"Maybe you're addicted to entropy." The

  woman was trying to assess (i)something's wrong(i) and had started with the people in the vicinity.  "What would make you think that?" 

  "You talk about it a lot." 

  "It has to do with my working thesis." 

  "Which is?" 

  "Well, I don't have a neat statement about a world like this one." 

  "Is this about the world? Or is this about you?" 

  "Probably both.  I mean look, they all acted as a group to tell you something is wrong, but I don't see a group here now." 

  "Do you feel blamed?" 

  "For the something wrong? No." 

  "You can go." 

  Campus had emptied like the leaves from the trees. 

"Don't just be sweet on me,

  marry me and we'll raise a little family." The surviving couple in the Codebreakers Club had relayed a next location to keep eyes on.  The ease and cadence of their casual poetry made them popular dinner guests. 

  It wasn't terribly surprising then when some young people started acting like they had a (i)secret(i).  Some of the young people were wild-eyed, some lost looking, and very few had known the world of consumer goods and faith wars.  But all knew that actual survival "ain't pretty".  

  "Don't be that!" A man with a garbage dump accordion would stop playing and yell at any soul walking the edge between thinking (i)satisfied(i) and losing soul.  Little foil packets, baggies, used smoke cans littered the walking trails on the fringes.  "But I ain't got no kingdom," blank-eyed children would say.  "They's jus copying their drop out parents." 

  "You sound Southern American Mr. Accordion.  Or did you grow up here?" 

  "I been around a long time.  Long time." 

  "Old soul, eh?" 

  "Mind if we take your photo?" 

  He straightened the tuxedo tee-shirt and propped the accordion on his knees. 

  "You pair real angels? Or is Mr. Sam in town?" 

  "We're not a pair and don't know Uncle Sam personally." 

  "That's probly good.  There's a bunch of his men over there by the scales." 

  "Really?"  

  "Ah-hah, been here a long time too." 

  "We seen a mess of 'em.  You'n all they sent.  Lawsie." A wispy blue-eyed, older man came all the way out from behind a wall corner not attached to a building, telling unseen others, "I think it's safe.  They don't look like nothin' much." 

  "You weigh up the garbage going in or the garbage going out?" 

  A toothless woman smiled hugely.  "Honey, ain't nobody weighed nothing up in here in more'n fifteen years." 

  "'Cept one time we weighed Alvie's shoes." A different older person said.  Some of the people nodded.  "He filled 'em with ceement so as to stay soberlike." 

  "Are we not in Africa?" 

  "Hush.  Never let 'em see you sweat." 

  "And times kids weigh cats in the way." 

  "Preggers?" 

  "Pregnant?" 

  "Then we bet on how's many'll come out." 

  "I see," a third party with the communications people put away a compass and maplines traced onto a newspaper page.  "It's another thirty kilometers." 

  "Maybe we should camp here with these lovely folks." 

  One spat.  One adjusted his pants.  And the woman blinked. 

  "Maybe not too far away.  And take turns sleeping." 

  "We'll show you the Church." 

  The others looked at the one who'd said it with narrowed eyes. 

  "Okay.  Maybe in the morning." 

"They flushed," a kid yelled to a Dad.

  Dozens of TV monitors.  Kid pointed at the one camera-ing a jet's letloose.  "Freeze that." 

  Another monitor showed a mosh of crowd.  Rainbow flags and Palestinian dominating center view.  Keyboarding.  Some monitor screens breaking images apart like iced mountain parts bursting.  Then rearranging. 

  "Those reported calling the thing 'a wave'." 

  "Some sort of communications thing?" 

  Magnifying the jet's trash. 

  Dozens of small black boxes. 

  "Pull up that amphitheater halfway to Babylon."  A flip through plastic pages of negatives.  "This one," a finger pointed at what may have seemed like stone ruins. 

  "All those dropped." 

  "All what Sir?" 

  "Who said that?" 

  "Monitor twenty-seven." 

  Crowds, a stadium, all the people raving cheers.  Then no visible reason they all collapsed.  "Were any bleeding from their ears?" 

  No answer.  The question put on a delay, primed to chat with the medical team. 

  "Watch this one." 

  A similar jet.  A flush.  Static.  "Let it run through." 

  "We're out of peanut butter.  What should we do for lunch?" 

  Static to film frames.  Film frames picking up speed.  Sky.  Landscape.  A dizzying mix.  Then suddenly the video camera on the ground, bouncing like a soccer ball.  Stillness.  Almost two full twenty-four hour cycles of earth life in light and dark.  A wall of fire.

"It wasn't fourteen minutes,"

  from the time they'd left the tent to the time they were brought back on stretchers through the same tent flap. 

  Everyone and everything armed to the teeth, having seethed through less than two hours of awake after a sleep shift. 

  "YOU MUST," a whisper scream at furiously fast backs.  Fastly unplugging, coiling, stuffing equipment into clicking cargo doors.  "I told you," one man whirled on heel, pointed in the face of another, "(i)YOU(i)." 

  Another got behind both men.  And still more men fashioned themselves into the first tug-of-war of the day.  "And I passed (i)your opinion(i)along," the man backhanded the finger point out of his face.  Talking with stomach air. 

  "What opinion?" 

  "It's TOO RIGID.  Somebody's got this whole fucking thing in a straight line from this hellhole to Russia through Europe." 

  "Nobody leaves." 

  "What happened?" A headbandaged and bleeding woman named Donna clawed at the straps holding her to the stretcher. 

  "Bit of a setback honey," a man tore off a jumpsuit down to his scrubs.  Just stay calm.  Don't be a screamer on me.  All excited to go home already." 

  Bins of medical supplies were rushed over. 

  "They won't.  They will not listen to us anywhere in the world now." The man leaned heavy on an impromptu cane and drained a fifth. 

  "What happened?" A woman put two other bottles of liquor in an apron pocket. 

  "They labeled us all faggots." 

  Gasps of shock.  People gathering around. 

  "Anyone in the media.  Anyone with families.  Anyone religious.  Anyone they wanted to leave behind." 

  "That goes beyond fatwa.  That's more like jihad," explained two women who'd just arrived. 

  It was a tall man in his underwear who rushed into the pause, jabbed his leg with an injection of vitamins and minerals, and re-started actual conversation.  "Problem right now as I understand it, is that if we break up the axis/allies front, there's more chance of smaller group encirclement." He shook his head side to side to get ear drops in deep, chattered his teeth, and flapped his cheeks to the point of making noise.  A guy lifted himself off leaning against a sawhorse against a wall.  "Oh my God.  That makes sense." 

"I'll be the bean, you be the..."

  The sister said it to her brother as a fifth attempt to get him to finish a sentence.  Others broke down and clued, (i)po, po, po(i).  "Pole?" The brother asked foggily.  People around him nodded (i)improvement(i).  Then he sat up and rubbed his shin and asked, "Or are you tawkin' 'bout the shicken shester? Po Folkses shicken?" 

  "He's okay," and "He's fine," were both the snapshot.  Dropping in and on the move.  "Only back up plan we need?" 

  Hands reaching for "the good stuff", each other's hands.

"Now we just have to get you in the hangar!"

  "Put ME DOWN!" No one would. 

  "Well," to what should I know, "You should all know I was the first one in there." Some people dropped their hold on holding Marie up.  "And we're here, now, again." 

  "Put my mother down!!" A man dropped a bag of gear and hollered and reached for his gun. 

  "I am not your mother." It was down to three people carrying her.  "But I did put your gun in a new safety holder." The man looked at his hand pulling the pistol and the pistol not coming out of the holster.  "No mother would put their children through this life." 

  "God put us here!" 

  "Hear, hear! Amen.  Now we all go in together." 

"It's mohny."

  "Is he saying money?" 

  "No sir." 

  "What's that mean? I need to know and I need to know now," another liaison asked through the choppy air and the bleeps and sirens. 

  "It's, it's whawhawhat THEY, US, WE'VE BEEN CALLING THE GRUNTS' RIDEALONG TESTIMONY SIR, SO WE DON'T EVER LOSE THE WHOLE STORY."  The liaison spoke into the sat phone as choppers landed and took off. 

  "Where we y'all?" 

  "Honestly?" 

  "Lies," a sideways peace sign, "equal (i)death(i)," the woman was putting on a uniform blouse and trading shoes from a duffle bag.  "Or a month in the hole.  Tell me." 

  "We were in the curl." 

  "Getting your hair did?" 

  Another person stepped forward onto the tarmac.  "See you on the other side mofos." 

  "Picture the desert as a basket." 

  "Not sure we have time for all this embellishment." 

  "What if I just come with you?" 

"Because it's true," a mouth said while

  a hand placed a briefcase on a field desk plucked from a sandy cocoon.  "Well, I guess I fucked up then." 

  "Why the black bands on their heads?" 

  "Those are not Saudis." 

  "Keep the pressure on it or you'll be another bleed out," a man was told while three troops were beckoned forward and told to apply the pressure. 

  "Those are (i)these(i)." A poster thumbnailed.  Hamas.  "Whatdothey do rolluptheir facemasks intoheadbands?" 

  "Reminds, reminds me, reminds me of this old grannie we had rolling up her ah stockings when they were blown out." 

  "Oh those motherfuckers are blown out alright." 

  A person pointed to crates and crates of explosives.  "Not with tracers they aren't." 

  "Motherfuckers." 

"We don't look like what we feel like."

  "Nobody ever does."  

  "Writing a report?" 

  "Naw man, just impressions." 

  "Half of mine is still out there." 

  "Then we'll come back." 

  "Like hell we will." 

  "Not leaving either." 

  "Well the bird is." 

  "Grab the gear." 

"We're not in school anymore so

  just kiss me." The boy grinned.  The girl put a potato puff on her plate and one on the corner of his tray.  "The Wedge", all four foot two of her, hopped in line and asked out loud, "You want me to run interference?" The boy's grin disappeared. 

  "Haven't seen you in a while Wedge," he said as the girl held up his plate for a scoop of green beans.  Everyone had been shocked to see her, all four foot two of her, also barreling onto a chopper to "get feet wet" on a mission.  Behind a tall hard body, in front of a lanky bespectacled guy, all in cammo, all weighted down the same with standard gear.  "I saw you this morning." 

  "What was I doin'?" 

  "Looked like you was girl watching." 

  "It's (i)were(i), were girl watching." 

  Two lines of men in tees, sweats, and sneakers barged into the cafeteria together and barking responses to a drill sargeant's questions about eating and routine.  Some in line smacked trays on the tracks in front of the food.  The beats of unity both evolving and forced. 

"The best was," a

  quieting of voices passing law students, "Honey, that's just a honey I'm home kiss.  I want another kiss with (i)flavor(i).  Man, did he kiss her."

  "Like a 'burst of flavor'?" 

  "Exactly." 

  "The room's not ready yet," a techie glanced up from a phone and said.  The slide projector slumped over a box of "family picks".  Because one corner of the cardboard was weak.  "Looks like your mango box is about done for," one person said. 

  "What? Has anyone seen these numbers?" 

  "Oh, numbers guy." 

  "What numbers?" 

  The voices behind the door grew louder.  "Used to be.  A lot of things used to be.  The guys in White used to consult with the military.  A girl used to be a girl you could count on to type things up properly.  I used to be your Dad.  And you used to ask me for my advice.  Now people are users.  And the machines want input!" 

  The door opened before numbers guy could pull the techie out of the way.  The elder man was still looking at the younger man coming out of the room.  It was a spectacular rebalancing dance but the elder never hit the floor.