"People were grabbing toilet paper off the shelves as if their survival, their very lives, depended on it." opening line in the story "Covid Love" by Maxwell "Max" Burchett.
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The truth was buried in the family garden, back in 1984.In 2005, I returned to exhume what was hidden. Only to find myself being enclosed by dark, cloaked figures. Aware of snarling voices describing the shame I had inflicted. Hands Grabbing me by my throat. Hurled into a shallow grave. Wailing desperately like a banshee for my release. Inhaling soil, losing each breath. Rasping for air, suffocating in hollow ground. Buried alive alongside my childhood trauma, Laid deceased in a premature grave.
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In my harbor, there was no lighthouse. Just two sharks that circled my innocence, grabbing a feel. A second-grade teacher followed by a ninth-grade janitor scenting blood, bait, boy as if I was their prey. The sea held this secret for fifty years and in its aftermath, nothing was ever at bay.
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