(i)These colors don't run(i) vied with

  the word (i)LOVE(i) on a tie-dye tee-shirt.  Person gone.  Groups of people frozen in place as Crime Scene Investigation factually recorded every square inch of a large grid. 

  "What's the competing sound?" Asked a world famous Audiologist. 

  "That's (i)drama(i) to us," said an English-speaking scientist.  Fingers ran through lists and lists of words in many languages and in characters.  Somehow "sound" and drama matched up in a popular-speak legacy.

  "Competing sound is a golf game crowd spontaneously saying, (i)eeeeeww(i)." 

  "Why?" 

  "A brother and sister living together, not anything weird." 

  A Detective slammed an open palm on a sawhorse.  "I'M THE ONE ASKING THE QUESTIONS HERE!" 

  "Yes m'am." Someone managed. 

  Back Overseas there was progress (i)towards(i) peace.  But "agreements" had to be reached; political parties had to be political and not one with "militia" which is in many places different than National military; and some baseline on war/crimes had to be stormed towards in (i)legal processes(i).  

  Some countries staged photo ops of citizens making a difference by voting.  Crowds were powerless as cameras were ordered (i)off(i) and peoples' fingers were cut off.  People were dragged around by head hair.  People were denied medical aid.  People were slammed and piled into institutional places. 

  "I can't testify." Someone relayed what was said since everyone was in a contraption of "I'll shoot." Loved ones were snatched as soft targets.  People drank themselves to numb just to calm the shakes. 

  "When you say (i)global(i), what do you mean exactly?" Minds ticked off mental lists of what could be said and what couldn't to save some of humanity. 

Puttings things back into Pandora's box

  As we'd done on Broadway in a maelstrom of popular meets Academic, the civilian journalists slipped network jackets and helped create buffer zones.  In New York it had been a literal red velvet rope.  And the crushes could overwhelm.  Around the world in a 24/7 news cycle anyone, anywhere might be caught off guard. 

  "Blushing" would not be the word for the colors people turned in confrontations and interventions so wiley not even a PR bandaid could keep the White House from reacting. 

  "You ACCUSED ME OF SELLING STATE SECRETS!!!!!" To a (i)just want to know why(i) someone got bowled over in a crowd.  "Have your lawyer call ours," a man or woman could be heard saying nine times out of ten.

Somewhere around mile 317 of 728 we

  took to madlibbing each others' sentences.  "There's real 

  "Stylish." 

  "And you're not it." 

  Moods and personalities centering on the seesaw of real life.  Song charts dissected with a carpenter pencil and the lines of analysis.  Questions shredding song writing as if songs were potatos.  "Let's turn this into Latkah and call it a day," the third person influenced the dynamic. 

  "Do you guys ever have fun?" A tall guy in a crusher hat asked outside a restaurant as the sunset turned objects into silouhettes of themselves.  Nobody answered. 

  "You have the beer.  I'll drive next." 

  "It's just so mechanical." 

  "The actual score?" 

  "Everything really." 

  "Some people are going Indie." 

  "What's that?" 

  "Evolving, emerging, liminal, hard to pin down genre-wise." 

  "Broker than broke?" 

  "Probably." 

  Snoring.  "Honey you haven't touched your food." 

  "Is that person fucked up?" 

  "Asleep." 

  "Can't sleep here.  See the sign." 

  "Okay.  Can we have a To Go box please." 

"It's the scene in (i)The Last Knight(i) where

  "In which" 

  "Where the men and people are bereft of their kingdom, but

  "Look we have to reorganize this based on 

  "BUT (i)they don't give up(i)." 

  Palms flat out wanting correct pens, phones, key fobs, and a bag of unsalted peanuts. 

  "Look, these scripts don't match up." 

  "What scripts?" 

  "The scripts for this.  Meeting or whatever it is." 

  Scrunched up lips, more lipstick, a snapping shut of a clutch clasp. 

  A subtle seeing.  Then a most mature and rapidly aging people dash.  War flowing like lava to be survived. 

"Put the Torso on the Turbo."

  "Worldclass," a Sales Manager was explaining to a prospective client. 

  "Look at these.  That one's even able to read on it." 

  The treadmills outnumbered the rowing machines but not the bicycle machines with video of real world bicycling situation. 

  "Not even an (i)owie(i)?" 

  "That is something you will never hear me say." 

  "Is he the one?" 

  "Yes, the (i)interviewee(i)." 

  "I have malaria to boot." 

  "How's that work without an asshole?" A man in a very starched dress shirt and slacks approached. 

  The Torso grimaced. 

  "We can come back." 

  "NO!" 

  "Okay.  We'll stay." 

  "Did they call for me?" 

  "Been ram-rodding the Kelvin?" 

  The older men ignored the questioning junior Officer and stealthed into the room. 

"I don't know. My ethics are really messed up right now." To

  (i)Why aren't you guys here?(i) 

  "Come home, we'll go to Church." 

  "Well, that's good and I will, but" 

  "But what?" 

  "God and family first is true, but" 

  The pay phone booth actually rocked as more busloads of people swelled the environment. 

  Another phone picked up on the line.  A younger brother.  "Did you kill anyone yet?" 

  "What?! (i)Nooooooo(i).  But people are getting killed." 

  A quiet like the shadow of a wall blocking the sun on the phone. 

  Hands smushed on glass.  Palms and pointing.  A walking map and more pointing. 

  "I gottah go.  I love you all.  See you soon." 

  "Mine?" 

  "Yours."  A flood of people dressed for every season pushed past a knot of us.  Handed the video camera. 

  "Why's he gloating?" 

  A peek and emotional dig.  He was roostering.  "Not sure." 

  "Hot nuts!" He held out the little paperbag.  "And these," his other hand reached into a breast pocket. 

  "Thickets!" 

  "Do we go to a concert?" 

  "A lecture!" His smile swam from his heart and beamed white, white teeth beneath dark circle eyes. 

"We've been patching a rubber raft," the man declared.

  He pushed through a purposeful lingering around the tables with three thick contracts held close to his chest.  These were to be considered.  TBC was "the chopping block". 

  Someone complimented the man by saying (i)he cleans up well(i).  The man fished into his pocket for his wedding ring, resized and checkmarked picked up on the (i)Honey Do List(i).  Vipers, not exactly hissing. 

"We've" (i)cough, cough(i) "been here"

  (i)gasp(i) "be, be, be" 

  "Person passed out!!!!!" 

  Person behind in line hollah'd "FORE".  Thicker and thicker smoke and flamed gaseous chemicals making everything in the black and white viewfinder look tinted.  "Never been done before," and a smack on the back.  Then trampled. 

  A sigh.  Knowing "it doesn't get any tougher".  A suck on a wetted papertowel.  "Sorry I called you weak." 

  "Are you kidding me?  I mean, did you say sorry?" 

  A trembling nod. 

  "What you did that you owe me an apology for was like two Continents ago.  I'm (i)over it(i)."  A break down and hold. 

  Choking on environment and tears and words.  "Just tell me." 

  "Goo, goo, 

  "Good and bad both." 

  "It's, it's, it's

  "Here, use Mom's space pen." 

     (i)Infiltrated.  Taking over.  A peep from space, sats etc., shows us in spirals. (i) 

  "Okay.  On it.  Let me find a next commander and verify." 

  At first a while afterwards we thought, well, a lot of (i)speculation(i).  So, we all set out on a learning tour.  Because we'd hypothesized the enemy was just pinning us down in the Forest.  But we learned that the commiebots were all doing the same method of attack, also in cities! 

  "That's like..." 

  "Similar to..." 

  "Comparables, got it." Someone drew on a whiteboard what looked like "gameplans". 

  "Makes sense since back in the Opium Wars, what was in the magazines?!" 

  Snores. 

  "I'm the only one WHO STUDIED THIS SHIT??!!" A book whacked on a table. 

  "LOOK AT THIS!" 

"It took awhile," the woman listened to the woman say.

  

  "IT'S ANOTHER ONE!" A small towhead child with fine hair knots held the salamander-like organic thing in the air.  "Why does it only have two legs?" Asked a photographer. 

  "Isn't that the woman?" 

  "What woman?" 

  "The woman who had her moment of craziness on the trailer in the parade?" 

  "She was speaking for a lot of us.  How Israel was making us feel." 

  "She wasn't speaking." 

  "She was being symbolic.  But not lighting her self on fire." 

  Someone had said, (i)we're turning into our parents(i), but somebody else had said, (i)more like our grandparents(i).  "Remember those?" 

  "Either somebody is going to intervene or," an eternal team captain was fighting against his natural loud, "We're going to..." The sentence barely hung there before a woman said, not with sarcasm, but with the embattled show-voice like on Broadway, "She's going to have to be embalmed." 

  "The man is grieving." 

  "That's GROSS!" A woman said and asked to pick up one of the babies. 

"You heard the joke right?!" The kid asked.

  The man poured another snort of brandy.  "I heard it." 

  "What was the punchline? I had to pee." 

  "Guy gets to heaven and eats his can of tuna (i)with God(i)." 

  Against a backdrop of the "ball dropping" on a TV. 

  "Approximately eight.  People." 

  The whiteboard still bore the question:  (i)What is truth?(i). 

  "I did." 

  "What do they want?" 

  "They don't want war." 

  "We had to." 

  "They want (i)RomComs(i)." 

  "But the romance is gone." 

  "Maybe that's why." 

"Where are you?"

  "Well you're the one who called me, you should know." 

  "But it's a cell phone." 

  "It smells like a jungle." 

  "Are you saying (i)you don't know(i)?" 

  "I'll call you back." 

  Guys snoring all over the sofa.  Dark kitchen.  Sink water.  Glass hitting against faucet in a (i)scared ya(i).  The voice quiet but loud.  "So you're their woman now?!" 

  "Not sure about that.  Or anything really, after last night." 

  "What happened last night?" Lights flicked on.  Barefeet.  Smooth broadboard floor.  Face being looked at closely.  "I, uh, guess, um, it depends on who you ask." 

  "Well, I'm asking you.  And this is Greece by the way.  It smells like vegetation and air and Sea, not a jungle." 

  "Might smell like a jungle to me." 

  "I didn't ask you that." 

  Silence.  She finished pouring a glass of water.  Strong slender hand brushing spilled water into sink.  Staring.  "Did you want it back in the glass? I know my sons said you're (i)conservative(i)." 

  "I'm in an apolitical couple days." 

  "It didn't look like much." 

  "You saw us?" 

  "Sitting on the sofa all night." 

  "But it seemed like we weren't."  The smooth back of a hand to a forehead.  "Feverish?" 

  "Not really.  We've just done so much traveling together and other stuff and not really, like a break.  Like when you swim all day and are still swimming in bed at night." 

  "Everybody up!" The woman flicked on lights in the sitting room.  The guys came to.  "I like her," she announced.  Yawns.  Scratches.  "Wild dreams." 

  "Maybe because we were talking about the leopard."