"After this we get superficial."

  "Because we must!" Someone growled.  Flasks were raised.  The last labels: CLASSIFIED were put onto folders to remain on a desk under a camera. 

  "To the corner." Correspondents quickly complied. 

  Battlefield commanders were silently ushered inside the hovel.  Everything expressed was done so in a coded "language" of prepped-to-a-tee.  No one had to blow cover in any way.  The conjoining of forces and operations like a circuit board of people functioning on command.  Hence a shroud of secrecy around (i)just how was this decision made(i).  Less argumentation, more centimeters of ground gained. 

  "It's hard on that one," a command support indicated a commander temporarily caught in the decks being shuffled together.  "Now we are together," became a necessary mantra. 

  "Men have lost their souls (i)out there(i), let's help them keep their minds." 

  "Where's the holy guy?" 

  "I fired him." 

  "Why?" 

  "That one didn't even know about forgiveness." 

  "Is that (i)a thing(i)?" 

  "Absolutely.  Come to my talk tonight." 

  "How DARE YOU!!!!" The PA in the ruined school shouted. 

  "My president signalled he wants a stop to it." 

  "Which part?" 

  "Let's have lunch.  If you can call a frozen hunk of whatever this is lunch." 

  "Is it true that some countries are choke points?" 

  "How 'bout a cocktail before we get in bed?" 

  The men killed a half a bottle of watered down vodka.  Seated around a cable table on crates.  Half shots, glasses slammed down on the first round.  "Some of those captured leaders, they f'd up on some other stuff." 

  Another pour of half shots. 

  "What stuff?" One of the men asked sniffing the liquor. 

  "Stuff you guys wouldn't know about I'm sure," one man said as he pulled the hunk of frozen meat from a small knapsack.  It was wrapped in a piece of heavy tarp.  "You stopped, you stopped where I tell you?" 

  "Oh yes.  Found the truck.  Found this supper." 

  "You said lunch." 

  "Lunch, supper, same thing most days." The man unrolled the frozen food.  Another man slugged down his shot and shivered.  Placed the glass down without slamming it.  Looked unquizacly into the distance.  "My horse." 

  "The meat?" 

  A slow, kind of nod.  "He died." 

  "Been frozen for a while?" 

  "Two winters." 

  The third man started snoring with his eyes open.  

  "We could melt it." The man made hand gestures explaining. 

  "No fire." 

  "Okay.  Let's soak some of it in this." He pulled an unopened brandy from the knapsack and folded the bag neatly.  Put it on the table.  "Let him sleep," the man thumbed at the snoring man and licked his lips.

To some extent, for war correspondence

  the era of postmodern warfare was summed up in two acts which almost happened concurrently. 

  Some people with personality and singed hair realized (i)still physically alive(i) in a dimly glowing field of static electricity and charred tree trunks.  The achievement was gaining a second or two on a communications linkage. 

  In the backleg theatre a limosene was blown to smithereens in a precision bombing.  Witnesses in a room far away confirmed, (i)no one touched anything(i).  

  The acts of defense and aggression happened even whilst the humanity (i)on it(i) took stands on moral ground and discipline.  That happening assymetrically and on scale was the immediate cause for alarm and what prompted several decades of compartmentalization amongst intellects even while popular culture did its own popular thing in the metanarrative. 

"Okay, let me see your second quarter." The woman behind

  the folding table said to a prospective client.  The man's hand instinctively reached towards his shirt pocket.  "Not sure she gave me any coins." 

  The crowd was filling in as Services in the area got over.  "Did you bring your returns? Not that I do those, but," she got up to orient on who was where and people standing around a video camera stirred as if an elephant was done mudbathing.  "Don't get up," she was told.  "Need something? I'll get it." 

  She sat back down.  A judge position in a courtroom.  

  "Honey.  Honey we need more neck pillows." The women watching a hidden monitor didn't notice their spouses leave. 

  One kid had a red ear, another a bloody nose.  "He threw it at me." 

  "I was trying to get his attention." A man kicked the Nerf like a field goal kick.  Put his hands on both boys shoulders.  "I want you to apologize to each other." 

  "Well, I can't do a sitcom here." 

  "Why not?" 

  A tired sigh.  "Look kid, it was nice meeting everyone, but," words lost to a straggling line of protestors debating what next to yell.

"This is not a game and she is not a piece of meat." The

  man had been thinking of this for almost two days.  Just this.  (i)Stuck in the craw(i), as they say.  

  "It's not time yet," had been the iron wall line given by administrators on both sides of the Seas.  And yet. 

  Soldiers were sent. 

  Diplomacy was a burning piece of paper in both the Eagle's beak and the devil snake's mouth. 

  And women sent out for store-bought food and water were promptly raped.  A businessman had his tie wrapped around his throat.  And the real-time entertainment virus was hacking itself through the internet door. 

  "Drift." 

  "Collateral." 

  "You guys sitting on your hands in a bunker." 

  "These guys have been beat up pretty badly." 

  "What are you telling me for? I am not a school marm." 

  "Because you'll need protection." 

  "This is a war.  There is no protection." He looked at the Go Team heading to the Front.  "Not really.  Not the way this is forming itself." 

  "Forming itself Sir?" 

  Peoples' minds swam with the existential questions.  (i)What are we doing here? What's the solid line between vengeance and defense? Who said?(i) 

  "Even the orders are vague." 

"A beautiful woman has slim choices."

  "I thought you said they were Republicans." 

  The gorgeous men were being measured for wedding tuxedos.  The children busied themselves with leftover board game misfits.  In and out of the grown up's world.  Taking turns inventing the game rules, parenting each other, hiding in imagination land.  "They seem more like thugs!" One declared. 

  "Gorillas in fancy clothes," another remarked of the men. 

  "HEY! GET ME A SODA." 

  The body had big holes in it. 

  The men who'd gotten pinned down at workplaces and the Milk Barn considered it.  At first there wasn't much commenting which is what talking about a dead body really is -- commenting. 

  "Oh finally! A (i)real(i) journalist." 

  "It was a cadaver." 

  "Why are you so out of breath?" 

  The woman lit a cigarette.  "Trains are down again.  I walked from Oyster Bay." 

  A taller kid stepped from behind a trench coat covered ladder.  "Din't know there was a train from such a place (i)mother(i)." 

  "Palease, that was two weeks ago!  Look at all these othah bodies we found since then," the punk girl put down the paintbrush and headed towards the garage. 

"What is this?"

  The woman in the correct-size high heels was leaving a trail of indents in the pine needle covered soil.  Other women were working quietly--gathering, fishing, cleaning.  The high-heeled "modern" woman looked alarmed. 

  "You can come in here as far as the picnic table." 

  "Don't worry.  It's not satanic.  Not klannish.  Not even tribal." 

  "What is it?" 

  "Some of us are learning from the Native Americans how we take care of our men!" 

  A look of aghast.  "After all you've seen of (i)them(i) and their, their (i)ways(i)." 

  The Native American women had frozen in place.  "I like their ways." 

  "Not them!  (i)THEM(i)," she waved a manicured hand at the world-at-large. 

  "She a manhater?" Asked a black Native American person. 

  "She's the one who wants a husband so badly she's trying every which way to be an (i)ideal(i) woman." A look of flabbergasted at being talked about in front of strangers.  "A (i)good husband(i)." 

  In Cherokee someone said, "That's the tramp."  Someone else picked up a smooth flat matada.  "You better move.  And speak in English."  The person said, "That's the tramp." And moved as the corn grounding rock was plopped into place near the campfire.  The high-heeled woman's head sunk low into her fleece jacket.  Tears dripped. 

  "Probably fake." Someone said. 

  "Not for you to say that," someone else chided. 

  "I can say what I want." 

  "Not at the expense of (i)relations(i)." 

  A tissue was taken out from a sweater sleeve and proffered.  It was taken. 

  Sniffles.  A nose blow.  "It's not just about finding a better man out there, but, but," the woman broke down into crying. 

  "Maybe I should go find your bestie." 

  The crying woman shook her head (i)noooooooo(i). The other women went back to work preparing. 

"Buncha hot heads."

  "That's why they sent (i)you(i)?" 

  The man decided not to take his briefcase off the side-by-side.  A discussion of work-to-date on a legal issue with a major institution would have to wait.  "Actually," he deliberately chose his wording so as not to exclude anyone, "Some guy's or girl's scientific audio equipment charted an earthquake in this area." 

  "Really?  Is that what happened last night?" 

  The hungover people went about nursing themselves back to the land of the living.  "You tell me." 

  "An awful lot of noise." 

  "That's what we are to you.  (i)Our generation(i)." 

  "I'm sensing (i)tensions(i)." 

  Grumbles.  

  "Anyone want to start?" 

  Sighs.  And an "I thought we were on our own." 

  "TRAMP!" A late waker walked up to one of the young women and declared.  People literally ran and took defensive positions as if there might be a throw down.  Some stood behind each woman, others formed a spectacle ring.  People also bickered amongst themselves and pitched out words of support like (i)You tell her(i) and (i)stand your ground(i).  The noise. 

  This frenzy lasted for about four minutes and then everyone mostly just walked away. 

  "It's (i)not(i) going to be (i)you(i)!" Someone hollered. 

"Because you can't control this." Largely

  fell on deaf ears since the people being told that had trained every cell of themselves to be in control.  One after another individual journalism-type presented images of public gatherings. 

  "Are those machine guns?" The person representing some "media" that had been sent dramatically gestured (i)silence(i).  A freelancer ran finger through the air over a series of shots and tried to (i)read(i) theme.  Bigger and bigger crowds, fires in the streets, various leaders seeming smaller and smaller at various podiums. 

  "Hold the dog," a woman plopped the small dog on her husband's lap.  She pulled a private phone from a pants pocket.  "Pull my people," she told someone on the phone. 

"My battered woman's syndrome kicked up."

  "Understood." 

  "Guys, (i)look at this(i)." 

  People gathered around a tiny round table. 

  "What are they?" 

  "Fake newspapers." 

  The plane plunged through migrating birds. 

  "Like propaganda?" 

  "Must be." 

  "Like," the Latin teacher gently chided the popular buzzword, "The hijackers found reading material on a flight and used it to ply trade." 

  "Honey, we can't believe in the news right now," a man had called his wife and relayed.  He didn't flip the phone shut as various professors explained (i)what's what(i).

"You know I guess we should

  agree upon some standards about the thing." 

  Everyone just looked at the man.  Put in place as part of a team build design.  Not familiar with the field of work.  Had never even set foot on an Academic "campus". 

  "Where do you want these?" Asked a person with a five foot stack of rounded up books on a hand truck.  This was the first of eleven stacks hauled silently into the abyss of "meeting". 

  The man's portfolio laid open on the table.  A stock resumè on one side and a thin, blank spotted and  highlighted resumè on the other.  One woman started to leave the room. 

  "Where are you going? You can't leave." 

  "And why is that?" 

  "Because I said so." 

  "The restroom." 

  "Me too." Another person said and got up from the table and pushed the first woman out the door. 

  One by one the stacks of books were sorted into (i)knowns(i) and (i)unknowns(i); (i)canon(i) and (i)alternative(i).  The man at the head of the table was replaced again and again by others caught in the uncomfortable process. 

  Before being released from the room each person was required to choose a book that (i)may be questionable material for an educational environment(i).  The man chose (i)How To Build A Bomb(i).  The student assigned to help the man with a first draft of resumè chose one with the word (i)anarchy(i) in black on a black colored spine.  The word had been yellow or white and marker-colored over. 

  While most people held tongues in the darkening hallway some hissed (i)traitors(i). 

It was a long, long walk.

  We'd been cleaning up the camping gear and found a cooler with urine-y black liquid inside.  In the pool of darkness was floating a heart.  Not the kind we draw to make someone smile, but an organ!  

  Another jetplane flew in so low it shook the ladies teacups in the saucers.  "Oh my." 

  "That was close." 

  "Is it (i)really(i) a war?" 

  "A proper war?" 

  "Time will tell." 

  "Nothing really (i)proper(i) about war.  Look what it does to people." Eyes indicated the corner of the clubhouse.  Stacks and stacks of newspapers.  Totally messy hair bulging a hightower of newspaper into an unorderly thing. 

  "Should I go to her?" A girl child asked but the question evaporated into the heavily settling air.