Luyện nghe bài hát Tragic Events - Part II

Are you crying,

No... Well, yes.
I was just about Sandy.
And Bimba and Kimba.
I them, Evelyn.

I know,
I them too.
this time of year, Evelyn.

The is 1991,
Terminator 2 is the film at the Box Office,
the first Super Nintendo Entertainment System has just released,
and after 70 of Communist rule
the Union of Soviet Republics has collapsed.

And on a chicken ranch just of Claxton, Georgia,
twin sisters are for their supper.

The is old and operated by Alfred McClock,
an eccentric man with a fascination Civil War weaponry.
chicken farms produces over 140, 000 chickens a year
and ships wings, thighs and legs all over the continental States.

Despite the modest of his business,
McClock leads a life,
never marrying and tending several of the houses himself.
A man with a not entirely bad heart.
McClock never knew how to best take care of the young girls who came his life shortly after their birth,
so he raised them the only way he how -
in a two foot by two wire-mesh cage,
on a of mash, crumbles, pellets and egg booster.

One September day,
during the twins year at the farm,
McClock does not come at time.
Night falls and he doesn't appear.
The girls and the cry out from hunger.

Days pass, and the chickens in neighboring cages to die.
The smell of rotting poultry permeates the air of the hot, barn.

Finally,
desperate to find food and concerned over the of their guardian,
the twins break free their cage.
McClock's is locked tight,
but the girls find the hose, which quenches their thirst.
Still delirious with hunger,
they their way out to the road.

Little time passes before a dusty black Cadillac Coupe drives by and pulls over.
A tall, mustachioed man a kindly face steps out of the vehicle.
He at the girls
(Hello)
and presents them with the first candy they have ever tasted - a bar,
they 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 following days the girls are transferred into the trunks of several other (Hello)
by other kindly, (Hello) candybar-offering men (Hello)
until they reach their final at a lakeside lodge in Manitoba.

The underwood lodge is a collection of cozy, waterfront with an attached trailer park along the shores of lake Winnipeg.
It is also the world of Budding Flowers Entertainment,
specializing in the production and distribution of photographs and VHS tapes for clientele with tastes.

The girls are welcomed by Mrs. Deborah Bulgar, the podiatrist, (?)
(Well, hello, girls!)
a woman of proportions,
who with her own three children in the main lodge of the underwood.

finding that the girls have no names she christens them Eva and Lynn,
names which she nor the twins themselves are ever able to keep straight.

(Eva, Lynn.)

The days at the underwood are relatively comfortable,
are well cared for,
the is delicious,
and there are many other their age.
Once a week, sessions take place,
affairs that involve make-up,
a wide variety of up costumes
and new games.

Every few Mrs. Bulgar introduces the girls to one of their many uncles.
(Eva, Lynn, say to your uncle, Mark.)
(Heeey.)
uncles,
seemingly in number,
travel from all over the world to their nieces.

The don't always like their new uncles,
but Mrs. Bulgar is always to remind them
that 'family is and 'blood is thicker than water'.

The conjoined sisters are not popular the other girls,
however, one gentle resident, a few years their senior, them and takes them under her wing.

(Hello, your name?)

Her is Sandy.

(I'm Sandy.)

She has soft blonde hair that reaches to her knees.
Everyone says she like a mermaid.
Dressed daily by Mrs. Bulgar in trademark fishnet stockings and attire,
Sandy is by far the most popular of the underwood.
She has so uncles
the twins lose count.

Every after dinner and chores,
Sandy tucks the young into bed and tells them fantastic stories
until fall peacefully to sleep.
(And after three long weeks at sea, Luke (?) the sailor finally spotted land.)
But happy times do not last.
Shortly after the twins' third Christmas under Mrs. care,
disappears,
to return.

The twins remain in the 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 photo sessions involve fewer costumes,
and over their uncles become 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 from the around their twelfth or thirteenth birthday.
The sisters brace for something terrible.

One autumn, the girls are eleven,
an old man, who speaks only Spanish, takes the twins into a large van and drives them to their new home.

(Step right up, step right up, see amazing human oddities, freaks of nature! Be warned, people with heart condition, children, women - We will accept no responsibility for fainting, nightmares, or death.)

Dillard and Fullerton, elusive and illogical traveling
is the twelfth largest circus in North America.
Former salesmen, Dillard and Fullerton,
distinguish their enterprise by procuring the shocking specimen of the grotesque and unusual.
Their small administrative staff works
to combat legal actions and allegations of animal cruelty
and human trafficking.

Life in the circus is harder than their at the underwood.
There is always to be done.
In addition to their chores of and sweeping,
Mr. insist that the twins spend many hours each day practicing their act.

(What are you standing for?)

The are frightened of the clowns,
several of whom, by coincidence,
happen to be their uncles.
(Hello!)
(Hello!)
(Hello!)
But still, overall,
these early days at the circus are times for the twins.

Every night to the of audiences across the country,
the girls in the center ring, singing and strumming a ukulele,
atop Bimba and Kimba - the world's known conjoined twin siamese elephants.

The twins feel they have true soulmates in Bimba and Kimba,
who they affectionately to as 'Elephant, Elephant'.
This special bond by the pachyderms,
who fondly nozzle the girls with trunks
and seem to delight in them rides.

The and the elephants are inseparable.

With the help of the Alphonso the Arresting, the trainer,
(Like this!)
the twins to the elephants,
feeding and them daily.

But one August morning,
Bimba and Kimba refuse to their food.
Due to the unsanitary conditions of quarters
and an improper diet of popcorn and candy,
the elephants have contracted a rare of elephantine diphtheria,
compounded by early Alzheimer's disease.

For the next two weeks the twins can stand by helplessly,
as their companions become sicker and
and begin displaying obvious of memory loss.
The last few days are unbearable.
With Bimba and Kimba's confused, sad
looking up at the girls with anguish,
but no of recognition.

And on one grim day
the sisters' sixteenth
Elephant dies.

The funeral is held the day,
a affair at an industrial trash compactor behind a Home Depot
in Dodge, Iowa.

The are devastated.
Without Bimba and Kimba is but a terrible and meaningless void.
resign themselves to living out the rest of their hollow existence
in mourning.
The emotionally exausted sisters fall from within the circus.

No longer willing to and play their ukulele,
the girls are dressed in a pink tutu and forced to on a giant red ball,
an impossible for the conjoined sisters.

(Get on that ball!)

The audience roars with laughter time they awkwardly fall.
Their discomfort is by a pair of radical groups ,
who taken an interest in the twins.
Every night in most cities, protesters assemble,
nosily waving signs and chanting in front of the Box Office.

The first faction claims to represent an organization called 'FASSTEN' - the Foundation for Always Siamese Twins Everywhere Now.

Citing the bible, members vehemently believe
that it is the of the Lord that all conjoined twins
be and allowed to live individual lives.
symbolical surgical saws and blunt carbon knives,
FASSTEN members chide the ticket for supporting the abomination of god.

The second group operates under the acronym SPLIT - the for the Preservation of Linked Identical Twins.
A organization,
to discredit the claims of FASSTEN,
SPLIT believes that conjoined twins will play a critical role in the second of Christ.

The twins are terrified by groups - the knives and saws make them very nervous,
and members make threats to kidnap the girls
and them to where they will be kept safe in a place of darkness until the rapture.

One day before a Sunday in Sacramento, a chaotic brawl erupts between the two factions
and one FASSTEN member gets alarmingly close to the with a hacksaw.

(It's the of the Lord!)

with fear,
the sisters decide that they are no longer at the circus.
That night, they make a resolution - to leave the Dillard and traveling show
forever.