the cult-to-needle antiphony
‘I finally felt too cleansed to stay.’
Context
Two women trading their pre-addiction cult histories in a tagless duet, and the addiction drops in as an afterthought to the confession — three bags a day mentioned in the same breath as the slithering and the burned currency. The recovery room's oral history at its purest: every damaged trajectory in the book — cults, needles, teeth chopping wood — converging on the same waiting-room divan, comparing notes as if it were the most natural conversation in the world.