trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum

a man is standing next to the road leaving Puerto Cortes, Honduras. the man is jerking a black 5 gallon bucket with one hand while swirling a one gallon plastic milk container with the other. the black bucket is cracked on two sides which flattens it so it is no longer a tapered cylinder.

a RIF 6 cube is projecting the video of the manJerkingBucket into a one gallon white Golden Paint container. the room could have been an office or an examining room or even a bedroom. it is similar in size to many of the other rooms on the second floor.

the Virginia General Assembly authorized the construction of the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum early in the 1850s. utilizing a philosophy called Moral Treatment, Thomas Kirkbride theorized that asylum buildings designed to admit abundant light and air could help cure patients. As forbidding as such structures appear to modern eyes, they were considered the epitome of humane treatment at the time. Construction began in 1858, was interrupted by the war, and was not completed until 1881. It is the alleged to be the largest building in the nation constructed of hand-cut blue sandstone. The asylum was intended to be largely self-sufficient; a farm, dairy, waterworks, and cemetery were located here. The first patients arrived in 1863.

She just said
I was fatter than her.
What do you think of that?
Not much.
You both are really fat.
You are a little fatter though.
he replied
"does she say that often?"
Neither girl standing
behind the counter responded.
The fatter girl took
the credit card
which was not read
by the gas pump outside
and swiped it.
forty-five dollars and fifteen cents.

there are two courtyards behind and to the right of the main building. vacant. shells? remains from a natural disaster? or what is left over from a construction project. the remains from failed funding? the grass has been mowed. it does not grow evenly.