Suicide Underground-Air

[00:00.00] Everyone dated the demise of our neighborhood [00:02.37]from the suicides of the Lisbon girls. [00:05.85]People saw their clairvoyance in the wiped out elms, [00:08.67]and the harsh sunlight. [00:11.01]Some thought the tortures tearing the Lisbon girls [00:13.41]pointed to a simple refusal to accept the world [00:16.08]as it was handed down to them. [00:18.00]So full of flaws. [00:21.63]But the only thing we are certain of [00:23.25]after all these years, [00:24.96]is the insufficiency of explanation. [00:27.94](Obviously, doctor, you've never been a 13 year old girl.) [01:01.32]The Lisbon girls were [01:02.49]13- Cecilia [01:06.03]14- Lux [01:09.18]15- Bonnie [01:11.40]16- Mary [01:14.70]and 17- Therese. [01:18.90]No one could understand how [01:20.37]Mrs Lisbon and Mr Lisbon, [01:23.16]our math teacher, [01:25.44]had produced such beautiful creatures. [01:29.46]From that time on [01:30.48]The Lisbon house began to change. [01:34.89]Almost everyday [01:35.91]and even when she wasn't keeping an eye on Cecilia, [01:39.09]Lux would suntan on a towel, [01:41.67]wearing a swimsuit that caused the knife sharpener [01:44.13]to give her a 15 minute demonstration for free. [01:49.17]The only reliable boy who got to know Lux [01:51.72]was Trip Fontaine. [01:54.09]Who only 18 months before the suicides, [01:56.40]had emerged from baby fat, [01:58.32]to the delight of girls and mothers alike. [03:09.00]But few anticipated it would be so drastic. [03:15.06]The girls were pulled out of school, [03:16.71]and Mrs Lisbon shut the house in maximum security isolation. [03:25.11]The girls' only contact with the outside world [03:27.57]was through the catalogs they ordered, [03:29.28]that started to fill the Lisbon's mailbox [03:31.47]with pictures of high-end fashions and brochures for exotic vacations. [03:38.58]Unable to go anywhere, [03:39.90]the girls traveled in their imaginations. [03:43.20]To gold tipped Siamese temples, or past an old man with a leaf broom, [03:48.75]tiding a moss-carpeted speck of Japan. [03:53.46]And Cecilia hadn't died. [03:55.56]She was a bride in Calcutta. [03:58.83]Collecting everything we could of theirs, [04:01.08]we couldn't get the Lisbon girls out of our minds. [04:04.68]But they were slipping away. [04:06.90]The colours of their eyes were fading [04:09.21]along with exact locations of moles and dimples. [04:13.05]From 5 they had become 4, [04:15.48]and they were all living in the dead, [04:18.21]Becoming shadows. [04:21.15]We would have lost them completely [04:22.59]if the girls hadn't contacted us. [04:36.36]Lux was the last to go. [04:39.42]Fleeing from the house we had forgot to stop at the garage. [04:43.14]After the suicide free-for-all, [04:45.27]Mr and Mrs. Lisbon gave up any attempt to lead a normal life. [04:50.01]They had Mr Hedly pack up the house, [04:51.93]selling what furniture he could in a garage sale. [04:55.80]Everyone went just to look. [04:59.46]Our parents did not buy used furniture, [05:01.89]and they certainly didn't buy furniture tainted by death. [05:08.82]We of course took the family photos that were put out with the trash. [05:12.99]Mr. Lisbon put the house on the market, [05:16.20]and it was sold to a young couple from Boston. [05:20.88]It didn't matter in the end how old they had been. [05:24.39]Or that they were girls. [05:26.82]But only that we had loved them. [05:29.94]And they hadn't heard us calling..still do not hear us, [05:34.89]calling them out of those rooms. [05:36.48]Where they went to be alone for all time. [05:40.05]Alone in suicide. [05:43.05]Which is deeper then death. [05:46.20]And where we will never find the pieces, [05:47.82]to put them back together.