can hear the soft hum of electricity. Standing between them, you now can also determine the source of the obnoxious stench. Centered in the room stands a case made of transparent material, apparently filled with some undefinable, bloody content. As you try to identify it in the bright light, you finally recognize it as the naked body of a young man. Rather a ghastly mass of burnt, half-boiling flesh, yellow-green pus and protruding bones, he is squatting motionless on the ground. Flakes of once white skin are constantly floating to the ground, and clutched in his writhed fingers is a framed picture of the African-American woman. Its front is crusted with a white coating. And as you wonder what it could be, a single tear falls from one of his eyes and instantly dries on its surface. |