"Do you want the

  good news or the bad news first?" 

  The man looked with his eyes at the faces of people who'd gotten a couple hours of sleep.  "Lemme finish praying.  Then I'll answer." 

  "Put the sack of potatoes in one corner and the hard tack in the other."  A man said as a woman pulled down her drab fatigues and wiggled baby blue bloomers on her ass in front of him.  "Get it out of here before coffee or I'll smack it." 

  She started to pull pants up but poked her head through her legs and looked up at him.  "Not what I'm after.  But I'll take those permissions and run with a morning shift." 

  "That.  That permission and just you." 

  "I need a tet afore I can do anything." 

  "Okay, I'm done praying," the man threw a rust-stained golfbag towel at the man looking through a fanny pack for the right shot.  "Cover her up!" 

  The woman plucked the towel from the linoleum floor and said, "Thanks Mister," as she folded it in thirds and put it in her crotch.  "Hopefully, one of these days I'll be bleeding like a stuck pig agin." 

  "Okay, let us put this on your arm and you put the stethoscope over your heart and in your ears Mister." 

  "Bad news." 

  "Well, record his blood pressure as we tell him please." 

  (i)Pump, pump, pump,(i) "It's just air in there.  That's why I keep mine in my pillow." A little girl nodded. 

  "The bad news is that when we get there, out west, which we cannot do in daylight, we can't just go home, 

  "OW!  YOU POKED ME!" 

  "Wherever that is, which we aren't telling each other." 

  The man having blood pressure taken printed out a medical chart on photographic paper.  "Someone in Texas doesn't know what chemicals the circled stuff are about." 

  "His went up." 

  "Get in my sack and find an oj." 

  "The potatos or the jerky?" 

"You just called my beef pink slime

  on National TV.  Why should I help you?"  The man acted as if the roof had not just been peeled off.  Like the other man was not wedged between toilets shoved together by impact.  As if the bathroom was not now near the ticket counter. 

"Hold still baby, there's something

  kinda wrong with your ear." We'd been using a translating app anyway, so she kept her jaw clenched tight. 

  "Probably all of them."  

  "Like a sardine can." 

  "We were.  We were.  We were trying to get up the fare for the next leg of this odessy." 

  "It's gonna tip, nobody freak." 

  "Please don't roll.  Please don't roll." 

  "Can you squeeze my hand baby?" 

  A shove out of the way of a crouching person with a watch and feeling in hands by a pair of very long legs.  "Nobody cawls baby baby but me!" 

  "Are there two of him?" 

  "GO! SIT DOWN." 

  (i)Wilson, Wilson, come in Wilson(i) the dark cabin flickered, quickly, light...dark...light...dark

  "It took us four hours to get them down the stairs.  FOUR HOURS!" 

  "EACH ONE IS WIRED TO THE OTHER ONE!" 

  "Everybody STOP. 

  "WHEREVER YOU ARE

  The wooden cultural building seemed to take a gigantic gasp for air.  A shudder.  The billowing smoke was sucked back into the building with the missile.  And like the impossible train that could somehow, the newly installed elevator shaft puffed once, twice, 

  A quarterback-size soldier slid towards the stopped chain of people just as

  "Did you hear that?" 

  "How can you ask me that right 

  "When did it land? 

  "Now

  A screaming roused people.  Hands reached to muffle.  Hand bit.  "There's people up in there!  A person up in there!"  The young woman pointed at the overhead, her eyes rolled wildly, and she fainted.  "Help her baby," the tall man pushed the woman into the aisle.  Someone closer to the front started to open all the overheads. 

"Why'd cha git fired?" hiccup

  "May I approach your wife Sir?" Said one of the pacing men. 

  "I wouldn't try (i)that(i) from here Son." 

  "And (i)why not(i)?" Two people in the lounge asked at the same time. 

  "My wife's in the States where we live." 

  "The answer to the lady's question..." Everyone froze and only the sounds of an espresso machine being cleaned with it's own steam could be heard. 

  "Sir, we overshot the supposed Green Zone, Sir." 

  "Explain your version of that later.  Somebody else tell me why." 

  "Somebody painted it rainbow colors," (i)hiccup(i). 

  "There she is!" 

  The paparazzi all turned their heads at once. 

  An American group leader jumped from a window butt perch.  "Our athletes.  Our photographs." 

  The wait for the golfers was over waivers and spot contracts being signed. 

  Which turned into a longer wait.  "No answer." And a longer wait.  People were sitting in the chairs and on luggage when security arrived with sonar and xray equipment.  Various bags were sequestered in wagons.  The wagons were wheeled up platforms.  The platforms disconnected from the airport gates pulled by "little hefties" to spots close to, but not onto runways. 

  "What do you think the wait is about?" 

  "Gee, I wonder." 

  "Actually," a nerdy guy sitting cross-legged and listening to one headphone, "The delay may have more to do with an Icelandic Volcano than anything else." 

  "They have volcanos there?" 

  "Is the volcano Icelandic? I mean isn't that an ethnic slur?" 

  "On the volcano?" 

  "Is it anthropomorphic?" 

  The guy put the other headphone on. 

  "Hey.  (i)Hey(i)," another guy gently shook him awake.  The nerdy guy pulled at the strap of a shoe bag and started to move off.  The guy mimed (i)stay seated(i).  Others in the immediate area all looked at the guys.

"That's like the seventh one;

  Is there something going on?" The waitress's hands wrung out a bleach rag used for wiping down tables. 

  "Sir, the money got pooled!  It was a momentary decision as we were being attacked in the capitol." 

  "As did the typists." 

  "Really.  Attacked?" 

  The man took in the new information as the campaign buses started to load up again. 

  "Attacked how?" 

  "Well, that's just it.  Because the Press had been infiltrated, the attacking kept getting written off as domestic dispute and racism and cultural disagreement." 

  "One woman had a long knife plunged into her skull by a terrorist in full on ninja clothes and the supposed journalists just stood around and texted story." 

  The man couldn't hide his astounded look.  The waitress who'd been pouring glasses of water put the pitcher on the table, removed apron with cheques, and went outside to smoke.

"Quit it." The woman put

  the roll of cash into a panty hose foot cut from the rest of the pair.  "And quit yer whimpering Melvin." 

  A nondescript person yanked on the knot of pantyhose around Melvin's thigh.  A little girl put tiny hands over Melvin's mouth.  Someone threw a pair of sexy underwear to someone else and this was tied around Melvin's head after the little girl was shoved out of the way.  Tee shirts with bedazzled peace doves on them were ripped into strips.  "Cover their eyes," was ordered. 

"But look at all this diversity."

  "But look at all this diversity," a similar-looking man repeated what the first man to speak had said. 

  "Why did they even invite us?" Someone asked from the back of the seating which had been in circles and then re-organized into more of a triangle in front of a podium. 

  Well-dressed women blocked the aisles of the front seating.  Some people who'd been in the circular seating refused to re-sit.  Mostly people were not discussing out loud what was happening.  The changes were just unfolding. 

  Shorn hair like flood water on the bathroom floor.  Plastic and dry cleaning hangers hung over all the stall walls. 

  "Do you understand where you are going?" A short woman pushed the curls of a tall woman back from her face, pinned locks, carefully arranged a head scarf atop. 

  

Screams came from the room

  where the international journalists had been sent to pay their dues.  The first ones out the door were beaming almost-live images back inside to colleagues. 

  A pair of man's legs in dress pants. 

  The sidewalk. 

  A bush. 

  A woman's torso, one boob in the bra, one boob out. 

  A view of the mall, and what looked like body parts strewn across it.  

  The sound of boots in a rhythm in stairwells.  The now familiar yells, "NOBODY MOVE." 

  "Is this a prank?" 

  "Did I see those lips move?" 

  Carts of monitors and cords carried into the room like stretchers. 

  "As I was saying Mr. President, you're team is going to need good PR." 

  "But the party's always just done it's own.  We have good people." 

She stomped a foot and

  mimed being a deflating balloon.  "Where you been?" Asked out loud. 

  "I went right over there," cup and food lifted towards a little food cart.  "What is it?" 

  "Coffee, see, smell," waved under the nose.  "And some sort of calzoneslashcroissant." 

  "Does it have chocolat in it?" 

  "And look at this pretty paper it's wrapped in.  I so love traveling." 

  "Did you save the Pez?" 

  "Trump or Mussolini?  And I got a Yoda." 

  "Is it supposed to storm?" 

  "Why?" 

  "What's that noise?" 

  "Here, let's sit on the curb." 

And still the people stood there.

  "Hijacked?" A mom's eyebrows went up and her mouth made a surprised look of perfect composure. 

  "He meant redirected.  Not hijacked." 

  The historical commemoration bringing Veterans and contemporaries together was scheduled for 7pm.  All of the stuff and the older people were in a train sent to the coast as the reports of storm damage mounted and made way to (i)didn't even know(i). 

  "I found one!" A Town Hall worker jangled a mess of keys and freed a key to the storage closet near an old park fountain.  Someone rested a back pack on a slimey edge of the molding pool.  "I've got our silkie!" 

  Two people worked together to unknot a tarnishing turquoise and turning black flagpole's hoisting rope.  The bottom pulley snapped off the pole.  "Be careful!" One man said to the other. 

  The Savannah cemetery seemed to creak as more people arrived and walked past sinking headstones.  Spanish moss and spongy earth reclaiming. 

  "I got a yahoo!  Dad wrote and said he's on a big adventure.  What's the meaning of this?" 

"Who tole yoo to hit the cloak button?"

  The man had a horribly bloodied nose, pants down around his ankles, and was handcuffed to a chain that lurched him forward and then to a dead stop. 

  "I don't know anymore," he muttered.  Over and over the same question was asked. 

  "Just so you know, that's not free," one woman said.  Another snapped a digital photo.  A third stuck a number sticker on the drunken reveler/looters naked arm. 

  "Moulin Rouge Baby!" A drag queen dressed to the nines snapped a Vogue, leaned face way down and in for the photo op, and paid the three dollars for a bracelet.

  The Alice In Wonderland catepillar took a huge drag off the hookah.  Looked thoughtful, then asked into the microphone, "Then the question is, whoooo animated them?" 

  Security running towards the stage from the exits asked, "Is that Q?" 

  "Is that the Q?" 

  "Find out if that's the Q," a man ordered a robo dog with Zuckerberg's head. 

  Colored steam shot from nozzle heads on either side of the stage. 

  "LEAVE THE DOG! GO, GO, GO." 

  "The scopes are in the van." 

  "Couldn't you have gotten here sooner?" 

  "I could not.  I came in a sewer." 

  "Pull my pants up.  Pull my pants up."