"Insofar As Any Spotted Lady Can Be White"

College students were corralled by the researchers into the basement of the student union. After vigorous dosages and several disorienting bits of stagecraft, the subjects produced a peculiar text. Which is to say: at dawn the following was found scrawled on the blackboard, along with some more (ahem) material remnants.


"Spots of gravy on the bodice twin to the gaps in the lace. At shadow or clutched in an occulted bed, crouched on a [...] counterpane, or stroking a fly that hits between panes. Brass buttons are a child's trumpet [?] to blow.

A mass of spots on the bony chest, and the kin of a fowl, once plucked--a facing form with most numbers omitted. Kin to a fowl, with a hatful of glaring [...] faults.

I do get the sense that this was the substance [...] of her [...]complaint: that she'd be shuttled back and forth. That upon this point she'd be shunned; lengths of her neck [...] and collar wrung, thrown there with the rest.

Insofar as any spotted lady can be white--who at once apprehends and sets forth [...]the alley-strictures, together pent in paper frost."

A week later, a panel of experts were convened to interpret the results. Their responses are given anonymously.

A: "A careful invocation of childhood."

B: "The only word worth reading is 'plucked'. All flesh and no feathers, so to speak."

C: "It fairly breathes racial misgivings."

D: "It may be about snow."