Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness
Jun 5, 2026 · 1 hr 27 min · 7 segments
# Episode Summary This time on Strangers we have our April feature zine (in June), *Near Death* by Hex. *Near Death* is a short collection of personal essays by Hex about getting shot by a Trump…
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Near Death by Hex, narrated by Bee Flowers.
Near Death is a collection of short personal essays from Hex's blog, write.as/hexmhell/.
About the author.
Hex is an anarchist, hacker, and parent who happens to have the unusual distinction of being the first protestor shot in the US under the Trump administration.
Now living in the Netherlands with his partner and two young children, he has returned to writing as a form of therapy and as a tool to build a better future.
The sound of rushing water, December 25th, 2020.
As I write this, in three weeks it will have been four years since an intoxicated Trump supporter shot me.
After my third surgery, my surgeon told me how close the bullet had been to the artery that runs into my heart.
Most people shot there just bleed out on the spot.
The blood just dumps out like rushing water.
There's nothing anyone can do.
His ability to repair a tattoo was top-notch.
His human skills were perhaps not quite as adept at times.
This seems to be how surgeons are in my experience, but I still enjoyed chatting with him.
This injury was not unfamiliar to me.
In general, my dad didn't really tell stories about Vietnam, so on the rare occasions he did, I listened.
He only told this story once, but I paid close attention.
No one expected the Tet Offensive, since Tet is Vietnamese New Year.
An offensive in asymmetric warfare isn't always what one would think of as a military action.
Though most of the offensive involved soldiers fighting each other, other things happened as well.
American soldiers were having dinner in the mess hall when the bomb went off.
Apparently, putting a landmine under a stack of plates in a mess hall wasn't an uncommon way to carry out such an attack.
Aside from the shrapnel from the mine, the plates shattered and plate fragments became projectiles.
There was a tiny hole in the man's chest.
My dad never talked about the blood, just that the hole was tiny and that there was no time.
Near Death by Hex, narrated by Bee Flowers.
Near Death is a collection of short personal essays from Hex's blog, write.as/hexmhell/.
About the author.
Hex is an anarchist, hacker, and parent who happens to have the unusual distinction of being the first protestor shot in the US under the Trump administration.
Now living in the Netherlands with his partner and two young children, he has returned to writing as a form of therapy and as a tool to build a better future.
The sound of rushing water, December 25th, 2020.
As I write this, in three weeks it will have been four years since an intoxicated Trump supporter shot me.
After my third surgery, my surgeon told me how close the bullet had been to the artery that runs into my heart.
Most people shot there just bleed out on the spot.
The blood just dumps out like rushing water.
There's nothing anyone can do.
His ability to repair a tattoo was top-notch.
His human skills were perhaps not quite as adept at times.
This seems to be how surgeons are in my experience, but I still enjoyed chatting with him.
This injury was not unfamiliar to me.
In general, my dad didn't really tell stories about Vietnam, so on the rare occasions he did, I listened.
He only told this story once, but I paid close attention.
No one expected the Tet Offensive, since Tet is Vietnamese New Year.
An offensive in asymmetric warfare isn't always what one would think of as a military action.
Though most of the offensive involved soldiers fighting each other, other things happened as well.
American soldiers were having dinner in the mess hall when the bomb went off.
Apparently, putting a landmine under a stack of plates in a mess hall wasn't an uncommon way to carry out such an attack.
Aside from the shrapnel from the mine, the plates shattered and plate fragments became projectiles.
There was a tiny hole in the man's chest.
My dad never talked about the blood, just that the hole was tiny and that there was no time.
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