[LOCAL] Three Miracles
Ghosts from Forgotten America
FORGOTTEN AMERICA
Bung Lung
(Bung, KY) Every city has its secrets, but how many are named after them? In Bung, Kentucky, there are two rules. Don’t call the cops, and beware the Bung Lung.
Some call it a myth, but most residents of Bung and the surrounding county say the Bung Lung is as real as heart disease. One source told me it “destroyed my life. It hopped inside me and took over. Everything after that was beyond my control.”
True believers say the Bung Lung is a parasite that enters your body through the air and takes control of your mind. They say once you’ve been infected, it only has one goal: to permanently ruin your life.
“It made me do things I would never do,” said one source. “It made me purchase over $70 of OnlyFans subscriptions. It made me smoke meth at my nephew’s baby shower.”
Skeptics say the Bung Lung is a fairy tale, used by people to try to justify poor behavior. But the epidemic is not going away, and locals worry it will never be taken seriously.
Said my source, “If the Bung Lung is fake, why does my breath smell like shit?”
Mind Shovel
(Auburn, WA) Memories are forgotten just as often as they’re made, but where do they go? It’s a timeless question, and in 2016 one doctor risked her professional reputation in pursuit of an answer.
Dr. Linda Monsturart began her medical career at a hospice, working one-on-one with dementia patients. While there, a coworker mentioned that her family dog had died. She worried that her husband had dug too shallow a grave, and the dog’s corpse would rise with the slop upon the first heavy rain.
Monstuart had an epiphany. What if “buried” memories could be dug up? She spent the next 20 years experimenting with how to coax deep recollection from the inner mind. Early tests involved physically pulling out the memories. A sharpened pair of tongs was used to tug at fingers, toes, and other dangling appendages.
However, Monstuart’s most known experiment was the Mind Shovel. In it, Monstuart asked her test subject to wear a mechanical device on his head. Attached was a machine that gently scratched the top of his scalp, only relenting when the subject successfully recalled the memory he was asked to retrieve. The pressure from continuous scratches, Monstuart hypothesized, encouraged the brain to think deeper than normally.
Dr. Monstuart considered the experiment an overwhelming success when, after asking her subject to recall a moment from his first year of life, the man broke into tears and begged for his mother.
The experiment caused uproar in the medical community, who labeled the experiment as “grossly unethical,” with the most criticizing Dr. Monstuart’s use of her son as the test subject.
When speaking on memories years later, she said “I don’t know how they work. I think the bigger question is, Why do we forget?”
Another Love
(Buffalo, NY) For most people, death marks the end of a relationship. But for Todd and Gwenn McQuewick, death was only the beginning of the greatest love story never told.
In 2008, Todd McQuewick dreamed that a woman appeared in his bedroom, stirring a fresh cup of Nesquick at the foot of his mattress. He transcribed the event on his blog the next day, writing, “…the chocolate smelled great, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her dress. Red, like a tomato soup, flowing off her hips. Dinner and dessert all at once.”
As the dreams continued, Todd learned more about his phantom guest. Her name was Gwenn Dupont, and she was the previous resident of his bedroom. She hung herself in the closet in 1978 and, according to Todd, “she brought it up a lot.”
Still, they found each other every night and bonded over shared interests. Experimental cooking, quidditch, and President George W. Bush were just a few of the topics that drove them to love.
Todd asked Gwenn to marry him, and a wedding was scheduled for their 1-year anniversary. The ceremony would occur inside the Dream Realm, so mortal guests were asked to attend via Nyquil shots and melatonin gummies.
Alas, not all love stories have a happy ending. On the morning of their wedding, Gwenn was nowhere to be found. It wasn’t until Todd slept that he discovered the truth. He found Gwenn, hanging in their closet, her frozen fist clutching a letter.
It read, “I met someone else.” ⬤
