It was kinda by accident

    "You say it."  The girl looked at the floor.  "She doesn't want to." 

     "I will." 

     Backing out of the shutter closet doors the kid pretended to be straightening the clothes hangers.  Another kid entered the room.  "What's going on?" 

     "Apparently, a (i)dipolomatic stir(i)" 

     Whispered: (i)Is that really true(i)?

     "It is.  I'm in here but not if they're looking for my family." 

     "What was that?" The question itself was drowned out by a sudden rearranging of the furniture.

     "They wanna know why some of the parents were not at breakfast."

Caught between two funnels

    A pan of the hemisphere-in-the-moment, no sound recording, brought fresh eyes into "a landing".  You'd often see (i)not a lot of activity(i) in places where it had been "leaked" that (i)there might be a camera(i),  but for on "the fringes".  There'd you'd typically see little clusters of what had become "collateral damage" but looked like people milling about.

     "I'm not familiar with this style." 

     "Of what?" 

     "Of acting." 

     "Okay, so, so...it's like Improv and, um, that book." 

     "Book?" She rolled a cigarette and pressed her lips together as if she was wearing lipstick.

     "(i)Play It As It Lays(i), Didion I think." 

     A younger person walked up.  She said, "You look confused." 

     "Is someone going to call 'action'?" 

     "No, not at this part.  The action is ongoing." 

     And it had been.  But like an octopus unaware of what it's ink will do, exactly, after it bleeds, there were lots of missing links between us all.

      The womenfolk had all told them the same thing, (i)whatever else you do do, don't gamble(i). 

     "I toll 'em," she clutched her one nice belonging a little tighter on it's strap.  "I tOLD mine too."  

     "Me as well." 

     "And I." 

     Not a soul on the neighborhood street as we turned the corner from the cemetery where, apparently, (i)a whole family mustah died or something(i).  "Mustah been." 

     "Maybe." 

     "Might've been an accident." 

     "Car wreck or something; maybe so." 

     Then we saw most everybody still left (i)around(i) after "the call up".  A train car had even been stowed under the leafy way to finding some train tracks.  Not like ants preparing for the end of summer, but

     "Like jackals." 

     "Well, that's a bit extreme." 

     "Yeah I do think so.  My men are good men." 

     "So aren't mine, juss with some bad habits." 

     "How many?" 

     "Maybe three or four pretty bad habits." 

     "Jeeeeesus Lord, not dem, (i)them(i).  She'd flashed her pocketbook and a row of standing men parted the way to the men in the middle.  Over around the manhole cover, (i)the people was dark and dirty(i).

 

"Barrack Trash"

    "It's too scary," the driver hadn't drawn the short toothpick.  The three of us girlfriends were at equal levels in our service-oriented careers and thought since "nothing is official anymore" we could swap some of the tasks between us.  The driver was driving because the "reams" of digital information was in a pile on the backseat.

     We'd been privvy to some discussions about (i)this is why(i) but assigned duties were few and far between.  We were on our way to ensure the piles of trash were picked up that hadn't been picked up by "the garbage people".

     "So I'd had to," gear shift, "Can I watch this one again?"  

     "DAMMIT," the coffee spilled on the driver's lap, "Of course, 

     "SHIFT

     (i)Bullets being unloaded(i)