"What is that smell?"

  A woman kept on talking, "He calls it tough love." 

  "My God." 

  "That's simply awful." 

  "Did they not clean up the kitchen?" 

  Another woman with a clothespin on her nose and dishwashing gloves scoured a cabinet.  

  A worldclass traveling couple stood in the little entryway.  That woman made a (i)that's stiff(i) face and the man said low and flat, "Elk musk".

 

"Let's put the super back in superficial!"

  "WHAT?!? ARE YOU NUTS?" 

  "Why are you yelling?" 

  "Spuds' band.  It's so (i)loud(i)." 

  "LOOK, YOU'RE A CUPCAKE MOM, NOT A HYPOCRITE OR A FAKE." 

  The band wound arms and instruments up into achieving fifth gear and suddenly stopped.  (i)OR A FAKE(i) hung in the air just as awkward as everything in flux. 

  "HEY! ARE YOU LOOKING AT MY WIFE?!?" 

  "I'M A GIRL JERK!" 

  People looked into their Solo cups. 

  "Where'd everybody go?" 

  "Girl shouldn't have a crew cut my ass." 

  "Keg ran out.  People went for six packs etcetera." 

  "Wait.  There's something wrong here." 

  "What do you mean Kay? Beer's gone, politicians are gone, and us girls are on our own.  Pretty typical." 

  "Yeah, but she said we're not fake." 

  One woman fluffed some curls near her ear.  "Ouch," said the short-haired girl. 

  "It's like there's no balance these days.  People are hot and cold all in like two minutes." 

  "Cocaine brain.  That's what a shrink I know calls it." 

  "And they don't want any input.  Leaves us out in the cold." 

  "I really don't know where all of this is going." 

  "That's why I'm bucking the system.  I'm going to vote for 'W'." 

  "Really?" 

  "He's actually the most sensible of all them all right now.  Stands up for his values and family, but doesn't ignore the cold hard truth that most of the world doesn't give two hoots about little young America." 

  "Sounding awfully patriotic." 

  "For what it's worth, (i)I am a patriot(i)." 

  "You don't always seem that way." 

  "Honey, a girl's got to get good at going with the flow and gettin' out of dodge." 

"Put it back in the box. And close the lid."

  The person did.  "Very cool logo, just saying." 

  "SCUD!" 

  It didn't explode but left quite an indent on a vehicle.  Like a smashing tree.  Only a tree isn't supposed to damage anything.  It's just supposed to be a tree. 

  Monies tossed into a pile on the floor of a room stripped of furniture.  "Next one'll blow." 

  "How did we get so callous people?" 

  "Everyone's in work mode." 

  "Is the gambling work?" 

  "I suppose it's a diversion." 

  "Watch out that window." 

  Closer and closer. 

  "Don't they know we're in here?" 

  "Probably why they are aiming here." 

  "Shouldn't we leave?" 

  "And go where?" 

"We're strongly advising you

  not to get off the plane at this time." Gen Xers told the waiting-in-the-wings Baby Boomers.  

  One woman gathered her strength, absorbed the weight of the moment as read through the feeling aboard the plane, and asked (i)why?(i) 

  The Gen Xers sat quiet at first. 

  Then one soldier asked another, "Why were they heiling you as Hitler?" 

  The man gathered his strength, considered the levers of flow hanging in the balance, and answered, "I did some cultural work (i)back home(i) in a different discipline." 

  "Are you a hater?" A voice asked as a hand reached up and shut off the seat light. 

  Another hand reached up and turned on a seat light.  "Did you switch political party this last time?" 

  "Who you?" Someone asked. 

  A throat clearing.  And someone saying, "I know I did.  Only because I didn't want to see any more homosexuals killed in the streets of America.  That's the only reason." 

  A hand reached up and shut off a seat light. 

  In the dark a voice said, "I'm sorry you saw that." 

"He's a hurter, not a hater." The quiet woman said

  of her brother.  "We're Belgium, not (i)this(i)." Eyes indicated the wall of people protecting people.  "We're not supposed to tell you we're Americans.  Let that one through," an outraged Jewish American woman told some Jewish men in uniform.  Shouts of (i)Heil Hitler(i) rattled the fragility of the air.  Feet stomping forward. 

  "Get UP!  GET UP!" 

"We want our party back! Fuch why won't

  this door open?" 

  "Down here!" 

  "Hold your fire." 

  The sizzling sound persisted. 

  "It's all that until," the man's face blanched.  "He's passing out." 

  "It's (i)not(i) all the Nazi Party, so get out there and dance, (i)live life(i)." 

  "But it's (i)authoritarian(i)?" 

  "Very much so, especially in this hemisphere." 

  "Better us in charge than them," a card waving American Republican indicated more dead people dressed in military clothes awaiting the Mysterious Death Train. 

"Why would anyone wear that shirt?"

  "It's traditional." 

  "Did you join their side?" 

  "(i)He said(i) it's traditional." 

  "It's ridiculous." Said the man in a business suit. 

  "Is associating a soldier with a National flag ridiculous?" 

  Arms chained to a briefcase.  Briefcase opened.  Monies doled out.  The paper "deal" on the table beside.  Budget-minders logging every bill. 

  "Did it come from Russia?" 

  "It came from the U.S." 

  Silence. 

  "But is it Petro dollars?" 

  Silence. 

  "The American journalists are free to go." 

  "But there's no plane." 

  "Poland is just up that way." 

  One man stared at the ruins of a school for a long time before picking up a bag of video equipment and heading back towards "the war". 

"After this we get superficial."

  "Because we must!" Someone growled.  Flasks were raised.  The last labels: CLASSIFIED were put onto folders to remain on a desk under a camera. 

  "To the corner." Correspondents quickly complied. 

  Battlefield commanders were silently ushered inside the hovel.  Everything expressed was done so in a coded "language" of prepped-to-a-tee.  No one had to blow cover in any way.  The conjoining of forces and operations like a circuit board of people functioning on command.  Hence a shroud of secrecy around (i)just how was this decision made(i).  Less argumentation, more centimeters of ground gained. 

  "It's hard on that one," a command support indicated a commander temporarily caught in the decks being shuffled together.  "Now we are together," became a necessary mantra. 

  "Men have lost their souls (i)out there(i), let's help them keep their minds." 

  "Where's the holy guy?" 

  "I fired him." 

  "Why?" 

  "That one didn't even know about forgiveness." 

  "Is that (i)a thing(i)?" 

  "Absolutely.  Come to my talk tonight." 

  "How DARE YOU!!!!" The PA in the ruined school shouted. 

  "My president signalled he wants a stop to it." 

  "Which part?" 

  "Let's have lunch.  If you can call a frozen hunk of whatever this is lunch." 

  "Is it true that some countries are choke points?" 

  "How 'bout a cocktail before we get in bed?" 

  The men killed a half a bottle of watered down vodka.  Seated around a cable table on crates.  Half shots, glasses slammed down on the first round.  "Some of those captured leaders, they f'd up on some other stuff." 

  Another pour of half shots. 

  "What stuff?" One of the men asked sniffing the liquor. 

  "Stuff you guys wouldn't know about I'm sure," one man said as he pulled the hunk of frozen meat from a small knapsack.  It was wrapped in a piece of heavy tarp.  "You stopped, you stopped where I tell you?" 

  "Oh yes.  Found the truck.  Found this supper." 

  "You said lunch." 

  "Lunch, supper, same thing most days." The man unrolled the frozen food.  Another man slugged down his shot and shivered.  Placed the glass down without slamming it.  Looked unquizacly into the distance.  "My horse." 

  "The meat?" 

  A slow, kind of nod.  "He died." 

  "Been frozen for a while?" 

  "Two winters." 

  The third man started snoring with his eyes open.  

  "We could melt it." The man made hand gestures explaining. 

  "No fire." 

  "Okay.  Let's soak some of it in this." He pulled an unopened brandy from the knapsack and folded the bag neatly.  Put it on the table.  "Let him sleep," the man thumbed at the snoring man and licked his lips.

To some extent, for war correspondence

  the era of postmodern warfare was summed up in two acts which almost happened concurrently. 

  Some people with personality and singed hair realized (i)still physically alive(i) in a dimly glowing field of static electricity and charred tree trunks.  The achievement was gaining a second or two on a communications linkage. 

  In the backleg theatre a limosene was blown to smithereens in a precision bombing.  Witnesses in a room far away confirmed, (i)no one touched anything(i).  

  The acts of defense and aggression happened even whilst the humanity (i)on it(i) took stands on moral ground and discipline.  That happening assymetrically and on scale was the immediate cause for alarm and what prompted several decades of compartmentalization amongst intellects even while popular culture did its own popular thing in the metanarrative. 

"Okay, let me see your second quarter." The woman behind

  the folding table said to a prospective client.  The man's hand instinctively reached towards his shirt pocket.  "Not sure she gave me any coins." 

  The crowd was filling in as Services in the area got over.  "Did you bring your returns? Not that I do those, but," she got up to orient on who was where and people standing around a video camera stirred as if an elephant was done mudbathing.  "Don't get up," she was told.  "Need something? I'll get it." 

  She sat back down.  A judge position in a courtroom.  

  "Honey.  Honey we need more neck pillows." The women watching a hidden monitor didn't notice their spouses leave. 

  One kid had a red ear, another a bloody nose.  "He threw it at me." 

  "I was trying to get his attention." A man kicked the Nerf like a field goal kick.  Put his hands on both boys shoulders.  "I want you to apologize to each other." 

  "Well, I can't do a sitcom here." 

  "Why not?" 

  A tired sigh.  "Look kid, it was nice meeting everyone, but," words lost to a straggling line of protestors debating what next to yell.

"This is not a game and she is not a piece of meat." The

  man had been thinking of this for almost two days.  Just this.  (i)Stuck in the craw(i), as they say.  

  "It's not time yet," had been the iron wall line given by administrators on both sides of the Seas.  And yet. 

  Soldiers were sent. 

  Diplomacy was a burning piece of paper in both the Eagle's beak and the devil snake's mouth. 

  And women sent out for store-bought food and water were promptly raped.  A businessman had his tie wrapped around his throat.  And the real-time entertainment virus was hacking itself through the internet door. 

  "Drift." 

  "Collateral." 

  "You guys sitting on your hands in a bunker." 

  "These guys have been beat up pretty badly." 

  "What are you telling me for? I am not a school marm." 

  "Because you'll need protection." 

  "This is a war.  There is no protection." He looked at the Go Team heading to the Front.  "Not really.  Not the way this is forming itself." 

  "Forming itself Sir?" 

  Peoples' minds swam with the existential questions.  (i)What are we doing here? What's the solid line between vengeance and defense? Who said?(i) 

  "Even the orders are vague."