{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5120",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 5120,
    "subject": "Mute: There Is No Out",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2008-07-30T16:01:48+00:00",
    "last": "2008-07-30T16:01:48+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<1bf4dd40807300901o31221d0coeb4a316f0692e1b5@mail.gmail.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dave Tallman",
        "address": "davetallman at msn.com"
      },
      "date": "2008-07-30T16:01:48+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Mute: There Is No Out",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Jill and Jimmy, brother and sister, are delivered by bus to the house where\ntheir father is supposed to be. It seems to be empty, except that the\ntelevision in the front room is on and set permanently on \"MUTE.\"\n\nAt the beginning of the story, Jill speculates whether the bus is a school\nbus or a \"pay-as-you-get-on\" bus. This tells us that she has no memory of\nboarding the bus.\n\nThe image of the innocent fawn with the long-haired girl is from *Through\nthe Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There* by Lewis Carroll. She and a\nfawn walk together when both have lost their memories. When they recover\nthem the fawn runs away. This is like the innocence and animal friendship in\nthe Garden of Eden.\n\nThe knight falling off his horse is also from *Through the Looking Glass*.\nThe White Knight is encumbered by all his inventions and frequently falls.\nThis suggests the fall of man after obtaining the knowledge of good and\nevil. The rusty picture of the girl on the horse suggests lost innocence\nalso.\n\nThe father, whose ghost is seen and whose body they find, suggests being cut\noff from the love of the Father, God. The \"MUTE\" TV also suggests being\nunable to hear the voice of God.\n\nJill's nickname of \"Jelly\" is like the name \"Candi Apple\" in *Pocketsful of\nDiamonds*, and it gives the first hint of incest between the siblings.\n\nThey are in a closed Klein-bottle world with no outside. They go from the\nback of the house to a wall with a locked gate, and get inside it with\ndifficulty (Jill by squeezing through the bars, Jimmy by climbing with the\nhelp of a fallen tree). Once inside, they climb a path and find themselves\nin the front of the same house they started from.\n\nIt's odd that this was put into an end-of-the-world anthology. This seems to\nbe a pure horror story with echoes of the Genesis story of the Fall of Man.\nJill and Jimmy seem to be trapped in a private hell that gradually grows\nworse. Their sin seems to be incest"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}