From: I. Zelnik
Category: Other
Date: 7/26/99
Time: 6:29:56 PM
Remote Name: 129.219.247.97
The dreaded Talk Sickness, also known as the Dummies, or the Yacks....So named since the first symptom is a yacking manner of speech like a ventriloquist's dummy. In a few hours the blood coagulates and rots in the veins. The throat swells to the size of a watermelon and death usually results from asphyxiation. From the onset the victim's mental faculties are affected....He loses all sense of human decency or consideration for his fellows. Knowing himself doomed he delights in infecting others.
Here is a crowded restaurant, two men are talking at the bar....
"What do you think about this merger, B.J.? Off the record...."
"It sucks", B.J. yacks.
Silence falls like a thunderclap.
"THE YACKS! THE YACKS! THE YACKS!"
The patrons scream as they rush the exits.
It's the most contagious disease ever seen on this planet. Here is a crowded commuter train....
"Tickets please", the conductor yacks.
"THE YACKS! THE YACKS! THE YACKS!"
The commuters pull the emergency cord out of its socket but even as the train grates to a halt the whole car is yacking.
A country-western singer goes dummy on stage.
"Stay all night and stay a little longer..."
Just a hint of a yack. The crowd stirs uneasily in their seats.
"Take off your coat and throw it in a corner..."
No doubt about it.
"THE YACKS! THE YACKS! THE YACKS!"
"Don't see why you don't stay a little longer..."
They are piled up three-deep at the exits where 123 died.
Perhaps one percent of those stricken adapt themselves to the sickness and form outlaw bands. They will swarm out of a derelict building and yack in the faces of pedestrians: "We love New York!" or stick their heads into car windows and yack out: "Have a good day!"
The putrid smell of rotten blood hangs over cities of the world like a smog.
"It's a real Hollywood Spectacular."
[FROM *THE PLACE OF DEAD ROADS* BY WILLIAM BURROUGHS]