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71 Helen Keller Dying in Her Sleep “Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten, a thrill of returning thought, and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me.” —Helen Keller Here is the pump again, its cool neck, the well house draped in honeysuckle. This is before the vaudeville rendition of my miracle, before the newspapermen took photographs of me petting the dog, reading Shakespeare, before I met President Cleveland. My parents haven’t yet talked to Alexander Graham Bell about my ragged fate. I am walking backward, reaching into my own mouth for the world’s dark syllables. Anne has returned to me, forever spelling water. But there isn’t a word in my hand only a hand in my hand, turning. It is a mist again, but this time of unknowing. The returning thought is thought leaving, escaping, pumped eagerly from my body. Brain fever, I recall it now, my supple mind afire. Rain water fills a bucket mother left out in the yard. The doctor is made of rough hands and camphor. And now it smells like night. ...

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