Are you crying,
No... Well, yes. I was thinking about Sandy. And Bimba and Kimba. I them, Evelyn.
I know, I miss too. Especially this of year, Evelyn.
The is 1991, 2 is the highest-grossing film at the Box Office, the first Super Nintendo System has just been released, and after 70 years of Communist the Union of Socialist Republics has collapsed.
And on a chicken ranch just of Claxton, Georgia, twin sisters are for their supper.
The farm is old and operated by McClock, an eccentric man with a fascination Civil War weaponry. McClock's chicken farms produces over 140, 000 a year and ships wings, thighs and legs all the continental United States.
the modest success of his business, McClock leads a life, never and tending several of the chicken houses himself. A simple man a not entirely bad heart. McClock knew how to best take care of the young girls who came into his life shortly after their birth, so he raised them the only way he how - in a two foot by two foot cage, on a of mash, crumbles, pellets and egg booster.
One September day, the twins sixth year at the farm, McClock not come at meal time. Night falls and still he appear. The girls and the cry out from hunger.
Days pass, and the chickens in cages begin to die. The smell of rotting poultry permeates the air of the hot, barn.
Finally, desperate to find food and concerned the whereabouts of their guardian, the twins break free their cage. McClock's is locked tight, but the girls find the garden hose, which their thirst. half delirious with hunger, they their way out to the road.
Little time before a dusty black Cadillac Coupe DeVille drives by and pulls over. A tall, mustachioed man with a kindly face out of the vehicle. He at the girls (Hello) and presents them with the candy they have ever tasted - a Twix bar, which share in silent, odd delight. The do not feel at all uncomfortable when the man leads them gently into the dark, spacious trunk.
In the days the girls are transferred into the trunks of several other cars (Hello) by other kindly, (Hello) candybar-offering men (Hello) until they reach final destination at a lakeside lodge in Manitoba.
The underwood lodge is a collection of cozy, cabins with an attached trailer park along the shores of lake Winnipeg. It is also the headquarters of Budding Flowers Entertainment, specializing in the production and distribution of photographs and VHS tapes for with unique tastes.
The girls are by Mrs. Deborah Bulgar, the fifty-two-year-old podiatrist, (?) (Well, hello, girls!) a woman of proportions, who with her own three children in the main lodge of the underwood.
Upon finding that the girls have no names she them Eva and Lynn, names which she nor the twins themselves are ever able to keep straight.
(Eva, Lynn.)
The twins' days at the underwood are comfortable, they are well for, the is delicious, and there are many other girls age. Once a week, photo take place, affairs that involve make-up, a wide of dress up costumes and new games.
Every few days Mrs. Bulgar the girls to one of their many uncles. (Eva, Lynn, say to your uncle, Mark.) (Heeey.) uncles, seemingly in number, travel all over the world to visit their nieces.
The girls don't always their new uncles, but Mrs. Bulgar is always quick to them that 'family is family' and is thicker than water'.
The conjoined sisters are not popular the other girls, however, one gentle resident, a few years their senior, befriends them and takes them her wing.
(Hello, what's name?)
Her is Sandy.
(I'm Sandy.)
She has soft hair that reaches down to her knees. Everyone says she looks a mermaid. Dressed daily by Mrs. Bulgar in trademark stockings and vintage attire, Sandy is by far the most popular of the underwood. She has so many that the twins count.
Every after dinner and chores, tucks the young sisters into bed and tells them fantastic stories until they fall to sleep. (And after long weeks at sea, John Luke (?) the sailor finally spotted land.) But these times do not last. Shortly after the third Christmas under Mrs. Bulgar's care, disappears, to return.
The twins in the underwood for the greater part of two long, miserable years. Without Sandy to them, they are and abused by the other girls. (What are YOU at, four-eyes?) The sessions involve fewer fancy costumes, and over time their uncles more peculiar. (Did I ask you to talk?!) The begin to notice a disturbing tendency for girls, like their dear friend Sandy, to quietly disappear the underwood around their twelfth or thirteenth birthday. The sisters brace themselves for terrible.
One autumn, the girls are eleven, an old man, who speaks only Spanish, takes the twins into a large orange van and them to their new home.
(Step right up, step right up, see amazing oddities, freaks of nature! Be warned, people with heart condition, children, women - We will accept no responsibility for fainting, reoccurring nightmares, or death.)
Dillard and Fullerton, elusive and illogical show is the twelfth largest touring in North America. insurance salesmen, Dillard and Fullerton, distinguish their enterprise by procuring the most shocking of the grotesque and unusual. small administrative staff works tirelessly to combat legal actions and public allegations of cruelty and human trafficking.
in the circus is harder than their time at the underwood. There is always to be done. In addition to their chores of and sweeping, Mr. Dillard insist that the twins spend many hours each day their act.
(What are you standing for?)
The girls are of the clowns, several of whom, by coincidence, also happen to be uncles. (Hello!) (Hello!) (Hello!) But still, overall, these early days at the are happy times for the twins.
Every night to the delight of audiences the country, the girls appear in the ring, singing and strumming a ukulele, atop Bimba and Kimba - the world's only known conjoined twin elephants.
The twins feel they have found true in Bimba and Kimba, who they affectionately to as 'Elephant, Elephant'. special bond reciprocates by the pachyderms, who fondly nozzle the with their trunks and seem to delight in giving rides.
The and the elephants are inseparable.
With the help of the the Arresting, the animal trainer, (Like this!) the tend to the elephants, and grooming them daily.
But one terrible morning, Bimba and Kimba to take their food. Due to the unsanitary conditions of quarters and an improper diet of and cotton candy, the elephants have contracted a rare form of diphtheria, by early onset Alzheimer's disease.
For the next two weeks the can only stand by helplessly, as their companions become and weaker and begin obvious signs of memory loss. The last few are almost unbearable. Bimba and Kimba's confused, sad eyes looking up at the girls with anguish, but no of recognition.
And on one September day the sixteenth birthday Elephant dies.
The is held the same day, a grisly affair at an trash compactor behind a Home Depot in Dodge, Iowa.
The are devastated. Bimba and Kimba life is but a terrible and meaningless void. They resign themselves to living out the rest of hollow existence in mourning. The emotionally exausted fall from favor within the circus.
No willing to sing and play their ukulele, the girls are dressed in a pink tutu and forced to balance on a red ball, an task for the conjoined sisters.
(Get on damn ball!)
The roars with laughter each time they awkwardly fall. Their discomfort is increased by a pair of radical , who have an interest in the twins. Every in most major cities, protesters assemble, nosily waving signs and chanting in front of the Box Office.
The first faction claims to an organization called 'FASSTEN' - the Foundation for Always Separating Siamese Twins Everywhere Now.
Citing the bible, FASSTEN vehemently believe that it is the will of the that all conjoined twins be separated and allowed to live lives. Wielding symbolical surgical saws and carbon knives, members chide the ticket buyers for supporting the abomination of god.
The second group operates under the acronym SPLIT - the Society for the Preservation of Linked Twins. A organization, working to discredit the of FASSTEN, SPLIT believes that conjoined will play a critical role in the second coming of Christ.
The twins are terrified by both groups - the knives and saws them very nervous, and SPLIT members make to kidnap the girls and take them to where they be kept safe in a place of darkness until the rapture.
One day before a Sunday matinee in Sacramento, a brawl erupts between the two factions and one FASSTEN member gets alarmingly close to the twins a hacksaw.
(It's the of the Lord!)
with fear, the sisters that they are no longer safe at the circus. That night, they make a resolution - to leave the Dillard and Fullerton show forever.