Locked behind walls of glass,

  by chance.  Many metropolises have such safeguards.  

  Pre-surveillance state-of-the-world, survivors of situation might find themselves harried, hurried, dragged along.  The carnage then smearing itself across the innocence of being born human in the modern world.  

  Tight together in little rooms.  Ramshackle, interior frame construction.  "Like we are in ovens?" A lady got it and melted into a mixture of hyper-ventilating and sobbing and as she looked whacked by the Holy Spirit and was about to scream, a Pastor's fat football hand stifled the tension into the sweat of situation.  A little knot of hallah bread then.  So says the goya.  "Get in the tank Helen." The machine guns paused.

  "I will ask you again.  What the FUCK were you ALL doing in Turkey?" 

  "It is complicated," a woman changed into uniform palm-slapped in slow motion the bathroom key back onto a desk top.  "I guess.  Am I correct?" 

  "Zzzzzzashaaa.  Zeep it." A woman's scalp was literally zipped back into place.  Some curious looks brought a shoulder shug inside perfectly quaffed lips, "They started to hack me into pieces.  I figure'd to keep the purse up there."  The gold d'bloom, not bloody.  The pair of earrings, pure fake diamonds.  "They put us on a train in, of all places," she air-lit a cigarette, "Mongolia." She stood to stretch her thighs, smoothed layers of long skirt over "legs to die for", "since World War One; she's too old." The woman growled.  "Ah, the curse of the prince, I'm doomed." 

  "Like the world wasn't doomed since Adam and Eve."  A man lit only by yellowing 'lectric lights in the backroom of a cocktail lounge groaned.  His belly jiggled as he dry-sobbed.  Then dry-heaved.  "He's gonna puke!" Someone called out.  

  "SHUT UP!  SHUT THE FUCH UP!" The long legged man crossed the tiles to the movie set.  "What's this?  You gonna sit in the corner and blubber Bible verses now?" The man almost choked.  His body writhed a bit and he produced a boiled egg from down below his throat.  "'Snack for later,' was the last," he panted, "Thing I was," panting, "Seen on tape telling them." The man rolled his head on his neck and cracked the bones in there.  Steadied himself with an arm outstretched on a table for four.  "At," he stood and made air-quotes, 'the cultural thing,' what was it?" 

  A woman walked to the table and put a revolver down.  Dug through a messenger bag/sachel, "I have the brochure."  

  "We gottah go," a thin man in a long john shirt and leather suspenders had poked his arm first and then his head through hanging beads in a doorway.  "Anyway, some sort of World Heritage event."  

  That was how they got us.

     "My friend, why are you crying?"  The lady went over and almost kneeled at the legs of a slumping over with grief man on a bench.  The man could not stop.  

     People gathered about him but said nothing.  Someone did say, "I'm so stupid.  I should've spent the travel money on my kid's education." Then the man's sobbing slowed.  And slowed again.  He seemed very far away.  When he did stand, he seemed neither here, nor really going anywhere.  Someone remarked that we should think of sustenance, food.  "I don't know if I can." People streamed out of a museum exhibit.  "Not very hungry."  The woman with a bag for sneakers and a purse looked at her feet.  "Where are my shoes?  Where are my shoes?" Another woman looked her up and down and pointed to the sneaker bag and mimed, maybe in there.  

     The man's shirt front was drenched with sobbing.  He went toward the Wailing Wall.  But then stopped and just stood there.

  For a long time. 

     Yelling prayers at the moon?  

     Don't come any closer.  

  The ranting went on and on, pouring from the man.  Several days later someone asked him, showered and groomed, "Were you angry?"  He sat himself on the edge of a lobby chair.  "Not anger.  Outrage."  

  "We had just seen lunatics with swords and chair legs beheading and beating each other to death.  And, we're told this is quite common.  It made me upset.  So upset, I could not pray in the old way.  The ways of the old ways are not working."  The man looked at but did not touch a magazine on a table beside the chair.  World's Sexiest People.  

  "So what's next?"  A woman with one sneaker and one shoe stood beside the chair.  "You don't match," the man said without looking up.  "Nothing's matching up," she said.  "But this way, I'm ready for anything.  The familiar old shoe world, or into the future."  The man gently nodded I understand, then shook his head nooooo.  "I'm not ready."  The woman knelt on one knee and re-tied the sneaker.  A businesscard was perched in the laces.  "Call me when you're ready," she plucked it and handed it to the man.

"Take it off the coat, take it off."

  What seemed like far below, a shallow valley.  

  Bird killing bird.  

  Four-leggeds packing and proving--lead and follow, follow and lead. 

  Armor from land, land to sky. 

   "How would you protect me?" The woman a wisp in brutal clime.  The tent flap a wall between in or out.  "Did you tell her there was a plan?"  The men fell silent.  "There is a plan, isn't there?" A woman taller than the men asked.  

  "So what we do is, would be 

  "When we get back to the city?"  

  "If...that's where this thing is at now.  I'm sorry.  I can't not tell you."  

  The brown haired woman studied the postcards.  "It's quite honestly hard to tell with the sand dust covering those hills."  Hand dropped to side and postcard fell plumb.  "It's the devil's hair kind of windstorm.  We'll have to wait it out," said a sherpa wrapped head to toe in cloths and leathers.  The wild turkey feather "gift" attached to a belt from time to time seemed to stand on its own accord.

  Barely "a voice" left, "Follow the path through the bit of jungle to the cave." The person passed out cold.  Then days of feverish jibberish.  But when the knights of a different order had appeared through the mists of sandstorm and the message had come, akin to alas, a worthy opponent, the most fit in the pack of us carried the worst wounded to the cave.  We could not stay.  Those who'd been "tethered" ripped patch and piece from was alive when we had to go.  

  Helicopter blades had stirred the pot, the cauldron, the peering at an origami arrangement of "peace".  Orders were such that one had no choice but to.  Follow the reindeer.  Migrate with the cranes.  Bulldoze the yerts.  Do not destroy ANYTHING.  The lilt in her voice competing with the swift-and-suddenly-still mezmorizing of the devil's hair winds.

  It was the same tendrils of octopus ink, pixel'd, streamed that had witnessed tipping points on balance sheets and scales of justice all through the 20th century.  Whooshes of culture colliding and sheering off chance of survival.  Roars ripping into sanity and madness.  Plummets from alofts almost but never quite reaching "heaven".  Minds reel and still frame senses into even while senses dour and dull, atrophy, and split. 

  It had been a terrible year for doll makers.  By the time the last porcelin-faced beauty was crated with some other museum quality archeology remnants there were guerillas aboard "air planes".  Asians the world over were being called.  People of very few words.  Reasons supercomplicated by world travel around the Continents.  

  "From a village, out west," translator and Japanese man spoke as one.  "Put this on," a crouched and kneeling gaggle of women and elderly ordered while digging through boxes of clothing.  The clothing sorted and re-sorted after being dumped on a shut down by chaos highway running in and out of New York.  As the man put a bulky pleather coat over a slim waist coat, a gang of hooligans rushed past the line of people being dressed.  Knocking into Macy's shoppers.  "When you get past that table," talking to eyes brimming with confusion, eyes looking at the ground, eyes being lifted by cold hand on chin, "Listen to me.  You can do it." A wobbly voice and belly-driven throat clear, "I candoit shelly."  The translator given papers.  The papers into pouch.  "We'll only be five feet apart while we get picture taken.  You understand?" Deep head bows as yes.  

  It was then train rail screeching.  Screaming.  A look at the end of the "tunnel to safety" at the juncture of platform.  An Asian priest.  A woman with a baby carriage.  Baby in arms.  Shopping bags.

  The men or people dressed in worn black clothing like a moving sculpture.  One up, one diwn, one behind the back of another.  Pointing saw'd off shotgun and big barrel revolver at anyone who looked.  People gasped and looked away.  One woman pulled at a man's face to make him look away.  Look away, someone rasped and the croak took as advice.  Life suddenly frozen around cardboard boxes and papers.  Actions pantomimed.  Orders followed.  

  Pouch handed over revealing rosary beads on belt.  Forehead of priest ahead dripping blood of barbed wire crown of thorns.  No running, a clown with a bullet through the neck gurgled blood and barely pointed the way down tracks when the lights went out.

Pixeled

The editor looked at the inside pages.  A moment of suspension; even the drool stayed inside his mouth.  "It just looks like, like

  "McLewloo said infinity, or souls parting, a Samurai added."  

  An empty room.  Screen like a field hospital, divisions. 

  Sort of me, me sort of talking to a chair.  Multiplied by perhaps a dozen, perhaps a thousand, maybe millions.  

     How can this be happening? 

     That comes up especially in disaster and amidst violence.  

     Human nature? 

     Humans at play, played upon, forces. 

     Evil

     "They are not good people."  

     "But I voted for them."  

     Also humans, humans in relationship with God and gods.  

     The intellectual struggle to keep "Nature" with God, as God

     Moaning and wailing, screaming and whipping

     Warrior          warriors 

  "in a classic sense" 

  "in cultural sense" 

                           loving life 

  "In the movie Munich a man is told your tribe needs you, you are doing this for your tribe""Like call of duty" 

  "Like the times of Geronimo" 

  as jesus counseled in that situation, watch, and war, and you will hear rumors of war  tribes don't always choose to respond to violence with violence war as temptation someone somewhere asked why, then, are we slaughtering the indiansthisledtoanelementofautonomouswarfareandprecision strike 

     STRIKE

               STRIKE

  Strikes have begun

We were futzing with cords.

  "I cannot change the shape of my eyes." 

  "How can this be happening?" 

  "Our own children know nothing of history." 

  "I think it's a combination of factors."  

  "What would she mean?  Renounce Renounce" 

  "A little like Saint Peter loafing around on a roof in the Med." 

  "After Christ died?" 

  "Was killed." 

  "We might be if we don't get our collective shit together." 

  "Ixnay onde metaphorays." 

  "Has the whole world gone mad?" 

  "No.  Just some people." 

  "Let's go sit with them."

  Grainy video

"Go get the other advisors!"

  The students stood there looking at each other.  

  "NOW!" 

  One went.  

  In a crowded cafeteria, that student started asking around, "Are you an advisor?"  

  "Whoo wants to know?"  One woman buried in study plans and concept papers asked after others at the table said, nooooo.  Na-ah.  Not yet, maybe someday. 

  "They need an advisor or two upstairs."  The professor-type looked around the cafeteria.  Stood.  Crammed all the paperwork into roll-on luggage and wheeled around telling about seven or eight people, "We're needed."  

  The group trudged up the worn carpet stairs.

  There was no one in the hallway.  All but one door were ajar.  The advisor in the lead stopped.  "I can't.  I'm.  I'm just in from Chicago.  Have to get my blood sugar up."  One reached forward and hand gestured, "You and I?" 

  One knocked on the door.  One put both briefcases on the hallway floor.  "Who is it?" A man's voice called out.  "I'll tell you who if you tell me who you are," one said. 

  "My name is John Roglesby.  And I shouldn't be here." 

  "It's not about smarts."  

  "John, my name's Adam.  And, I, er, have this room scheduled for a class, ah, a meeting of, with my students." 

  "Oh?  When?" 

  "Right about now actually." 

  "Yeah, I'm one of the students," said the woman.  The door unlocked.  The advisors went in. 

  It wasn't long before the male advisor came back out and gathered the other advisors.  "Nutty?" Someone asked right away.  "It's possible.  Has a story.  Claims to have been brought here from another state.  Has a little TV duct taped to his hands.  Emotional, sobbing some, seems to otherwise have his wits about him." 

  "Is this a bomb drill or something?" 

  People picked up bags.  "Could it be a bomb?" 

  "Oh God," someone said exasperatedly. 

  "It gets a little stranger." Three turned and left.  "Let's hear it.  Then we'll see what to do." 

  "Says the campus he was at before being didn't want to say kidnapped had some sort of international thing having to do with inventions, and," the advisor's eyes lowered and raised and he touched his chest.  "I'm sorry.  Terrible heart burn when I don't take time to digest.  "I heard about that conference they couldn't call a conference."  A low, rumbly burp escaped its repression.  "The man thinks what's on the TV is a humanoid's point of view."  

  One advisor said, "I'm out.  I really do have a meeting with my students." 

  "I do too, but it's not here.  I can give you," he looked at his watch, "Half an hour?"  The advisor left standing there blinked and sighed.  "Why me?"

  "They said things might come up.  We'll go in together." 

"Long live the

  micromanagers!"  Some cheered.  Nobody boo'd.  Someone said Tally Ho.  And one still drunk from a funeral weeks before garbled, F them, whoever they are. 

  "Language," a community mom warned. 

  The room seemed about evenly split on whether or not to go with a set of managing partners.  There were plenty of personal pros and cons.  Some accusations.  Documentation to dispute accusations.  And a reluctance to rubber up to the road.  They would need to get paid. 

  Like hopping around on an archipelego of above water land spots, the latest stall to economic boom had people sticking together in knots of human chain often encountering human road block to workable solution.

Clear messaging

  Both the Pope and General Wikert are talking about preventing a WW3.  Which ties in with many people worldwide labeling some people and actions: aggressors and aggressive.  This helps strategists of all kinds formulate how people need to hear about "getting on the same page" with what happens as great powers challenge and confront each other on issues.

"What have you been studying?"

  "War." 

  The advisor looked around at the people sitting and standing in the parking garage.  "Who are these people?" 

  "Mostly artists and intellectuals is the safest answer for everyone Sir."  

 "In my opinion, that's 85% of the problem with 

  "I didn't ask 

  "The literary folks all up and down the Eastern Seaboard these days.  I mean really 

  "For your opinion." The man stood three feet taller than the woman.  She opened her eyes and looked up into his chin.  "Sir?" 

  He put a finger up to his lips, sssshhhhh.

  At a coffee shop within a few hours...

  Four or five thinkers to one learner.  Some parents, pets, and visitors arrived to "You're late!!"

  "Yes, well, you're father had to poop and," 

  An advisor nonchalantly rushing over, "It's hard to keep up with these young, bright 

  "I'm not that," said the young person.  

  "Very avant garde," a foreign intellectual deemed the outfit of a fairly nondescript in age person.  "What's that mean?" The young person turned and came over and asked. 

  "It's a Cyborg," a woman said without much excitement.  "Did we not just agree not to call it that?" An artìste put a lattè down onto a table strewn with freshly printed "coffee table" books.  Labeled such on a little guest card.  "Are we allowed to read those?" Another young person came over and asked.  "I wish someone would," an editor said rather dryly.  A tall American intellectual sat on a DYI sofa and picked one up. 

  Very cool people entered.  Got in line to order.  Drifted about looking at things on the wall; looking at watches; finding newspapers and magazines.  "Do you know if RISDY just lets people paint?"  A girl surrounded by brochures asked a tall slender man looking over her and the man and woman at the little table.  "Hmmmm." The standing man said.  "I think that's an iteration of Rembrandt."  

  "It is not," a short woman sitting at a table nearby said.  "There would be no such thing.  And, yes, painting is still among the possible in the programs at that school".

  

  The liaison was in all black.  The first few transfers of death certificates took place "in secret", meaning at undisclosed locations. 

  Editors gave orders like cover that and don't dig. 

  Like it or not the "American Press" was going to have to work together and in conjunction with the branches of Service and Justice. 

  "It is a war.  It's not a war." A grown man crossed his arms and let his head hang down.  He was consulting with mentors and newbies.  It was then many cars left almost at the same time.

  "What's going on?"  Someone asked. 

  The "skinny" was that people were being shot at doing regular, everyday living stuff.  "Like a drive-by?" A task force person asked an FBI agent.  The agent had already explained that in fluid situation there's a lot that cannot be explained at first.

Differential

  Inside, normally warmed Atlantans were in all sizes of winterwear.  "It's all hers," a surly yet effeminate man ("I lived with my mother, two grandmothers, and a sundry of aunts."/"It's not 'sundry' that's inanimate objects."/"Like what?"/"Like dry goods and stuff in a Bermuda hotel shoppe."/ He wrote: It's S H O P, but asked out loud, "Been to Bermuda, have you?") indicated the other side of the room.  He touched my broche and didn't ask, Special. "Where should I, I mean, we sit?"  

  "This is where the broadcasters are meeting Antoine.  Am I correct?" 

  "Madam-wah-szelle, you are.  And behind me," kisses on each cheek, "Are the black and to-be-famous." Others had caught up and were toggling around the Matriarchs.  "I see mine," a relative said excitedly.  "Those are not all black people." Antoine cringed at a Pastor's voice coming over and the tone of his name being said.

  "I'm stepping outside to smoke," I said softly to a mamere who couldn't see that well but who'd participated with the others to arrange themselves so that no handicap was going to make them miss a thing.  "Where you going?"  A husband and wife, dressed hansome-ly, took off rain gear and hung it on hooks in a side door, mudroom, area.  "Oh my God Karen and, and," she was pushed in the small of her back to step forward on her high heel boots, and she reached for both of my arms.  The doorlight behind them showed sun, then crossing shadow, then sun.  Kisses on both cheeks. 

  "Why is there dog being served as food?" A woman dark eyed and slightly stooped over appeared in between the main room and the little side entryway.  A whisper asked, "I thought you said she was better?"  I turned and stifled my instant heartbreak.  "I'll find out," I curtsied. 

  A man and a woman came in the front set of doors.  The woman's lavender-colored silky shirt was sticking to her skin in the spots where rain had pelted her.  The man took off his hat and wrung it out.

  "What's he doing here?" The Pastor was going seat to seat because too many white people.  Antoine: Would you kindly state for the guest register, the purpose of your visiting today.  

  Some people overhearing this got up and left.  A blonde near the man "on the hotseat" in the moment said, "He's mute."  Others looked to see on faces what kind of response that response might bring.  "Come now,"  said the bruised-faced woman, "Don't lie to my Pastor." The man stood and stretched out the hand that was in his pocket.  The Pastor sighed.  "I'd shake but, I can't afford to get sick."  The man put the fingertips of both hands on the party-papered table.  "Name's Michael.  I'm a writer.  In town to see the big ol' airbus."  Antoine held the pen above the registry.  A matriarch put a finger over the column for "occupation".  

     "I gottah bad feeling about this one." The stalwart of Communications told his daughter.  She took this in by breathing through and past his anxiety.  She stood from where they'd catnapped sitting backs against an immovable wall in an under construction area of airport.  When he was up on his feet, she straightened his tie.  "Wrong shirt." She noted out loud.  "And after we ironed the one with a top button." 

  "That pinches." 

  "I meant it too." 

  "This one's worn in." 

  "Black.  In the thermos."  She walked away.  The thermos standing like a silo where she had rested.

 

  Found the storyboards 😁!

(i)Like a hurricane,

  and a tsunami, at the same time."  

  More Officers had arrived from Germany.  None showed feelings about a deaf, dumb, and blind "key witness group". 

  "And with the Ameree-cahns holding pwace in da Europa, Asia Minor 

  "would have been 

  "Ree-een-filtered!" 

We explained, "By the next time

  we'd gone to the little trailer house guarding the transformer, we thought we'd arrived with just our wounded Servicepeople." Someone swallowed hard.  Drymouth.  "But when we rattled through the 'extra keys' and got the wounded into the shelter, and then found the generator for some light," the Court transcriber kept typing and typing.  

  The witnesses would see each other in the hallways.  Offer to get something from the vending machine if they'd finished up.  An out-of-work-work dot.commer adapted one machine to boil water and make chicken noodle soup.

  "The Chinese Sir." A Senior American official relayed to the Judge not truly presiding, but hearing.  "Okay, your Honor, let me ask a question," said a Public Defendent.  "It was the Chinese setting up a studio inside?"

  Hopped a fence and caught a train to "Brick Town".  Someone put the glass of champagne back on the server's tray.

  "Hopped a train?" One gentleman asked. 

  "Caught a train?"  Another gentleman asked. 

  It's making too much noise, a lady was clearly trying to wiggle out of the fancywear by crossing the room.  An academic woman was close on heel.  "It has to do with postulates!" She said loudly of the prospective research.  "Great; I'll let the nerds know."  

  "It's Bean Town, not brick town."  

  "Is there a vending machine somewhere?" 

  "I wouldn't know." 

  "Thirsty?" 

  One blocked the other's raise and snap of a finger.  "Why are you here little one?" 

  "Okay, we're ready," the server with the champagne told his watch.  "Oh Lord," a male Academic in a graduation robe said out loud to no one in particular.  "Try and keep up," one young person said to everyone tossed a stick with digital camera on it.

  People crammed the stairwells.  "I'd rahtha be home watching my wife do jijitsu." Said a Professor, honestly.  

 

  Outside long lean legs in dress slacks crossed in front of the chained closed doors to the halls of Academia.  "It's a bottleneck Chief," a student said to two professors getting to the front of the line at the same time.  "I am not a chief, except to my wife, who is not here," one looked around over the tops of many heads.  "I am," said the other.  "Here from Oklahoma." He stuck out his hand for a handshake.

  Statistics, a young man blurted about who from which Department.  Someone waved him forward.  "What is the likelihood of us getting out this way?" The taller professor asked.  The young man pulled a precision measuring tool from his shirt pocket.  "I'll measure the chain."  

  A black lady's hand reached through the knot of body and snatched the tool.  "Can't have those now," she dropped it in her briefcase/purse.  The young man took off to more descending staircase.

  "Was that a statement of truth?" The professor from Oklahoma asked.  "No." Replied the woman.  "I just wanted it." She shrugged.  Then pulled Lock Down Drill manuals from her bag.  "It doesn't say what to do if they don't know what's real from," she fell silent and held up her hands.

  People dramatically breathed outside air once truly outside on a different sidewalk.  Some were hot and sweaty and seemed a bit panick'd.  

  "We're on the move Helen," a professor told his watch.  On both sides of the street people were single-filing close to the buildings.  Shop doors were open and closed.  One sign said NO STOPPING in a neon SAFETY color.

  Plucked from the streaming foot traffic.  Shown a monitor.  The stream of people moving somewhere.  A woman in a skirt suit oooooooo body slam, that's not good.  Typing on a computer keyboard.  The question, "Justification?" Within seconds a mostly dark gray screen got neon green words saying, "Someone shouting make way for the drones make way for the drones."

"Oh, I'm sure it stinks by now."

  "Well, these must be specialty nails."  Smooth as my finger traced a row of bumpy round hardware holding leather to wood.  

  "Hand Carved," a very tall austere-type man's voice boomed eloquently.  

  "Did you actually see them?" 

  "Oh yes.  Look at this wood.  Must be like our Pine." 

  "What are tawking about our pine, their pine, the two coasts are not different nations." 

  "Almost.  That's what my Dad thinks." 

  "Except when you think of it that way.  Yeah, yeah, might as well be is what my mother would say."  The furniture store man inched closer.  Stopping at a glass cabinet to fake read a newspaper.  

  "Don't look but he might be looking at us." 

  I looked as I said, "Okay, I won't look."  

  "Yellow pine," the man said.  He put down the paper and straightened a rocking chair in a cluster of chairs, each one representing its family of chairs that could make sets of four or six or eight or ten or even twelve.  Only the heads of the seats around a very rectangular and long  table had "arms".  "Some people call it Ponderosa Pine."

  "Oh do they now?  Come on," she tugged my sleeve.  "Let me know when you're ready girls." The man went back up front.  We went towards a side and the back.  "Step into my dark corner booth," she said.  And there was a breakfast nook table with bench seats attached.  "It's kind of like a picnic table." 

  "So you want me to write a song?"  

  "Not just me.  It's like our whole generation needs you." 

  "I'd find that hard to believe even if you weren't asking me for something.  But, flattery 

  "And we have no money 

  "Flattery often tweaks my psyche just right, but," she got up as I sat down.  She fished twelve dollars out of her pocket and put it in the middle of the little table.  "What's that?" She asked.  "Looks like money." 

  "Wanna do lunch?" 

  "Is the money for me?" 

  "Maybe." 

  "That would get me two more video tapes." 

  She sat back down and tried to push the table out from the bench a bit.  "You're not fat." 

  "This close makes me feel like I'm suffocating." 

  "Oh God, and I have cigarette breath." I fished chewing gum out of a pocket and offered her a piece.  "Sugar free?" 

  "Of course." 

  "Think we'll ever have homes for furniture like this?" 

  "I doubt it."  I let her look through my wallet while we sat there.  She could see my "credentials" for doing some of the public service work I was doing.  And I could not exactly say much about photos of loved ones. 

  "What did that woman mean?  About stinks?" 

  "TOP SECRET.  For real." Eyes widened as they passed over my face and above my head and landed on a street level little window.  "But I will say, the people who were trying to save as many people as they could over there listed those wounded as anything but people."  

  She buried her forehead in her palm for a minute.  Then said, "Life gives me headaches." 

"Maybe a few days!"

  The chance to get out of the smog.  

  "One of the oldest Spanish families in California." 

  "But why?  We're so close to ending war!" 

  The three foot waves were steady rhythm.  Curling and pounding, curling and pounding.  "We're both pensive.  Whatever that means." 

  "That's why you're sitting here alone together?" 

  "LOOK, I don't know the whys of everything.  Or even anything really."  One of the girls looked hurt for a split second, then smiled.  "I just wanted to make sure you wouldn't feel abandoned."  I stood up.  "You're leaving me?!"  She looked at the horizon of the ocean.  "Yup, sailing the high seas!" 

  "She means we got gigs.  Nothing romantic about it." Another girl rubbed the muscles on her arm.  "We lug our shit around from town to town and

  "Take it from me," said the less depressed du jour of the pair, "She's about to launch a career." She gave the "I'm proud of you" look to the girl.  "Thanks for the amplifier!"  The girl said to everyone.  "And.  It's been nice.  Talking to other people." 

  "That's it?!" 

  "What else?" 

  "How 'bout a group hug?"  One of us asked.

  "How's about not?!"  

  "A prayer?" 

  "How about a group hug as a prayer?!"

  "It's not very mature to hate anybody, let alone your children."  

  "Like you should talk.  Having a bunch of diplomats act like five and six year olds and eat bitty bites of food." 

  "Tea sandwiches.  And they weren't acting.  There's a part of them, a part of all of us

  "We're ALL God's children."  

  The oldest one wielded, a litte unsteady on her inch and a half heels, vintage 1950's.  "Not you," she hissed at the wounded veteran.

The man looked down

  at the clipboard.  On his utility belt was an assortment of tags and strings and colored stickers and markers.  "All inventoried Sir." The weapons expert military man looked out over the hangar.  "Good job son." 

  "This is the clipboard with the lists by vehicle." The military man didn't reach for it.  "See," said the other man,"Each sheet shows type of vehicle, items not nailed down inside the vehicle, and," 

  "Why yes, you're very organized.  You're not the usual person here though.  Are you?" 

  "Well, no Sir, you are correct in surmising so." 

  "I'm not surmising." 

  "Right." The man put down the clipboard and pulled another from a work bucket.  "And on this clipboard are the forms in triplicate showing which Department has claimed which assets." The military man crossed his arms.  "Anything else?" 

  "Oh yes.  Thanks for reminding me." 

  "I didn't remind you I asked you a question." 

  "Which reminded me, you know," he said as he was pulling out a receipt book, "If I may speak to your other question." 

  "Did I ask you another question?" 

  "Sort of.  See, I'm, I'm really," 

  "Yes?" 

  "Just one of dozens of what are being called 'essential workers' Sir, so," 

  "Yes?" 

  "If there were to be mistakes, see, I'm not sure who exactly that would fall on, Sir." 

  "I'm sure it's fine." 

  The man stacked the clipboards and receipt book and handed them towards the other man, then pulled them back and unstacked them and said, "Oh!  Almost forgot.  Here on page twenty-eight, see," he held it up like Vanna White presenting a letter, "There's this one UNCLAIMED item." 

  "And what would that be son?" 

  "Wahwell, it got listed as all these things," he turned the clipboard back to read it.  "Is it a weapon?" 

  "Why do you ask Sir?" 

  No reply.  Then the military man sort of mumbled, "I'm trying to assess why on earth I got called down here." 

  "Oh," the man covered a big yawn with the clipboard.  "Sorry.  I'm actually exhausted." 

  "Give me the paperwork.  And where is the unclaimed item?"  The man handed over the paperwork and picked up the bucket.  The military man studying his face for the answer.  "Over there," the man waved to a plastic drop clothed area.  The military man looked at the sheets on the clipboard, rolled back to pg. 28.

  "WMD???????!!!!!  GOOD GOD!!!!" 

  "That must be why Sir." 

  "Son, put the bucket down and step right over here with me." 

"Look, if I killed someone

  everytime I wanted to," her voice trailed off as she read the chalked message on the cinderblocks, "There wouldn't be many people left." 

  "Hey now." 

  "But not me I'm your favorite son, right?!" 

  The voices echo'd in the passageway, then coffin'd in a dank room with sparse furniture covered in sheets.  The sheets were a tapestry of dust and mold.  "Clear," a man said and moved on through the labyrinth.  "Guess you can put those away ladies," another man said of everyone's pistols drawn.  "Mine doesn't have any bullets," the redhead's lips poised into an ultimate position of suspended reality.  "Here take these," a veteran correspondent shook three from his and dumped them from a paw of a hand not much movable after slamming it as a sledgehammer.  We'd run into a 2x4 blockade in a tunnel and with very little time to spare before troops exchanging a spit of territory, we'd had to get through.  The man shoved the revolver back into his waist band.  Some sort of luggage strap cinching pants to his new size.  "Not a lot to eat in these parts," he said to the watching.

  Ahahahaachooo.  

  "I'll get the maid to bring some tissues." 

  "What was it like?" 

  "Reeyahd.  Sounds sexy." 

  "I think it sounds like

  The man who'd gone first into the room was again standing in the doorway.  Other, somewhat shuffling footsteps were making way towards.  The man did not seem alarmed. 

  "Like a knife's edge.  War on the other side of a flat mountain face of glass." 

  "Bulletproof I'm sure," someone chortled. 

  The man shone a floodlight of a flashlight on us.  "For fuck's sake," a raspy whisper commented. 

  "This is where they were?" 

  One of us waved.  "Nice to see ya too." 

  "The brothers.  In there like it weren't nothing but a thing." 

  Above ground poisonous gas weapons had been preventing inspectors from signing off on above-board "nuclear activity". 

  The woman with a mass of gray hair entered the room one hand in vest pocket, the other holding onto a briefcase.  "Don't come any closer," the red-haired woman growled.  The briefcase was laid on top of a covered piece of furniture.  The taller woman turned, took two steps closer.  Removed hand from pocket and held it out towards the gun pointed at her.  "You don't know what happened out there," she shoved the gun towards somewhere else but resettled it on the woman.  A threat.  The taller woman considered the shorter woman, then said, "You're a bloody mess.  I can guess." 

  "Am I?  You've still got your eyesight then?" 

  "It's coming back.  Slowly but surely." 

  "Got any tampons in there?" She pointed the gun at the briefcase.  "I hate when the stores are all boarded up before a flight." 

  A tsk.  "Why don't you look for yourself?" 

  The woman set the gun down beside the briefcase.  Rooted a small flashlight from an inner pocket.  Spotlighted both objects.  Put the butt end of the flashlight in her mouth, wiped her hands on the back of her pants, and clicked the briefcase buckles.  Hands pulled clear plastick'd manuscript from its nest.  "Inshallah." Dust and pebbles fell from the ceiling of the passageway as a pair of hard cart wheels passed by.  "What does it mean?"  

  "We must go," said the man in the doorway.  "Cart lays a glow-in-the-dark line.  Many feet follow." 

  A cameraman stepped quietly toward the manuscript, may I see?  Firmly picked up the gun.  "It doesn't matter anymore," the red-haired woman said.  The makeup that had been fresh and neat just seventeen hours before made caverns in a gaunt face of her eyes.  "Because we're here," one of the men said.  "We are." Said the woman with the gray hair, the taller one as she handcuffed one hand to the briefcase.  "Do I get to cuff the wildcat?" The man in the doorway asked and growled.  "How can you people think of that at a time like this?" 

  "Always is a good time." 

  "Hear, here," air-toasted another man.  

  "Put these on," cross-shoulder gun holsters were put on the table.  "Do not draw your weapons on the surface," he warned.  "I cannot prevent them shooting at us." 

  "Because of Assad." 

  "Them shooting at us?" 

  "The mission of the inspectors." 

  The graffiti on the cinderblocks had read:  THEY KILLED IT.  "The assignment.  It's over or not happening.  'Cut our losses,' bossman said.  That's why," she turned her head to eye the veteran correspondent, but he'd slipped away, "Came back to me." 

  "Then you're not next in line." 

  "But I have to have his back," she started for the passageway but was blocked by the man who'd quickly slung his long gun over his shoulder and received her like a tackler.  She squirmed free and eyes darted side to side.  "We're just going to let him go by himself?" 

  "Better him than you." 

  "But he'll, he'll," she shook her head to perish the thought but it came out anyway, "He'll get himself killed." 

  "That's right Marie.  Himself." 

  "We can't afford a funeral for you over here." 

  Silence. 

  "Come with me to New York," Oriana suggested as the sound of feet began to traverse the ceiling of the hallway.  A last deflate of the air left in the balloon, sigh.

"That was a bad idea."

  "Why.  Because you said so?" One of the redheads hissed.  The handler tried to blink away the morning.  

  A blonde put the pistol in a red head's hand and some pieces of paper in the other.  Told, "You wrote it." The actress sighed deeply and waved the gun around before keeping it pointed at everyone while reading.  "And just what did I write?" 

  A cameraman did not stir from staring at the woman so a director said loudly in his ear keep filming, keep filming.  A younger man in chinos and a mechanics shirt said in his other ear, "You're mum's a whore." 

  "Why are you staring at me Oriana?"  She was rubbing cold hands on a big hot rock that she was sitting on.  "Is this perched enough?" She hollered at some actresses.  One drained an espresso and spat.  "Writers are never far enough away in my opinion."

Especially when I was young and bright

there were wild compulsions to tell my newfound friends everything. 

  What a shock then to return to a place gone into full-on warmode.  

  Once school rooms, then bereft of desks.  A woman my age stepped from behind a coat hook area quarter wall.  "You have returned." 

  "Not sure for how long." 

  Expressions unsure of freedom or no.  Pieces and bits of chalk fell from her hand into a box labeled chalkboard chalk.  "What if someone wanted to use the chalk for something else?" 

  Shaking away heavy thoughts to consider me, asking a question.  "I see you've labeled this chalkboard chalk," I scooped some up.  "In America, I have seen children draw on sidewalks with these chalks." 

  "What do they draw?" 

  "Mostly trees in the cities and vehicles in the countryside.  I see you are a smoker.  Do you have an extra cigarette?" 

  "My dear young American friend, there is nothing extra in this place." The feeling of being in a sand-timer or hourglass butting against the vigor of youth, inside me.  "What else do you see?" 

  "I see," eyes dropping on woodplank flooring not unfamilar, like a basketball court, "grief.  Where once, smiles." 

  "The smiles are just put away for a time.  Like the chalk."  Footsteps in a quad outdoors.  "There have been many changes."  She headed for a window.  "Like what?" 

  "Like these," she took fistfuls of long curtains in hand and shook.  Dust.  And dark stains on the backside.  We looked down at people our age in uniform.  "Maybe John still smokes.  Let's go ask him." 

  "My husband.  You know my husband?" 

  "Did you marry John?" 

  She nodded through a wincing.  "Are you hurt?" She shook her head noooo.  Her hand reached for my forearm and she started to pull me gently.  "Let's ask them for cigarettes."  She donned a light sweater and put her pocketbook with the strap across her chest.  I reached the doorway first and started to go back the way I'd come in.  She reached for me again.  "Go slow," she said.  

  In the once neat and polished hallway was graffitti and machine gun spray indentations.  Making way slowly because of physical pain, a woman made a notation on a form.  "I get terrible headaches too."  The woman looked at the scarred walls, "I am sorry.  But I am not a doctor."  I patted her hand on my arm.  

  Down the stairs, one leg unable to bend, and into the brilliant sunlight.  "There is news." 

  "We don't get news here." 

  "Right.  And, John and I agreed best not to talk about religious upbringing, but," the little knot of people our age started towards us.  None of us hugged in the middle of the courtyard.

"Have a heart," was

  the answer to what do you want me to do?  

  The men took it the hardest.  A tsunami of stats and opinions and legends and personal fears and doubts were coming at each of us as the TVs, radios, and print matter started to become also digital.  

  We were suddenly a nation of mostly volunteers and military/service people.  The older generation, the greatest, was "aging out" of stuff and the "ladders to success" were in a state of contortion as we adjusted to new economy and new roles and new world. 

  People wondered, Are we just seeing ourselves differently given all this information? 

  Are we even more like Adam and Eve?  

  "Just don't be like Adam and Steve!" A preacher at a California airport ordered.  "Don't be a hater!" A tiny woman in tall heels pointed in his face and ordered back.

     "This human chain thing is getting old," the man took of his sportcoat and rolled up his sleeves to reveal red and bruising.  But he smiled.  "She'll see.  I do have a heart!"  

     Before sunrise people woke each other.  Another day of being nonviolent.  Standing and sitting in.  Mostly in-between.  Harm and harm's way.  Explaining how laws work.  Testifying violence not necessary.  Witnessing how social waves and "popular opinion" makes us all the firmament. 

     "What's wrong with you?" She asked sleepily as the man pulled his jacket back on quickly.  "We were sucked into surrounding the Courthouse yesterday so an army of immigration lawyers could get inside." She didn't seem to hear reaching for the coffee.  "I'm listening." 

  "But after all the effort to get there," he swallowed dry mouthed, "The doors got locked." 

A Wild Profusion of Orders

  The gauze closest to the man's eye was quite bloody.  The outer wrapping, not so much, until we got about an hour and a half back towards the city. 

  Because they're going to tell us how the pandemic started, the Detective's shirt sleeves were splattered with blood.  A suspected "media person" took an ice pick to the eye.  "I don't really care how it started.  I just don't want it." The Detective tried to open a file cabinet labeled in loopy lettering, cleaning supplies.  "Who keeps their cleaning supplies in a file cabinet.  I mean I'm not the shapest knife in the drawer, but even I know you keep paperwork files in a file cabinet." He rattled the handle.  "It's locked." 

  An Asian person in a white coat came into the clinic's area.  He went to a metal locker, unlocked it, and loaded a needle with medicine.  He didn't seem to notice us.  He went into a locked door where the other Asian people from the global health org had gone with a local nurse.

  Sunlight splashed the concrete pad of a floor in the clinic as people in suits came into the area.  "We're finally here!" One woman said.  

  "My husband will be so glad to know if I do or don't have AIDS," another woman read an index card.  Part of a script segmented to stay on schedule building a bunch of PSA's.  "I hope she doesn't.  She's hot." A young man read his index card.  The last suit in was a black woman related to Lateesha, the local nurse debating whether or not to take a long-term job at the clinic.

The first dootaloot.

     

     

     We were visiting.  As the gigantic operations of the world were being discussed, a lot of people had a pause.

  "Well, as part of the Apprenticeship program stuff." 

  "But didn't they separate you Community College people from," the boyman looked up.  A large black man took one step forward.  "The rest of us son?" 

  A Disaster Zone trainer turned at the hip from photographing frayed tire.  No fighting.  "Frankly, no one should be talking.  We need to concentrate.  There's a plane wreck over there somewhere," the trainee told. 

  "No matter the side we're on."  A lady sitting beside a mom said.  

  "Of the pond mother?" 

  "Don't call me that in public."  

  "Cha, don't call her at all.  She's done with us." 

  "It makes me feel old." 

  "What's wrong with feeling old?" A neighborly elder asked and grinned, then bit into a salami sandwich.  

  "I need my knees to work since I can't seem to get off of them." 

  The folder of critical action needed was passed along with an envelope of War Zone photographs.  "Pick people, pick.  Limited amount of flights out of here."

"One of his wives has him cornered."

  "That's not legal in our army."  

  "He's mad." 

  "Oh, I bet." 

  "She's mad." 

  The required resources list was ripped in half and had floated to the floor.

  More people entered the room.  

  "No."  The tall man in a starched but silky suit, perfectly tailored, looked down at the short woman. 

  "But, but," she stumbled for the words that would be the lever.  "No.  I will not allow this."  She let her arm drop from reaching out to his.  Heels, stiff clicks on the old wood floor.  She knelt and picked up half of the sheet of paper.  "Is this ripped?" 

  The man moved away from the woman who'd stepped towards him when others had come into the room.  He moved slowly towards the piece of paper.  Translators and silent recorders memorizing everything just stood.  Like a leading man on a stage, all the hype and bigness of the TV'd man had dissipated.  This was a small man of flesh approaching a piece of paper supposed to change the tide of complete destruction.  As if in a fish bowl, eyes intensely focusing, psyche poised to do this. 

  A knock on the door.  A person dressed in casual, soft black clothes realized no one else was saying anything or making a move.  Opened the door.  More leaders and entourage entered the high ceiling'd room.  A man whispered to a translator.  Translator asked in English, "Are they still filming?"  

  "They need to shoot everyone alone in there too." 

  One woman pulled back a thin polyester cardigan and put her hand on the gun holstered there.  A man saw her and wagged his finger.  "Not actually shoot." She tilted her head to contemplate that.  The man held up arms and hands like a cameraman filming.  "They say same?" The woman asked in English.  "Sì señora." 

 

"I'm not satisfied

  with where you put that." Was what came out of his mouth.

  The bulldozers and cranes were still the only sounds elsewise.  

  A translator said what he said.  This was triple verified.  "What does he mean?"  Was what came out of his mouth.  

  The two men communicating was most like the metaphoric elements being thrown at each other.  Except both men had the same God.  

  The one's face frozen in shock, then wailing, then his God forcing him to comport himself walked a few steps over to monitors on a cart.  The small squares and dots had stopped moving on the center screen.  Some of the heart monitoring was still functioning.  Some of the arcs and peaks had flatlined.  He turned the volumes up.  "You knew." He said to the man without looking at him.  He told the translator, "You tell him I know he knew."  

  Something of the sunscorching light stark against the freezing cold proved veil rent. 

  There is one, lips moved slow and expressive to tell.  Two ambulance drivers were bleeding from the ears, but pulled toward the pile of rubble.  The small hand was twitching.

The berets were hatless.

  "We're in the basement Sir." 

  An Army professional took the phone from him.  We could see that because of a medical scope relay throughout the building. 

  The Civilian Strategy team had finished presentation.  The moderator allowed each person to place the typed notes in an open leather portfolio. 

  "I'm not gonna bumrush him," Madeline assured.  "But, he can't keep my folder."

 

     By the time we got to Durham it was too dark to distinguish forms from background.  We'd have to wait to do the piece.  This allowed us an evening to think about how best to tell the amazing story of local people choosing NOT to make a war of everything. 

  "He'd said that?" 

  "That it's a war on everything?" 

  "Like everything everything?" 

  "I don't think it's what he meant." 

  "He said it." A woman took a posture that was akin to issuing orders.  People in the group place stood and began to leave. 

  "Wait." Another woman said.  Some left anyway.  Some slowed to hear why wait.  But the facts of the situation were so outrageous to normal there was no way to just plop out "the evolving" without answering a ton of questions.  And the questions didn't come in a ton at first. 

  "Did you see it?"  Late into the night two people were debating what was seen in the binoculars and camera lens. 

  "It's like the building looks closer in that.  Is the zoom-on?" 

  "Brother I do not know." 

  Just miles away as the crow flies...

  "It's like the mecca of venues!"  

  "It's also a historic site." 

  "The stadium?" 

  "Yeah, this whole area was

  "They're ready for us." 

  "Did you explain we're not barging in?" 

  "Yes," said the man with the briefcase.  "And the response was that they're not barricaded." 

  A cellphone rang.  "Hello." 

  "We're six on this call." 

  "Okay.  Who first?  Please say your name before you talk so the Conference call recorder can take good notes." 

  "Cool, cool.  My name is Sara and I'm one of the Representatives from another State shtuck here in this beautiful State but needing to get home." 

  "And this is David.  I'm in-between-jobs, but was on some sort of Local Tourism committee meeting-sort-of-thing when

  "Flights got grounded people.  And this is Sam.  Sam Mulligan.  I was working at one of the airports and got brought on a bus to this place." 

  "We'll find him," fell on ears deaf to anything but shock and horror.  "We have every Intelligence Agency in the world here now." 

  "And these," another man motioned for a cart to be wheeled closer.  Binders and folders and files and reams of paper.  "What is all this?" 

  "Apparently there are Private Eyes and Programs also interested in helping.  These are presentations."  The remnant of "government" took this also into account.

  Outside the sun shone equally on all parts of the city, but for the black dot.  The shadow.  A blot.  Modern technology's "octopus ink". 

  "At home we call it Shamu.  Like a whale in popular fiction."  A leadership youth group was being sequestered near a history of the old city tour.  "It's all poppycock," an older woman was straightening the shoulders of a young man's shirt.  "What is ma?" 

  "Whatever They tell you." 

     "Don't fight the resistance, figure it out," the weathered-rough-again hand was put over the youth's with the handsaw.  The board being cut was caught on the lip of a bucket of mud, so pinching the cut together.  The hand over, guiding, was to prevent another fit of frustration slowing down the work.  The youth looked at the man.  Feels funny, a man touching another man, I know.  Eyes looked to the problem-trail.  "The board is caught!" The youth realized out loud.  But the mentor was already flipping through sheets of schedule.

  "He doesn't care." 

  "He cares." 

  Another youth, tall and solid, lowered his eyes, made a barely perceptible whimper.  "This is hard mameer." 

  "It is boppy.  It's hard on everyone." 

  Large panels for movies and "TV" were carried in with sheets of drywall.  "There's no plywood chief.  The other team needs it today." 

  Children who had never seen television roused low-energy selves from nap blankets and yoga mats.  A woman spoke in Arabic.  She was lifted by her elbows and held back against a wall until several people could vouch for what was said. 

  "She said it's here." 

  "She meant the Idiot Box." 

  "It will take us some time," a Contractor who'd helped deliver the supplies to discuss bidjob told the room of family.

  Back home and in parts of Europe the race was on.  "To what??!??"  A blinded person asked for a typist being censo/ured. 

  The facts were proving, for a lot of reasons.  

  "To help people get settled.  Follow suit.  Eliminate dangers." 

  "Christ!  My parents are duct-taping the neighbors grandbabies into a closet!  I gotta go.  Ciao bellas," a middle aged woman blew kisses and quickly donned "grown up" clothes for getting across Town.

The note was

  in a glass bottle on a nightstand screwed to the floor.  The flower was a Gardenia and smelled like just one of the ingredients in a famous princess perfume. 

     Our consensus is to 

                  disengage.

  Manifesto? 

  Maybe a declaration. 

  Who left it behind? 

  Eyes fell on the worn turf carpet.  "The definitive Republicans on the inter-team geopolitical strategy exercise behind the military exercises." 

  "Their boat left," a woman stood on the edge of the pier, arms crossed, long wool coat, and said in thick Brooklynese.  She chomped on her Wrigley's some.  Smelled her magazine-perfumed wrist. 

  What do we have to do now?  To the suggestion of an order.

  "All we have to do is let go..."  

  And let God? 

  Okay, but 

  I can't 

  "Easy!" A white-uniformed sailor let go of a silk rope.  Bottles of champagne were thrown out of the cabin at the yacht beside.

     Bon voyage

     Good LUCK 

     Adios amigos 

     Godspeed

  People looked at the kid that said that.  

  "Who are you sweetie?" A woman dressed to the nines sat on a lower bunk beside the child and asked.  "And more importantly, " another fancy-haired, well-dressed woman sat on his or her other side, "Why would he say that particular saying?" 

  They'd done it hundreds of times.  Been promised their families left behind would be given money.  They picked up scraps of papers with Pakistani, Lebanese, etc. scrawled on it.  Hopped and were pulled aboard recycled jets with cargo doors cut into the sides.  Lazily flown over structures like oil rigging sprawled all over Syria.

  Had been trained to memorize. 

  Memorize? 

  The landscape.  From above. 

  Some of the girls were pulling a wounded out of a dolphin carcass.  The jetskier lingered and loped in another practice run of letting go of controlling the thing by self.  "Looking good girl!!" A wave tipped the thing over.  Raft pulled up beside.  "You drowning?" 

  "Not chet.  Cold tho." 

  "They call it iced-in." 

  "They do?" 

  "Cha?" 

  "Already tangled." 

  Lifeguards blew whistles.  

  In the pool.  In the pool.  In the pool.  An Olympiad was pulled out of general population. 

  "WHY IN THE POOL?!" A little kid talked out of temper tantrum again demanded to know.  His mother, "My husband can't even swim." 

  "It's a way to avoid impact injury." 

  "Like what?" 

  "GET IN THE POOL!!!!!!" 

  "Like shattered bones." 

"Don't shoot," the Commander

  of Commanders ordered.  There were two of the same famous people in front of what people were calling "zombies".  

  The wire sparked to life, Hold fire.

  "Why is their a cow in the kitchen?" 

  "Oh you know how sons are.

  "Bringing home the beef

  "Please Emma.  Mother can't handle these kinds öf discussions." 

  "Speak for yourself boy." 

  "Why are all those people outside in this temperature?" 

  "Is she gonna take her face off or anything?" 

  People took the cups of tea. 

  Find out who each and everyone is first to "Shall I send them away?" 

     "They weren't zombies," we were able to tell many years later when the State-to-State roads were shut down for a little time.  "Who were they?" A tired-eye kid looking for a parent asked. 

     "Well, mostly people who couldn't get to a County with a warming center.  See, had it been summer, nobody woulda noticed bunch of people who lost body parts in the Services and working for Private and, and 

     "FARMING, SOWSI GOT DEEF TOO." A skinny man in working pants took off a boot and showed no toes.  Whoa, the kid said to another kid.  "We gotta use this money to go to the thrift shop." 

     "Is that your mama Sweetie?" 

     I couldn't breathe in or out.  I opened my Go Pro eye and looked at feet, behind chainlink fence and barbed wire in "X"s to reinforce "the prisoners" from escaping.  I looked up into my mother's face.  She mouthed, I'm alright.  I choked on whatever all sicknesses I'd acquired searching for her.

"That's ironic"

  "This is that day.  That's ironic day."  

  "I thought they were our friends." 

  She didn't say anything.  

  The space "beneath the floorboards" wasn't cramped.  Spider webby in spots but crouching against the main wall of the tunnel seemed a popular pastime.  People would pass by, some would stop and rest.  

  Nobody sleeps in a war even when a person is asleep.  Eyes fly open at sounds, movements.  We'd compromised on position, best, for resting.  A standing fetal position.  That way the blood will just

  Sssssshhhhhhht

  It's not really gross to talk about it anymore.  Was said more quietly. 

Hand waving us back, back.  We'd only made it ten feet or so.  "That's ironic," the videographer said as he revealed the not charged gas tank of the battery on the thing.  "I'll use another thing," he pulled "a slim" from his pocket.  "It'll be in eight minutes," the slim told the time too.  

  "Maybe that woman was being friendly by moving us on."  

  "That was no woman." 

  ZeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaarRAH, fuuuzch, dust. 

  "Building must be connected." 

  "It's all connected." 

  "Cha.  Especially here.  So obviously cement and sand just barely sprung out of the desert.  I mean, look, those ibeams don't even go all across the expanse." 

  "That's ironic." 

  BadaBadaBadazeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaarRAH

  "Pretend." 

  "That the beams weren't cut to fall on us?" 

  "They should have sent the humanoids." 

  "On this one?" 

  "Seems like a different tour." 

  "Than upstairs?" 

  "What was it like?" 

  "Pretend?" 

  Silence.  Broken only by intensifying impact.

  "Pretend."  

     "Where'd you get the cash?" She showed it and crammed it.  Away.  The man took out a wad of six different currencies.  "And this," he pulled the pistol out of the small of his back.  "I hate sleeping that way."  She snorted and huuuuuuumphed.  "At least you slept." 

  "You paid him to let you sleep?!" 

  "I assure you we did not sleep." 

  Summer crickets winding down the season of normal summer. 

  "He's my husband." 

  "That one?" I dart-eyed him looking back over my shoulder. 

  "No.  Some other one." 

  "You didn't sleep did you?" 

  "I always sleep.  In God's big hand." 

  "That may change because it has to."  

  "Sometimes ours aren't there.  Overseas." 

  "God's big hand doesn't change.  Although you people do." 

  "You're done then?" 

  "I didn't say that." 

 "I won't ever say that.  God borned me me." 

  "Tell me about here."  

  "They got some issues."  

  "Remember those robots they stole from the Conventions?" 

  "No.  I try not to remember anything." 

  "I'm not like you." 

  A pebble landed in front of freshly medicated feet in boots. 

  "Anyway." 

  "Well, they all claimed they didn't steal them.  Just cleaned up after the richie riches left.  You know how some of them talk.  Like the world's just about rich and poor. 

  "It is 

  "It is and it isn't 

  "Bob said that's what Saray-evo is all about

  "What it's become 

  "Llewan agrees, that's why 

  "God's not about money 

  "Will you just shut up?!" 

 People sprawled around in the darkness actually communicating.  Until.  Signal's going away in three, two, one.  The open palm came to a closed fist.

"If you ain't got no money,

  Take your broke ass home." The queen was losing her flambouancy by the eighteenth bar night.  

  "Whoooo are yoooo?"  A girly-mahn mechanic-type got off a barstool to ask.  Dwarfed by the man in heels.  A man who'd stayed sitting on another barstool tipped his cowboy hat.  The bartender poured him two two-fingers.  

  "Uh, ah, er," throat clearing 

  "We're called the Transforce," a bubbly muscle-y girl in a bomber jacket stepped between them.  She held the clipboard close to her chest and got a glove off and the pen tucked into the clipboard and reached a hand out.  A dainty handshake.  "Who are you?" The queen reached over her shoulders and tried to take the clipboard.  But the girl clutched it and said, "What I mean is, er, ah, 

  An olive drab coat came in.  "Don't worry," he held up both hands, unarmed, "It's a peacekeeping mission.  I'm just here as Recorder." 

  The cowboy lowered the brim of his hat and left the money on the bar.  

  "Hi." Another hand extended to shake.  Not accepted.  "We go around to see if anybody just hanging out, uh" a look at the flow chart, "Has any health care needs." 

The reasons we apologize.

  "Because of Plato?" 

  "Socrates?" 

  Oriana blinked at the sight of people gathered around her like children.  "Surprised to see us?" 

  She furrowed and unfurrowed her brow.  Re-looked at the typed "The reasons we apologize."  Shook her head no.  Said, "No." People looked at each other.  Bruises with salve; stitched cuts; head bandages; knee braces; ankle boots..."We learned to doctor ourselves too," Throw-Up Girl smiled bright whitely.  "Mostly." She took a hand out of her pocket and the arm dangled badly at the elbow.  People giggled and made shocked sounds.  One woman said, Gross. 

  Oriana put her hands like she was still a nun on her lap on top of our papers regarding how much we'd learned as people learning interdisciplinary.

  "I'm sorry."  Her invisible tears got caught in her throat.  "But none of us can go." 

  A military surplus truck's horn honked.  

  "MARIE!!!!!"  Someone said the name of the first.

     One of our first tasks was to let people know:  We're a Republic.  Even us American International Journalists.  And as such we respect you.  But, this Country's rule (that's law and order) is not "consensus".  

     This was sometimes explained as people were reaching for shotguns to let us know:  They'd decided differently.  

     Then local jurisdiction people worked with National Guard to pocket a "property".  Deeds had to be checked.  Minors had to choose.  Taxes paid needed to be confirmed.  Outstanding warrants?  Locked briefcases handcuffed to arms had to be exchanged. 

  Ayup, we were back to being peacekeepers, Academics, and Regulars.  As had happened to the Philippines in World War II, flashpoints and mergers, had friends: strangers; interesting: boring; and every situation life or death in the choices us Americans make. 

"I would say that's coming from Vegas,

  but, I'm all turned around."  The woman's cheeks turned rosey.  She turned her upper body slightly and vomited into a lunch sack.  She neatly wiped her mouth with a tightly folded napkin.  "I get car sick," she re-blushed.  

  "You came on a horse."  Another woman said. 

  "Oh.  Did I?"  She looked out the window.  "Where is it?" 

  A cellphone rang.  Hands searched self's pockets.  Opened it and closed it.  Rang again.  Hands answered and hung it up.  Hands handed it off.  It rang again.  Guy said, "I'm shy." Woman handed it to a younger guy.  Guy answered it without saying anything and just listened.  Hung it up.  "Who is it?" 

  "Just breathing." 

  "With kind of a wheeze." 

  "Someone's going to have to explain this." 

  "Which this?" 

 

  "I'm a writer.  I might be able to help."  

  "I was but I got ghosted." 

  "Not that I know what the means." 

  "Me either." 

  "I do but I can't tell you." 

  "You'd have to kill us?"  A woman pulled a gun from a pocket, started pointing it at people.  Take a seat.

  "Okay," A known-director-type put his hands up and thrust his pelvis at the woman with the gun.  "Wallet's in my pocket."  

  "I'm not sitting down just because she said to," another guy said.  

  "Yeah, she's kinda short.  I think we can take her out."  

  "Yeah, but I've got the gun." 

  "Can I use it?" 

  "On herself of course."  

  The man with the hands up and pelvis thrusted wiggled his leg to shuffle his foot forward.  "Don't come any closer," the woman said.  "Did it move?"  People looked at each other.  "Did my foot move?" 

  After a full ten seconds of silence someone stood up and moved closer to the man but didn't touch him.  Ran a fabric-coated wrist up and down the legs of the man.  "It's beeping near the pocket," he told a little tape recorder.  

  "Explains the hospital gowns." 

"Somebody nuked," the

  middle-ager sweating bullets heard on the earphones. 

  "GGGGRRRREEEAAAAT, tah," red-faced, old soul youth exhaled, "WE FAILED." Arms in the air reaching for God's help crane-smacked into thighs.  

  Lemme listen lemme listen

  The wires cheney'd up to a man's head looked like a tumbleweed packratted.  For purpose.  Whether they know it or not the packrats do what they do for purpose the real Scooby Doo Diane had explained.  Made sense.  The warfare word had leaked.  People and robots were blowing up peoples' RVs and trailers.  The out-of-work scientists.  Semi-truck full of scraps and parts and servers and body parts were convoying this way and that.  We had to sort the flows of trade and travel.  Punctually.  Efficiently.  With no money, no plastic, no food, no water.  Dodging fallout--radiation and exploding planes, sats, and balls of shrapnel.  Some shoved off platforms craned and SUCKED UP BY THE HOLES IN THE OZONE, QUIT WRITING, IT'S A FUCKING TELEGRAM

     Some of the people were brilliant mind types.  Escaped, survived the other world wars.  Living testaments, living history.  Some of the bodies had been in nursing homes and something had harvested their organs.  

  "Spleen's gone; otherwise just sleeping."

  "Grab that one and let's go."

  The Science women wouldn't, couldn't just stop observing and taking notes.  Instant notification.  Racing to stop the exchanges.  One lover held the binoculars in front of Diane's eyes, the other's husband turned her by the shoulders.  "See that rumble cloud of dust..." 

Some "good advice"

 from Jackie Greene and Bill Plympton

Stellar Writing

 Here's a link to an exceptional expository multi-media article about space, NASA, and US gov't. 

  I love that "the writing" is so clear that even if you couldn't "see" graphics you'd learn stuff.

Bartnik rules, as we used

  to say in the Old School.  Check out this innovation...

  Brought to us all the way from Europe through Interesting Engineering

Watch: YouTuber builds talking robot head that answers like Greek philosopher Aristotle

The creation features 3D-printed eyes, a glowing LED mouth, and a local AI brain that answers philosophical questions in real time.

BySujita Sinha

Nov 11, 2025 03:59 AM EST