The tales of the 1990s decade

  were some scattered, some lost, and some as reminders of the complexities of cultural, land, and resource warring. 

  At points throughout there wasn't hardly anyone who wouldn't affirm, (i)this is all warfare(i).  "It couldn't be," both peace activists and strategic deniers swore.  Behind closed doors and in gravely serious tones there was concern. 

  At the same time (i)adherence to values(i) was hammering on the shield of unity.  It wasn't that American unity didn't exist, but the greater forces were swirling most issues into "gray area" and so, posing much of realism into opposition.  In the Arts, Letters, Medical, and Military most issues became cases, and then the arguments of "What are you? A special case?" 

  There was vehemence to social justice especially as what had been a democratic Republic corporatized.  Stalwarts defending the USA, USA were often left wondering about (i)homeland(i) and which jurisdiction "the issue" fell into.  Whichever, thwarters to the success of the Country (i)for everyone(i) found purchase in institutions and attending processes which could be jolted in various ways and even disrupted. 

  "Our propaganda isn't holding up Cap'n," techies were on the brunt end of conversations about (i)How could this happen?(i). But like churches assuming they just weren't "outreaching" properly, the world was shifting quicksand.  There was an (i)all hands on deck(i), (i)put your thinking caps on(i) sentiment to the camps and groupings, but also derailments.  And plenty of bulldozing and occupation too. 

  "Since when did Intellectual become an Occupation?" A blank stare, been-at-the-office-all-day person asked a pauper who filed anyway.  No answer; such was the churn of "crazy" running its courses.  Physical bodies displaced by ideology and ideas/monies.  (i)Nothing new(i), the poor shrugged it off...one more day and...

  "(i)There are rules(i)," people manning anything smacking of "community" warned.  A lot of ambitious people took that as the thing to fight against.  Some (i)within reason(i), many no holds bar, and intriguers bothered to lie. 

  "Let's just do our own thing," was a sort of "Don't tread on me" that was mostly fun and games (i)until(i). 

  "You gave him all dah money?" 

  "Money's not real real." The credit bills mounted and the debt rose and rose and rose. 

  "Can I have a pair of pants?" People in Services asked.  "You may buy a pair," most were told.  "It's the same thing at Staples." 

  Joining Services was made an impalpably heavier weight in decision-making despite the Sterns reminding, (i)Three square in prison(i).  By that time ex-cons might quip, "Yeah two pieces of white bread and something called bologna." 

  "How do we re-find (i)our sense of(i)..." an interpreter named group feelings because of "fine print" attached even to Happy Meals. 

"We'll let you opine then."

  It was a long way until then. 

  "It's more like the end of that book," an eye glance in the direction of a knapsack's contents.  "At least, right now, there, like a tide went out." 

  Physical bodies sitting on a train of a building's second floor.  Might have been a split ranch mall, but had been some sort of palace.  A diversity of writers and editors, videographers, documentarists, movie makers, visionaries and fact finders.  Minds flying around to (i)make sense(i) of it, (i)war(i). 

  "How do you think I feel?!  You've used me as a, a thumbtack!" 

  "Do you mean pushpin?" 

  "I mean," the woman looked around at the enormous walls of the place, "I mean to say that all my life I've (i)reported(i) these things, (i)NOT(i) established frontlines." 

  "At least there weren't flamethrowers." 

  "You keep out of it." 

  "How can I? It's literally all around us." 

  "Don't catch the fever!  It's madness." 

  "Is she angry?" 

  "She has an actual deadline." 

  "What is it?" 

  "It's supposed to be a fish.  I paid for a fresh catch du jour." 

  "Honey, nothing is fresh here this time of year."  A man gently smacked the nightgowned woman on the duffer.  "Oooooo, except the men." 

  The brown paper tied with a bakery string was put on a table.  Carefully opened.  Newspapers and a handgun. 

  People milling about made espresso and started reading the papers. 

  One from the States had eyeholes cut in the print.  People carefully opened each newspaper.  A column missing here, a column glued beside another column there. 

  "There must be one from every country here." 

  Another woman barefoot padded into the kitchen. 

  "She doesn't have her glasses on," someone narrated. "Get my purse," she ordered as she stuck a used tea bag in her mouth. 

  "It's not ON THE BOOT." 

  "Do you feel kidnapped?" 

  "Is there an island, uh, south of the boot?" 

  "Several." 

  "Keep looking." 

"Sit in (i)that(i) seat."

  From the jumpseat then, letting the overwhelming "feelings" still in camera shots explaining "what's up?".  

  "Hopelessness is despair." 

  "Despair is a sin.  It's disobeying God who sent us Jesus." 

  Flags curtly wagon-circled. 

  "It was the civilians," someone explained to (i)needed to happen yesterday(i) elders, (i)greatest generation(i). 

  "They're freaking out 'cuz they don't (i)believe(i) there are all those troops." 

  "Take the photos." 

  "But you don't understand." 

  "I understand very well." Diminished light from another room caught the woman's face in a sort of pinhole.  The rifle butt bruise taking on a shape bigger and more serious than the hockey stick shape being fought about as people may have fought over an only log cabin on the Old West frontier. 

"In many ways," the palm-sized hologram explained,

  "All this started with your father and I trying to understand our own mortality." 

  Leaves falling, little snapping sounds of stems broken by hardfrost. 

  "We gotta go," said one of the young men in a formal club sportcoat. 

  "I'm not ready," another admitted gently. 

  "We can talk about this more, later." 

  "But it was all I had." 

  "They can see the ring in the face shield!  And (i)those(i)," yet another young man held up a scrap of shredded clothing symbolizing which group, "Are on the square perimeter, on foot." 

  "Commander?" 

  The text layer over the hologram of the long lost mother was a see-through countdown of self-destructing. 

"Break out the dimes."

  The man's wife found somebody she trusted and gave the box emptied of sweets but filled with dimes to the person.  "He's the trucker our group is sponsoring," the woman said.  "Does he bring the milk to the school?" 

  "Different kind of truck," she said while pulling a sandwich bag of beef jerky out of her little purse.  "Why don't you want to see him?" 

  "It's not that! But, I, we, me and the kids want him to feel, uh, (i)better(i) about his role as Dad." 

  "Oh.  And why dimes?" 

  "The gas went up nine cents overnight!" 

  "How'd you guys know that?" 

  "Grapevine." 

  Lights on the semitrucks were starting to come on after wee hour naps. 

The mother turned the TV off.

  "Hey! What are you doing?" 

  "Whaddya do that for?" 

  "Aw.  Bye Raymond." 

  "Maybe that's what's (i)dumbing us down(i)." The mother put the remote in a drawer. 

  "We're not dumb." 

  "Are we?" 

  "I'll be in my room.  What kind of world is this? Our own mother calling us (i)dumb(i)." 

"Ladies and Gentlemen," the room hushed.

  "I will now, I would like to, introduce y'all to America's first All Black newspaper since the NorthStar graced the peeping eyes of those who could read, (i)those who DARED to read(i)." 

  People looked around to see who might be embodying such contraban in the Old South. 

  Tuxedo'd servers outlayed cloth napkins. 

"Here's the problem," said the

  man with the bloody hands.  "They don't like us much unless we give them money." 

  "They don't want the rice?" Asked a young missionary who'd been instantly employed by a non-profit in a long chain of "graceful exit". 

  "Are they shooting at us?" Asked the pilot who'd unstrapped and started to get out of pilot seat. 

  "Of course they are." 

  A girl took his hand and poked a pen around in the blood.  Fished out a piece of bullet or shrapnel.  Held it up towards a jagged hole in the doorway of the fuselage.  That hurt but the man winced and stuffed down the emotions associated.  Grabbed a stiff cardboard Org identification placard and held it with the wounded hand out the portal.  It immediately acquired two holes. 

  "I'll get us out of here." 

  The pilot didn't even restrap. 

  Bags of rice were dragged and dropped out of the doorway. 

  "It's unshedooel'd," the pilot explained on a radio. 

  "Wasn't supposed to be like this," a young person offered an Org tee to the man with the wounded hand. 

  "Ideals don't go very far out here."

  "Will you have to report it?" 

  "Report (i)what(i)?" 

  "(i)The incident(i)," defined the woman in the lavender smelling stiff collared shirt. 

  "What incident?" The man looked at his swelling hand and folded the tee-shirt and put it over the wound. 

  "I wouldn't have to," said another man.  "I signed a waiver." 

  "Terminal?" Someone asked. 

  The man nodded.  "Just a do-gooder nowadays until, you know." 

  Other small planes and jets with supplies had also landed at the out-of-the-way airstrip overgrown with weedy grass. 

  Whether spontaneously, out of habit, or prompted by ideas uttered the various groups had largely set up their folding tables.  Some even propped up their names and numbers.  But an awkward silence weighed upon the people looking at each other. 

  "Give them all a breakfast bar and an applesauce please," the voice inside one of the grounded planes was almost echo-y.  Someone tried to get closer to see the voice and another voice cried out, (i)GUARD(i).  A tight-muscled man put hand to gun in chest holster, drew it, and pointed it toward the sky.  A tiny person in the doorway of that plane tremble-handed an Org bag with the goodies to the guard.  The guard kept the gun aimed skyward and passed the bag to the emissaries. 

  "They're calling it (i)shrinkflation(i) in our Country," someone held the bitesized oatmeal and chocolate breakfast bar between two well-manicured fingers. 

  "Anyone have any ointment? The tube in our First Aid kit is dried up and I stubbed my toe," someone announced.  Someone turned to go to a plane.  Someone else said, "Use this," and pulled a tube of antibacterial cream from a fanny pack.  A person removed shoe and sock, squeezed ointment onto a piece of napkin, and put the "bandage" over stubbed toe.  "Thank you." The item was wiped with an alcohol pad and handed back but not taken.  "Keep it." 

  "Thank you." 

  The sounds of apples being eaten took the place of talking for a little while.  This clearly challenged some people who would normally be (i)talking through(i) what next.  But a level of maturity-required had been plied with the gestures of goodwill. 

We'd played tag all the way to Candler.

  "What interrupted the scrumming?" A fertility doctor wanted to know.  At the same time Ziggy was being harangued by an elder about not wanting to put his big boy pants on, a younger (i)whapped(i) his sunburnt ass with a golf towel, and the "shared girlfriend" pitched a fit about being given a literal cabbage instead of money for a night out. 

  Someone focused a Justcam on the Kennedy Center and the delayed from real time images were printed before the crew on the move unplugged. 

  "We gottah get back to DC DG." 

  "But we didn't get a chance to visit yet." He held arms open for a baby girl tackle.  She swiped the golf towel from the young'n and threw it in the guy's face.  "Have fun with commercials." 

From one extreme to another.

  "YOU MEEM'D ME MOTHERFUCKER!!" 

  "OhmyGod, please be going now." 

  "Any last words of advice?" 

  "Hoping not my last words I will tell you what a swami told me once when I was getting on a raft to get out of South America (i)alive, still alive apparently(i) 

  "The point?" 

  "Don't be a piece of seaweed caught in the surf of a turning tide."  The white van doors were closed. 

  (i)Resolved(i), remember his flash of smile, it emerged like a turtle's head in a pond, bright, strong, then re-submerged. 

  "Somebody killed Kenny!" A woman with a beard and a stout miniature dog on arm reiterated, (i)everything's getting cartoonish out here(i). 

  "It's not like we didn't know, (i)we knew(i), but we couldn't let on."  An elevator descended through floors and floors of servers.

 

(i)Squirrels on pie(i), someone

  started singing to the tune of "Girls on film," and others voiced the instrumental, (i)doootalootah(i), (i)squirrels on pie(i),  (i)dootahlootah(i).  The video camera flung up into a tree by an irate parent caught "the thief" even while most of Eastern Tennessee was attuned to hunting down (i)who would do such a thing(i).