except maybe having someone else sneeze on your hand.
or listening to a radio show about asylum seekers seeking asylum in austria. and hearing a chechen man talk about how he was tortured, why he was tortured, and especially how he was tortured. with big knives and bottles filled with sand (they were supposed to cause internal bruising, primarily, and did), but especially with the pliers, who were just waiting to be used to pull out his fingernails, and were. to listen to his account, to his story, to his report, and have this recurring leitmotif of fingernails being pulled out. it hurt, he said. it hurts, he said. to listen to his torture tale, his very own, personal narrative, on manifold ways persons can torture other persons, for who knows what causes and reasons. and after two, three new ways to torture a person tops, the pliers, that pulled out fingernails. the pliers that were used to pull out his fingernails. and the worst, most disgusting part, or the best- I don’t know. his long detailed account covered only 24h of atrocious shit human minds can come up with, because his family had the good luck and good fortune and good sense to buy him free. so money is all it comes down to? makes me think of people who don’t have such a family, or such good luck and fortune. who have it even worse… and don’t live to talk about it. don’t talk about it to their family, to their therapists, to themselves. don’t live to have nightmares about it. don’t live to feel the rage and the shame and the desire for hollow revenge or soft, quiet emptiness. don’t have the chance to talk about it on a public pseudo-intellectual radio show satisfying the late night horror cravings of its listeners. don’t live to make it to austria, and to live new horrors in our asylum system.
there are few things less disgusting than sneezing on your own hand.