A ring echoes through the old apartment causing

A ring echoes through the old apartment causing the man who sat half asleep on the couch to jump up and run over "hello" he hurriedly speaks almost out of breath.

"Hello, Dave!" It was his sister Sara. "Oh, Sara!" He said quite annoyed. "Can you call back later? I'm waiting on an important call." Sara, on the other hand,

continued to talk about the latest news about their father. "He was brought to the hospital yesterday, you know, and I don't know why he didn't tell me he was feeling some sort of

stomach pain. In fact, Father kept insisting nothing was wrong so the doctor couldn't help him at all. Who knew that he had actually ingested lead?"

Pica, they called it. The incessant urge to pick and eat the paint. It wasn't that it tasted good--quite bland, actually. But it had a texture that trumped any fear of lead poison

He could have eaten a ton, and so he did. For months he kept feasting on the oleous substance, his body slowly fusing with the lead he ingested. His parents were crying, begging hi

m to share, but he refused to let them eat any of what he was binging on. Eventually the police were involved, and the boy was taken away. His last words wrere muffled by whatever

was stuffed in his face. "Yull nevr tak dis outta my mouf eva!" The boy was placed in juvenile. "Son, all we are asking you to do is just spit it out." "NEVA!"

spat it out, it had rotted into some kind of yellowish ooze, and when he finally emerged from his isolation another two years later, there was no longer a world left to greet him.