Justin Hunter

The Wasting Boys Justin Hunter

"There's something that typically developing people do to people who have special needs- it's putting their life expectations onto them. All they see is the things they can never be or experience. They see their lives as less valuable or pity them for what their lot in life is. But that's not the case. Their lives are just different than yours. They see things in their own way, and their way is just as valid as yours. It's just different. We can't put the same expectations on Troy because his life is so unique. We can choose to take him as he is, or we can choose not to take him as he is and sit here stewing about his muscular dystrophy and treat him like a pitiful dead thing and not something that's alive and living right now." - Excerpt from The Wasting Boys. Euclid finds a videotape that shows him committing suicide by hanging. An evils stalks him, drawing him every closer to mental collapse. What is real and what's an imagination? How does on value human life? How much do we value our own? How can we prevent the evil from consuming us all? His brother, Troy, faces a slow death from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. His parents are doing all they can to help Euclid through his mental turmoil and Troy through his faltering physiology. Their family holds a tenuous grasp over finding life through the promise of pain and loss.