"Most of mine had a conscience," one young woman

  snapped at another young woman. 

  "What's the conversation du jour in the living laboratory this morning?" An older correspondent asked a young man.  The young man's face froze.  Somebody had talked to him and not just anybody but (i)this guy(i).  Had been in the Cold War (i)and(i) working in the Gulf.  "Started out about teachers and trainers.  Could be a cat fight at any moment with those two." 

  "You're saying mine doesn't." 

  "I'm not saying that.  I didn't say that, make some comparison statement between the two men." 

  Arms crossed.  Practice at holding back stinging tears so makeup doesn't run. 

  "But since you took it there I'll tell you I've worked with both.  It's complicated." 

  "Simplify." 

A woman pelted a reporter

  in the back with a shoe.  San Francisco street sidewalk.  The reporter later reported being scared shitless, exhaling the stress in a deep meditative breath, turning and picking up the shoe.  Of course, it was not obvious who threw it.  The reporter looked at the feet of everyone at a bus stop.  No solo barefoot. 

  Two cigarettes on a bench.  A bicyclist messenger.  A note.  The gist: we need to talk, some of us being stalked by serial killers, health department gave out home addresses.  Group lunch at such and such a place. 

  "Wigger don't get mad, don't be mean," a surfer dude with three PhDs and a match to the thrown shoe stood outside the beansprout/lattè joint.  "Don't you ever work?" A hand came from behind the guy and beckoned with highly polished fingernails with tiny scenes painted on the polish for the other shoe.  "I saw you.  You better get better at hitting and running before anyone gives you a gun." 

  "Me no need gun, me have man." 

  "Yeah, yeah.  At least she did last night." 

  "That's disgusting.  Unsafe and degrading to all women." 

  "Obviously you weren't watching or you'd know we were safe." 

  "Somebody was," a shirt and tie guy smacked an envelope against surfer dude's chest.  "Bring those inside and tell me how you're political." 

  "I am absolutely not." 

  "In." Nobody made a move.  "What's the hesitation?" 

  "Could be you assuming."  This drew a chortle from a red headed woman who'd stepped out to smoke and stood there watching like a video camera.  "I think she's the political one," a chin thrust towards the reporter. 

  "Oh, look at the time, and I'm not even at the right restaurant.  Nice seeing you." 

It's actually most of the time

  that "the Press" does not know the strategy of politicians, and politicians do not know the military's.  It can make for harrowing scenes of confusion amongst the masses. 

  "I don't want to go there!" A correspondent was arguing with an editor's plan to meet objective and "scoop" another paper.  Wall to wall people in an airport. 

  "And I certainly don't want to go there like that," she said.  She flashed a photograph to the newsroom.  People in a cage on a boom being carted to a different area. 

  "Let me think." She hung up. 

  "Excuse me.  Excuse me," she said to a short man.  "You look official." The man said nothing.  "Why are those people in that cage?" 

  "They paid for safe passage.  You want?" 

  An even shorter woman came up.  "DVD sir?" 

  "Look, those are paid to defend those.  So, the less offensive you all are, the fewer of you will get gunshot wounds." Everyone heard her in plain English.  A man bought ten DVDs for a dollar a piece, but gave the money to a woman to give to the woman.  Others bought souvenir tee-shirts and sarongs to bandage themselves.

"I don't care," he said for the fiftieth time.

  "But it's the kid's way of dipolomatic solution." 

  He said it again. 

  After several days of prayer by himself he came out of the little room.  "There's no such thing as interfaith.  There can't be." 

  "None of us are converting." Said a mother whose children and husband were Muslim. 

  This angered a pastor.  Snarky comments to get at debate flew.

"We didn't know." The one tween spoke for both.

  "How'd ya find out?" 

  "So and so's big sister's back from the Middle East!  Now we know there's all different kinds of Muslims." 

  "Stop.  Just stop moving the units around metro." 

  "You can't tell me what to do.  You're under me." 

  "But what if it would save lives?" 

  An older-looking man came up out of the subway and crossed the road.  "You two still together?" 

  Neither the man nor the woman answered.

"Had we not worn these wigs," the bar music was blaring,

  "We'd be looking like them!" A shorter woman up from Orleans indicated the walking wounded.  Slumping and sitting but not cowerint.  One pushed self up a wall by muscled thighs and held up hands in front of the injured. 

  "How'd you know?" Our travel leader asked of the woman with dark, dark circles under her eyes.  "Know what?" She got up from crouching.  "That we needed the wigs?" 

  The woman re-crouched.  "Look, I been seeing these people fight for weeks.  Even before the BM's turned against each other." 

  "BM's?" A correspondent made a swift move in the conversation. 

  "Black Muslims." 

  The leader handed out another round of hard tack.  And bottled waters.  The woman said to the correspondent.  "There's people that have been effectively 'scalped' they pull hair so hard." She winced.

"What I see?"

  "A Sea of black." 

  "But look," it appeared to be troops facing off with troops overseen by tanks.  "I see nobody bothered to tell the white Americans, those black Americasns fought this war for them." A man fell to his knees and crossed himself.

"We need to talk," a skinny all-muscle girl said to a trainer.

  "Well kid, just step into the ring.  Everybody else has." She looked at the melee in the ring.  A young man caught her looking and cupped his hands to shout, "In this corner...climate change deniers; in this war deniers; in this corner..." 

  "What is going on here?" 

  "Kid, my best guess is that half the world is kick ass ready and the other half can't find their way out of the bag so to speak.  But, hey, no neighborhood riot last night." 

  "That's a first in a while from what I've heard." 

"And what was the, um, projectile?"

  "Sporked birdshit." 

  "Like dried?" 

  "Some of it.  Like it came off an eave.  But some of was rather wet and sticky.  Here have a looksee," the woman took the man's sportcoat out of the paper grocery bag in his hands.  The academic with a detective bend viewed the splattered jacket.  "And why do you suppose someone might pelt you with recycled bird doodoo?" 

  The woman started to speak for the man opening with the snipe, (i)communists(i), but the professor held up a hand and waved her (i)down, down(i), "Madam, kindly let the man speak for himself." 

  "Knock, knock.  Ready?  Can we come in?" 

  A PS carrying stacks and stacks of paperwork on background story and potential "helpers" behind the knot of older women meet-and-greeting younger women with blue pencil in mouth, said, "Are you not the Secretary of State?  I don't think you have to ask."  She pushed through the knot and pushed the door open with her backside. 

  Alert eyes, perfectly seated, dressed in their best, but holding back verbally young women watched as the Hill's venerated entered the old room being transitioned to conference.  "I'm not really here," explained the PS.  "Just helping people get to where they need to be." Little nods.

"You'll just have to listen,

and practice not taking notes." 

  "Why?!  Where's the equipment?" 

  "Locked up.  Marie's people get first dibs." 

  "What's your take on all these tariffs?" 

  Men shifted their weight in a variety of rolling chairs and on feet in sneakers.  One sighed.  A woman griped, "It's making it hard to pay the bills." 

  "Right, it's only about you." 

  "That's not fair." 

  "Everybody has sacrificed in this." 

  "Some more than others," eyes went to a wall covered in now-Veteran photography. 

  "I think if we aren't going to just all waste each other, tariffs and sanctions are the power a president needs." He said it like he'd thought about it long and hard.  Like he was aware of a bigger picture, bigger than using powdered cream in burnt coffee and sharing bagels with co-workers.  "But I don't agree with the man on every issue." 

  "You and him in couples therapy?" 

  A (i)hmmmmph(i). 

  "Death and taxes people." 

  "Speaking of death," a man said almost quietly and people looked not at him directly, "A major part of what happened over there most recently, had to do with a convergence of forces." 

  A woman had closed her eyes and was breathing deeply.  Some of the people just looked at her.  One threw a wadded up napkin at her chest.  "Still alive?" 

  "Helps me to meditate.  Convergence of forces, I heard." 

  "Convergence of forces, lack of resources in those countries, and..." 

  A binder of Out There Observations was placed on the table alongside summaries of nuclear facility visits.  "It's (i)not(i) evidence," someone said as a phone kept ringing on a desk somewhere." 

  "Hey, Lotus Woman, is that yours?" 

  The woman came to, realized it was her phone, and went to answer it. 

  "Obviously we need to keep covering world events, but now with other governments killing their own people, this is different than 

  "Marie's in the hospital." 

  "Oh dear." People pulled jackets off backs of chairs, stuffed reading materials into sachels and bags, and filed out of the room.