Her fast broke when her grandbabies were again

in her arms. 

  The army jacket was passed backward through the civilized process of elimination queue via the Ladies of the Courts. 

  Word was passed forward.  Scripture, ownership, and absolute needs.  "As if the real world itself had been a globe." 

  'That was how security had to take it." The man's eyes teared at his wife in the Royal equivalent of a Bobbie's outfit.  "And so?" 

  "So they were rushed forward." 

  "But for the Continent Jumpers at this point." 

  "Put this on my dear.  You're teets are showing." Jumpers and sweaters and sweatshirts were being handed out on loan.  

  "And just whoooo are they?"  

  "Those, madame, were 'the masses', then 'the hoardes', and are now amounting to 'noisy peasants'. 

  "What is it they want with here?" 

  "Most of them would like to work m'am.  According to these surveys." 

  "Damn you Americans.  You've surveyed them?" 

  'Yes.  Popular, surveys.  Not royal." 

"Its like dee tawk on top."

  "He means candy-coating." 

  Solitary marching boot sounds on empty building floors. 

  "Vee hold position." 

  We'd been burying the dead.  All of us with earth under our nails.  Then we'd been re-burying the dead.  Such was the Soviet persistence in claiming identities.

  Bootsounds stopping.  Searching each room.  Last minute deep beaths to counteract the shallow, barely audible seashells on a beach breathing that wisps of people hiding in plain sight live. 

  People seemed to notice the piece of paper at the same time.  A stomach pulling groan came from the man we'd dug out of a grave.  A leader-type with the fortitude of a castle hewn of mountain.  The thieves had wanted the shovel.  So they distracted, smashed him in the head with it, and tipped his dead weight into the grave.  We'd restrained each other from killing them.  It had taken us hours to get the man out of the grave hole.  He barefoot tip-toed to snag the piece of paper as the marching bootsounds came one room closer.

"I can't do that with you,

  right now." A sigh expressing a feeling of neverending.  "But, I learned how." The man said of ballroom dancing.  "My ankle doesn't believe you anymore."  They both looked down at it.  "Let me see," the woman lifted the hem of the long skirt.  The man, buff from working and working, lifted the woman and placed her on a small stage.  Ran his hand against the back of her stocking'd calf to firmly bring the skirt up to her knee.  Her hand bulldozed his to a STOP.  He bumped his eyebrows up and down and put her foot into both his hands.  Removed a shoe, placed the sole of her foot on his chest.  She feigned fainting.  He started to unwrap the bulky bandage around her ankle.  "Toldya." 

  "Doesn't prove anything about ballroom dancing." 

  "What did you learn while we were apart?" 

  "I uh," she plied getting drowsy suddenly as he rubbed the bottom of her foot with fingers stiff and muscle-y from repairing plaster on a Conservation project.  "We uh, see, that's why I can't ballroom dance with you right now." 

  "'Cuz you're woozy?" 

  She gently laugh-sighed, but winced as he pushed where the pins had been put in.  Her hands grabbed for the stage floor.  Let me balance.  He rubbed the bottom of the foot and barely squeezed the area around the actual scar area.  

  "What's going on here?" A dandy-uniformed young person came from the wings of backstage.

"Well, we're not just that,"

   the well-manicured hand pointed to the word on a short list corresponding with "a map of damages" -- collateral damage.  

  "On his behalf," a lawyer-type said, "He's on a lot of medications." 

  The woman withdrew her hand from the map and put it into a coat pocket, "For what?" 

  The man looked at the General Superior.  "For illness.  Cancer I think." 

  She moved to in front of the man loosely telephone corded to a chair.  "Can you lift your arms?" The man did so weakly.  "To surrender?"  The other man translated the word.  He could not.  She tied a colored survey label onto the cord and made a knot.  "Ours may want the property back." 

It was suddenly

  a tsunami of total war but for the Declaration.  The globe had been sworded into hemisphere and quarters.  The injuries were mounting just trying to get answers. 

  "I'm not going to eat you," a bloodied guardsman assured. 

  "And I'm not going to persecute you," a leg-paralyzed Mongolian semi-grinned, then yellowing bloody teeth snarled into, "They ARE." 

  The forest itself that we'd come to find ourselves in was, a pyramid shape of destruction.  One set of hooved animal prints in the snow.  Many sets of footprints.  And blood trails.  Slender alpine trees hacked and shredded.  Tank tracks.  Chain marks.  Pools of blood.  Drag marks.  Thongs and underwear slung onto branches.  Smoldering bonfires.  Broken metal bits.

  Camera lenses crushed in the crunch of fresh snow pack brought to disguise the melèe.

  There'd been no sleep as scouts moved through the mountains retrieving the pieces of the financial puzzle.  One-for-one on equipment and men with "cash flow" had forced gunpoint budget re-writes. 

"Helpful exercise"

  It should have been an almost "magical" white, snowy white, solsticey, wonderland of a jaunt through Nature's winter splendor.  Instead the smog of war blighted what the universe had become in the lens of humanity. 

  "Well.  Can I at least vote?"  Mink covered and draped in jewels asked. 

  "My dear, you are not a superpower." A neat and orderly attache in only a summer suit replied. 

  "Who is next?" 

  Hands went up as if it was an auction.  Wrists dangling golds.  Fingers beaming reflections of the chandelier, partly uncovered, and plummed with candles.  Jet fuel smells filled the air.  "Next for what?" Someone asked in Swiss and then several people translated the question into four or five languages. 

  "It is," a man screwed the cap back onto a flask, "An exercise to know our place in the scheme," hiccup, "Of things."  

  "We are taking turns witnessing history in the making," another person said.  Small squares had been cut in plywood and covered in muslin to capture the progression of pollution climbing the mountain.  These were already blackened and made perfect little frames for viewing progress in a standoff.  There were note-takers recording impressions. 

  Three world leaders in heaps of coat trapsing around in a thigh high drift.  Scaling a rudimentary ladder into a "tea house". 

  "Any more thoughts?" 

  "Only one believes in my God.  I will stick with him even if this really is the end." Coughing from the roomful of at-large and etcetera people prompted a meter read of pollution and temperature.  Not good, was the prognosis.

"How can I do my job,"

 a bus roared by on a NYC street and bailed a puddle of icy sludge onto the sidewalk, "IF I DON'T KNOW WHAT I am?"  The woman's eyes held the sincerity of the question in between a police officer having his waist belt and weapons put into a brown paper sack and marked with his locker number.

"Twry dee Hague"

  Some journalists, correspondents, and world leaders were kind of caught on the fringes of inside-out.  Some world leaders were refusing to separate themselves from the fighting forces as old-school names for "boss", (I don't want to be a dictator), travel bans and checkpoints were rapidly changing the face of Europe.  Soldiers were cold, civilians were cold, nobody was staying healthy, but the spirit of freedom was not destroyable for the centuries of various "repressions" had gotten a chink in its armor.  Two drops of rye whiskey in a finger of coffee for everyone and joking, Come to my place for more. 

  "Not without Country," Oriana was on a sat phone with the Vatican.  A documentarist was on another.  "What is that half of the team doing there?"  Apparently being shown where Hitler's body was taken at one point, she let everyone know. 

  A folded up to pocket-size wall world map was unfolded, the little breeze the motion created was impossibly colder.  "Where you cannot go.  And," a gloved hand motioned over shoulder, "They will tell you why as the day unfolds."  Watches for everyone.

  Ice crystals on an old pane of glass literally forming.

  "The short.  Government people in our country are not royalty, don't own castles.  And.  This thing we're in right now is fluxing.  Waxing, if you will, quite a bit broader.  Each nation has to," the sound of glass cracking on the shed, "like declare certain stuff.  HOLD ON, HOLD ON," the person waved at a checkpoint person, went towards.  "He cannot go that way because of this."  Person retrieved papers from a breast coat pocket.  The guard read it out loud, Terrorism.  "But I tought all deez," 

  "Don't say people 

  "Deez wuz potential vawr criminals 

  "That's a sticking point for travelers right now."  

"This is no longer,

  Or, should I, we, say like for the time being?" 

  "What is the point?" 

  A suit was last-minute prepping to welcome some of the first people to discuss terrorism.  A military man was trying to ask the girl of his dreams to marry him.  The quiet of the hallway was antithetical to a rumpus-ing in the world. 

  The girl, woman was welcoming youth who'd graduated early from programs and trainings and who weren't sure about best fit. 

  "Hi.  Welcome.  Hello.  It'll be in there," she softly pointed then changed her hand gesture to indicate a room across the hall. 

  The getting-ready guy was an expert at interim and ball in play.  Introducing a new broad topic to establishment was part of "regime change" by necessity.  "Just," she shook the top of her body, like shake it off, the stress, "Do it like you play soccer or a pick up game of basketball." She waved the military man down the hall.  "They're in there." She took an earpiece out and opened a little ring case from a pocket.  "I'm gonna ask him to marry me." Big smiles and way to go, groovy head nods.  

  "The point is," a dry mouth swallow in the microphone, "This is no longer black on black, or white on Asian, or any other combination of racism and profiling, this is about Foreign Nationalists killing citizens in Our Country and theirs." Peoples' mouths dropped open.  Frozen.  The man tapped the microphone.  "Was that loud enough?  How was my tone?"

  Outside a bulldozer and a small crane worked in tandem to block pathways.  A woman acting as a "guide dog" to a blind woman put down her files and gently hurried the blind woman past.  Coming back, the crane dumped its dirt and pieces of cement barrier next to the woman.  The woman got covered in dust.  She retrieved her files and put out her arm for the blind woman.  "It's not okay," she told a peacekeeper.  "It's not the time to get into details, but this is fucked up." The blind woman covered her mouth, shocked, then said, "I agree.  Wholeheartedly.  And," the crane's load made a thud sound, "None of us are leaving until it's better." 

  "I'll settle for better for sure." 

Each "representing" folded the flags.

  And these we reverently placed in a crate under the American flag.  

  A past-youth-because-of-terrorism man's mom had followed him into one of the Pentagon's rooms.  "That's a hell of a thing to be studying." The man was perspiring.  He'd changed out of bloodied clothes and tucked the still stained shirt tails into his tactical gear pants. 

  Lights went out down the hallway and people scrambled to control their breathing.  Some fell into heaps together in sparsely furnitured rooms.  

  "It was this," a woman took a bedraggled and also stained magazine page out of her shirt.  Took the shirt off.  Tank top.  Made way, gun drawn, barely a distinction of human form against the walls of the hallway.  

The ad simply read, INSPIRE. 

"Does he want to stay?"

  Even the good robot dog shook his head yes.  His interpreter confirmed the yes to a translator, and the translator admitted he did not know the answer to the Nanny's question, "Why is my child, the child, the child," she pointed at the top of his head, "This one mine." 

  Since people with more than one home State had to choose stay or go, complicated by Service people the world over with new duties, there were last minute snafus to smooth sailing from here on out.  Some people who'd stuck with an actor's guild despite pressures to strike and quit were very eager to get back to work.  Of course nobody in the world had a "money tree" or even a working credit card. 

  "He's crying because he's a baby." The boy narrowed his eyebrows and stared at his Uncle.  "See, he knows that word." The boy kept the narrowed eyes on the man who tried to start up a conversation to get an idea of what's the delay now.  A very tall, curly-haired man, the perfect Zeus, a woman with hopes of writing and directing announced, joined the queue.  "Make the fish lips.  Make the fish lips!" A little girl requested.  A mother waved a hand being chewed on away from the girl's mouth, "Stop bothering these people."  

  "Now there's board-wide delays," a woman came over and reported.  "We're never going to get there." 

  "Such a pessimist beneath your sugar-coating," the tall man pointed at the small Asian boy and flicked a fake booger at the woman, then he drew a box around his face, and made fish lips.  People started laughing.  "Oh man," said the woman, "Now he'll do the whole routine again." 

  "Whatchya been doing with yourself Smiley?" An actual director joined the queue. 

  "Being a clown." 

  "I should've figured." 

  "At least I stayed working." 

  "Oh.  Oh.  That's not good." Came the voice of a man as he stifled a sneeze that made him cough deep and liquidy.  People got out of the way as a pedestal on big turning wheels uprighted itself and started mowing a path through all the people.

We'd flown into Bermuda, eager

  to shed the dreariness of ongoing winter in the Northeast.  Just a whiff of the salty, vegetation-laden, warm air seemed to wipe away our heaviness. 

  It was a small airport back then and there were maybe five planes landed.  A hospitality crew in crispy clothes met us at the bottom of the moveable stairs.  Smiles and questions about our travel, a lilt in the voices of real Bermudians, always projecting a regality, or, I can make you laugh.  

  The hospitality crew listened to minor complaints and big plans and all the hopes and fears tourists haul to front desks and 

  "WHERE'S THE RUM???" A woman let a heavy shopping bag drop down from an arm also weighted with three handbags.  "Is she already drunk?" A muscled man in thigh covering shorts didn't quietly ask a flight attendant.  A child tugged on a ladies arm.  She bent slightly towards the child, a gold earring twinkle-sounding against others in her ear.  "She's faking," the child whispered.  "Pretending," another child said.  "Ever the actress," a man said.  "Like Lucy." 

  "What is her point?" A flight attendant ready to rest from world travels had joined the group with a smart carry-on.  "She'll let us know."  

  Some people came from the terminal in a spread out little cluster.  They casually surrounded the plane.  "Let's all go to bag checking," the earring'd lady in the print-dress took a child's hand.  The man took the woman's bags.  "It's in there," she let go of the shopping bag but then took it back.  She handed it to the man in the shorts, saying, "The Air Marshall put it in there." Yet another child said, "Mom! You have lipstick on your teeth!" She let go of the bag, pulled a tissue from a sleeve, and said, "Thank you for telling me."

"It's rhetoric,"

  the Asian expert explained of a pro-trade group excited about American debt.  Notes taken read, comparing sovereignty to being owned like drug users. 

  "The call just came in." The Agent told the others.  He grabbed some photographs from the table clothed table.  "Some of these," he held one up, "Have bound themselves to some of these," he held up another photograph. 

  "That's how they've managed to move through the airports!" Someone realized out loud. 

  People cleared the table by dumping everything into bullet proof lock boxes on wheels.

"But then they blame us."

  The two men were at a "souped up" firing range.  Practicing coming out from behind and shooting.  "And all this is worse since all the communists grouped up."  They'd attached little microphones to themselves to record themselves talking on the wire.  

  Even in small city America there'd been crimes that were unknown to occur between just average joe shmoes who hate each other.  There were waves of drugs and waves of people being skinned.  "No regard for the human life," small groups of detectives would arrive, cotton in ears, heavy-scented menthol under their noses, rubber gloves, and booties on shoes.  "This shit is primitive." A lady detective would hush and hand out basic forms for recording wounds and gunshots, and observations.  "We'll have to update these," one told a superior as the crime scenes kept getting weirder and weirder.  

  "Did you yell at my kid?" 

  "Not really yelling." The torso skin on the person had been slashed quickly and pulled up towards the head.  "Not sure, quickly, maybe jaggedly or..." 

  "Didn't really yell at, but strongly suggested the kids leave the room.  I hate them getting so desensitized about all this and what's his face can't finish a meal before talking case." 

  "Why would they leave this man's hands on him but take the rest?" A detective reached for it and took it in hand to feel for warmth.  The squeeze woke the wounded.

  "As followers of Christ, we read the news differently than other people.  When we hear reports of the Iranian nuclear deal or the ayatollah's apocalyptic threats, we have to remember the Lord is at work behind the headlines, and the Gospel is spreading into every corner of earth with its message of triumph."  --Dr. David Jeremiah

In the tug of war to put nation first,

  people were also turning against each other, of course. 

  "What's all that stuff outside?" 

  "Stuff they can have!" 

  A son close to his mom peered into the boxes.  "I'ma sure they don't need none of that crap." He grabbed a stick and lifted a bubble gum pink colored thong up into the air.  First he squinted and pondered, then he turned more red than an actual beet.  Behind his still, intense eyes a flood of emotions passed before he gasped and said, "Mother!" 

  "Oh that.  Not mine." 

  "Not mine," some motorcycle riding women checked their jacket and sweatshirt pockets to be sure their "change of outfits" were on them.  One mother wrestled one away from a daughter.  She was flabbergasted.  The mom stood ground, "You're father and I are married." 

  "I guess a lot of people might turn out." 

  "I can't remember ever seeing 'em off this way.  But ours wanted us to ride." 

  It was through and battling our own internecine tendencies that we were able to put forth a Country of people standing with a Commander-in-Chief.  Because we are a democracy there were splits in the ground from everywhere USA to Washington, but there was more support to bridge the gaps between us in lifestyle values to take the high road in preserving nation.  We were achieving this maturity when 9112001 happened.  When it did our nation re-joined the world ripping itself apart.  But we did it as a strong America.

They'd eliminated the competition,

  at the precise moment the "government" was able to "commandeer" anything it needed.  

Communications people in passing...

  "They'd found some of them in what were deemed free spaces." 

  "No such thing really." 

  "Like in shacks, near dams and power plants." 

  "Well, that's why the Parks people created programs where people can come on board work their way in and have shelter while they're getting started."  

  "But listen, we have to head back out west.  What's happening out there?" 

  "Oh my God, girl." Mind flips through the proverbial rolodex of who's who because having come up together in a field, feeding the pigs together, as a French couple taught us about being so "open", you have a feel for where fluid stories may get the progress they need or meet a dead-end.  "Can you handle the details?" 

  A little laugh.  "My husband and I share information because he's military background and I, well, long story short..." 

  Some of us developed cross-reference lists, like whose areas of interest were overlapping.  That was helpful because as fluid reconstituted into hardened activity on an "issue" there was inevitably escalation.  Some newspaper and media centers had some of their best assistants working lobbies and front desks so that the Establishment of "news" could travel fast or be put in a freezer.  It's nearly impossible to rely on news streams to be able to put the brakes on fluid. 

  There were ego fights and face jealousies, but there was also a strong grassroots kindness and learning vibe that went a long way to softening "cut throat" so that the whole nation could get news.  

  We simultaneously addressed needing awareness so that as ratings were disrupted and money wasn't always the motivation for story, we beefed up or strengthened the service aspect of reportorial and editorial work.

  What had happened before our nation re-solidified a unity around Old Glory was that we had indeed been infiltrated.  That's a complex situation.  The military needed "private" and private needed a solid military to reclaim the Homeland.  Otherwise, what was happening to a severly imploding Soviet system and how the Chinese were going about "humiliating" foes and deemed "loser" would have kept happening between friends and neighbors in the good old USA.

"ARE THOSE THINGS

  ON A DANCE POLE OR SOMETHING???" 

  People plucked earpieces and hearing aids out of their ears.  Some shooed away more pain to their personal bodies but kept listening to the combining channels reporting. 

  "Is she deaf or something?"  

  "Honey, are you, going deaf?" 

  "WHY?  WHO WANTS TO KNOW?" 

  "WHERE'D YOU SIP?" 

  "I HAVEN'T SIPPED OR SMOKED OR PEED OR"

  "Shelter in place?  Where'd you shelter in place in port?" 

  "IS HE ASKING ME SOMETHING?" 

 

Acceleration

  As students we were dumfounded that east meeting west wasn't really about pandas. 

  We'd been lured and baited as the "best and brightest" but put into a proverbial blender of "intelligence".  Our parents and guardians had warned us, It's really a marathon.  

  And it felt like that being grounded in Christ.  Like the wild, wild west meets some kind of light show circus.  We'd heard about Expos, but few Americans had a mental grip on how scary "enemy" could be. 

  And it could be anything.  

  A friend was explaining gastronomic nightmare of kafir and oats when the (prehistoric now) electric "cab" slammed on the brakes.  A humanoid, big, tall, metallic black smooth face had stepped backwards off a curb, almost tipped over, reeled around waving its arms to re-balance.  A woman was wagging her finger at the thing until a man revealed the remote box's wires had come disconnected.

  "Leave it to the smart people," a renowned almost not a teenager anymore girl crossed her arms and planted her butt as a guy paid the cursing driver.  "Come on," we dragged her out of the vehicle. 

  Barely a wisp of a wake had drug our raft to barely moving.  Hard tack, 1000 year old fruit bar, "I'll just suck on it." 

  I bet the robot dog could tear off a piece.  One's hand acted like he'd try.  I screamed.  Hands tackled my mouth and face and head and upper body.  The raft tilted.

  You take a turn.  My eyes are stuck open but I'm not really seeing now. 

  Do you know what my mom does when we tell her, It's time; get ready for The End of the World? 

  I know you're mom. 

  She drops everything she's doing and gets the dog's bowl.  

  The man stood and did a slow yoga pose stretch.  As he reached for the sky he joked about lasso'ng the moon.  But there was more of a film of cloud over the moon way off than a clear photograph.  Alright, I'll take it anyway.  Thousands now?  Better than twelve at a time and 

  The water moving almost tossed him overboard.  I was harnessed and vested and with the other 180° view.  What the fuck just happened?  

  I swear TO GOD.  

Our pilgrimage to the concept of home

  wound its way back across the border and jaunting north.  Lots and lots of people were technically in transition like health care and defense budget.  

  A highlight for our family was the release of some political prisoners.  Our mama had done a special prayer vigil and got deemed an "anti-abortion activist".  Boy, did we raz her.  We knew you and Dad were saints, you didn't have to prove it.  She'd made friends with Willie Nelson while captured.  They "supported each others' causes for each other," "But," mama made clear, "My husband and I have never smoked pot and we're not doing that as a family to celebrate.  But thanks.  Nice meeting you."  He was kind enough to stoop down and ask baby sister what she wanted.  Dad dug out a pen and mom had a magazine page with concert dates.  She got an autograph!  

  There were health checks all the way more nortè, and "frugal" people monitoring the travel food supplies.  It's a big job getting people to eat the right foods for them.  Most of us were younger then and were having a glorious time picking from colorful food trucks if we had spending money left.

  The more north we got the more population was pooled as our Navies helped correct the flow of traffic on the seas and all manner of law enforcement, the world over, made adjustments to Port schedules and all that "getting better" in terms of true "safety" entails.

   Truth be told, we went to Oaxaca on a science/medical article lead.  It was just luck that we got to meet some, like holy art people.  Dr. Magdelena was like a holy person to how spent and down I was feeling.  The art helped us rejuvinate.

  Something, some "ingredient" (since the FDA had lost control of quality checking etc.) in some of the world's medicine supply was also being sold in "champagña".  This particular ingredient was turning peoples' innards into "glass", same effect.

  We were able to pilgrimage back to have some respite time from "essential worker" as I recall.  All along the way we talked with local people and doctors without borders people.

  We learned about stuff like chemicals coming down streams and saturating flood plains.  Older villagers wanted to know why so much change to the land.  One abuela dug up potatos that smelled like pot purri or sachet.  They had a lavender color.  Harder than potatos should be. 

  People came and went from the pilgrimage with news of the world.  Even as a sparse group of people with only ourselves as resources we were able to piece together many pieces of the puzzle.  Clearly entropy and apathy was taking a toll on all of us.  People reached out to orgs and governments with "missing links" of data and information.  Slowly but surely we turned some corners and came up with solution to many problems compelling some not to care and still others to wish it over, all of it.

"What are you two doing here?"

  "As if our overly starched and ironed uniforms aren't a dead give away," one said.  "What's that smell?" One of another pair asked as one of the other asked at the same time.  "Probably her hairdoo," one responded and flipped the side of it up a little.  A hand smacking away.  "Don't touch it.  It's gotta last for a month." 

  "Is that coffee I smell." 

  "It is." The desk clerk said.  "Can I ask a question?" 

  "Not why you're here." 

  "Can I have some coffee?" 

  "I'm not deaf.  And if I was you wouldn't have to speak to me like that.  Like I'm re," a look, "Retro in the brain department." 

  "Chief has his way of doing these meetings," 

  "We're on desk duty.  And," 

  "No coffee for you," a short, stocky man appeared from a meeting room, "until you all pick a seat for your immediate superior; lay out your paperwork which there shouldn't be much of since you prepared; and wash the mugs left in the sink." 

  "Where's the sink?" 

  "And, we're not staying long.  We are on a mission to quality check the errand service." 

  "That for the elderly?" 

  "It's for people who've had their health checks and have permission of usage." 

  The desk clerk rifled through a verirable palette of sticky notes.  "We did have one complaint in that area." The Chief stepped towards the desk.  "Let me hear."  

  It's complicated stuff.  Back when we raced around the world to defeat where we could to protect our reputation as the greatest, non-aggressive superpower.  We were a beat up lot by the time we realized, um, this "saving face" is a) costing us even more debt, b) most of the world felt we owed them an apology for infinitely making things worse wherever and whenever we got involved, and c) what's coming for "us" someday is truly evil and God, the One in which we trust, is letting this happen.

  It was devastating enough to realize these things and go on.  But something else happened too.  This was recorded in story form in the movie (i)Monstrum(i).  The old Asian-world way, well, it, uh, changed.  In the Old World there was the Hail Mary pass of zero-ing out differences, and preserving honor.  Old World court systems upheld usually the Royal honor, or the Emperor's honor, or the State Ruler's "honor".  WWI proved that geo-politics (where we get "sphere" and similar geopolitical terms that rival sovereignty) was as much traditional parity of military with command-in-chief as it was about personality/influence.  All of that hit its head on the iron curtains of soviet-style communism and the fort walls of TOP SECRET.  And a lot of brutality and warfare development just happened alongside worldwide political "show".  

  The credit cards going global like "AID" money doled out a certain amount of "disposable" GDP and a sort of license to anyone and everyone to mess with "governance" and "rule" and prerogative.

  Defending honor became first a match-to-match and then a game of survival anytime the rules of war were abandoned or there was "drift".  Each time the world cycled through budgetary spending and bloodletting, the enemies were getting the better of each other...bankrupting, killing off, eliminating, isolating, running into debt and slavery, displacement, occupation, rinse and repeat. 

  China managed to cause the resistance to its ascendancy to "surrender".  Islam caused its religious subjects "to submit".  The U.S. chose careful interactions to preserve itself as a Republic by surviving but could not be "peace keeper".  Everytime the world goes for being one big peaceloving democracy, we crash and burn, have hotspots, and worldwide disease and economic calamity.

  World leaders largely agreed to prison guard their own nations.  And sometimes there's a weeding of ties that bind.  Done smartly, people put limits on what will be spent on a chaotic thing like a "war".  It's why late 20th century presidential politics convene at summits with militaries' and organizations' input...to make better informed decisions.  Humanity cannot survive the level of violence that is potential to reaching a certain level of "anything goes". 

  The current U.S. Republican administration is saavy to all of the 21st century updates.  No one is ever right 100% of the time, but our current administration is actually working with a breadth and depth of ally to re-establish sanity to the absolute insanity of the violence.  This I know for fact. 

Three Phones,

  until one was thrown out of a cab window.  "Why the fuck did you do that????"  Only the "fuck" was in English.  Four women, one cab driver.  Translation:  "In our Country, they blow up at this point in the game." 

  "This is not a game girls." 

  "Somebody seems to think so Oriana."  The cab jerked over to the side of the road.  "Get out."  The cab driver turned halfway round in his seat and asked in French, though we were tasked with crossing Cairo to free the translators with Diplomatic Papers, "I said, Get Out, do you understand?" 

  One braved, "Just her or all of us?" 

  "Some mentor, getting us kicked out of everywhere we go." 

  We got out.  "Surely there'll be another."  The Doctor of Ancient Archeology rolled her eyes.  "Only for the Americans now."  Smoking, reading, looking at abandoned beggar's cups.  The streets dissolved of traffic.  "We might as well be in old Mexico." The sun making us into pinned moths on fading construction paper.

  "I hear something!"  Nobody made a point of listening too closely or being obvious about also hearing something.  The low moan of a lawnmower or outboard boat.  Some sheets of plywood in front of a wares table was suddenly kicked away, and two figures ran.

  From out of the sun's rays, late afternoon tilt on shadows, came the sound of the droning plane.  As it began to block the sun the sound split into others too.  "That's routine around here." We stood there as we might eating sandwiches on a Cape Cod beach with seagulls doing a mostly silent ballet above us.  Until the strafing began. 

  Gamification.  This is definitely not a Ukrainian invention.  And it's been central to humanity's ethics issues for a long time.  An article from ZME Science tells us more. 

  Also of note from Dr. Andrei in ZME.  Somebody blew a hole in the nuke safety shield the world managed to erect over Chernobyl. 

     Rifled purses, trees de-barked by gunshots, pieces of clothing.  The trail of blood started, ran, stopped.  Dogs with protective muzzles since shooter drug stuff was everywhere.  "Maybe it's good you missed your appointment Ma."  The trail seemed to "run cold" about a half mile before the hospice building.  Some had gone towards the road; some back into suburbia.

  Blood smear, cracked window glass at the front doors.  

  "It's the same all over Europe." 

  "Oh, you been?" 

  The group of ladies had taken revolvers and pistols out of handbags, stockings, bras, and waistbands. 

  "Just got back." 

  Duck!  Hide!  Within seconds all were out of sight. 

  "Then that'll be another one," the person knifing the hostage's elbow and arm behind back called back into the building.  "ON YOU!" He hollered and pointed the gun.  "Find out what they want."  The ear piece said.

  The North Carolina authorities were "all over it".  They sounded laid back all along the wires, but had a tempo and pace to their moves.

  "You kids better get back to school or training or whatever it is young professionals do these days," a somewhat shaky in the hand middle-ager everyone called Ma waved us back behind a perimeter being established in between Crime Scene and waves of foot traffic.  "Ma!  Put the pistolè back in your purse until I can check your blood sugar level." A frown, "Oh, alright."  She put it in her coat pocket.  "Na-ah.  Purse."  Ma looked at us "cubs" and sounded angry when she asked, "Whaddaya you the boss now?" One of us flashed a Detective's badge.  

  "Noooo shit." She opened her handbag, dropped the little .22 inside, and was closing it when she asked, "Wah, woo, woodya like I should empty the chambah?"  

  "I would like you to put the tape up, then come over here and sit with us for a quick visit.  We gotta go north." 

  "Alright kiddo." She put her hand back in her coat pocket.  "I forgot I had these," she pulled out lollipops.  

  The Detective flashed the badge again.  "The tape Ma." 

"I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT."

  The man gently slammed the door.  He closed it but not all the way.  The woman took two steps closer.  "Alright, I hearya darling, but you can't go around putting bullet holes in everything and," the door closed, "And not expect the rest of us to NOT WONDER if you might want to talk about something." 

  "Problem?" 

  "No, not really muttering." 

  "I DON'T have anyone for you." 

  "Really?!" 

  "Talk to me about the sheetrock." 

  "Like what about it?  Like the difference between horse hair plaster and gypsum?" 

  "How much the project needs." 

  "Guess I can head back home then.  Podunk's done with me." 

  "I don't have anyone for you since you exposed everyone's deepest psychological stress and desires." 

  "But I did not." 

  "But that's the word from Foggy Bottom." 

  "But it," deep breathing and suppressing an asthma attack, "It can't be.  It just can NOT possibly be so." 

  The man got up from a big desk.  "Seven newspapers on the West Coast say that you have done the very one thing YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DO." 

  The woman collapsed.

"Come in, come in, but

  don't step on anything," a man finished the sentence as a tiny crowd hurried in and things were stepped on. 

  "I'll just talk on.  Probably everyone knows I lost my job at the University.  But I'm keeping up with my lecturing," he lifted a foot in a dress shoe from a paper mache rider on a horse.  He smoothed both rider and horse as he told, "You may not know that the University itself is no more." Someone gasped.  A woman came from a three foot deep kitchenette area.  "Oh dear," at the sight of eight or nine people.  She made way carefully around the perimeter of the room.  Snagged a pile of books and magazines and as timing would have it, a rocket flew overhead, she jumped, the books crashed down, and the rocket exploded. 

  The professor sighed.  But knelt to help re-gather the books.  A young woman pushed her way through semi-frozen people and also helped.  She handed the books one by one into the woman in the kitchenette.  Then asked, "Sir, what's with all the strings?"  

  Sprawling the floor was a patchwork of string and yarn and rags.  "My dear," the professor said, "I'm so glad you've asked." The man took in the creation by looking down at it from his height.  His eyes misted, he rang his hands gently, caressed a side of his face, and almost started talking a few times before more seeing what's inside of the design.  At long last he spoke.  "Waves."

  Jesus was asym-metrical too.  In a cultural landscape where it was mostly an eye for an eye, he said, God's got a better plan.  It's called forgiveness.  "It's a real game changer!"

  More than one man speaking in tandem.

  And an older woman who'd survived WWII, "Part of the Allied's distinction in WWII from just joining the warring was it's commitment to honor." Translators paused the conversation to clarify. 

  Back when at this type of world coming together and differing on some serious issues we tumbled into comparing and contrasting certain concepts like honor and warrior in and out of cultural contexts.

"That's IN NEUTRAL on the stick then!"

  The soldier was angry beyond words.  It was his duty to defend.  The peacekeepers had been slaughtered.  An observer was crouched in a corner ranting to himself, then blubbering, then stiffening, then speaking rationally--excuses, he chided himself as he knew he would be, or presumed he would be.  The sound of boots stalk-walking the sounds of a man "losing it" included stepping on glass, something hard sliding in something viscous, hard surface floor or ground.  Breathing, slow, steady rhythmic breathing.

  There is no reasoning with what they are doing.  Everyone had been warned.  Knights from both sides of the European pantheon had signaled no easy end in sight.  Soldiers weighed their insight more heavily than all of the media coverage combined.

  "You cannot," a woman in tactical gear stayed behind the lead and answered, "Can I leave now?"  

  Deep underground came the sounds of rumbling.  The steam, where it found outlet, blew objects up into the air.  An entire sack of potatos hiccuped.  The rumble moved off.

  Because it is and it isn't an org right now.  A mediator spoke on a sat phone conference call from the field.  The little piece of tore up plywood in front of him was not really "armor".  It is being used as a vehicle.  Soldiers quietly surrounded the mediator.  One gave a swift, short kick at the bottom of the plywood.  It fell over.  The mediator looked like he was on a toilet.  It was a bucket.  And after the team captain vented his anger in the comment, that's in neutral on the stick then, he tossed some loose gut, stop it up pills over to the man.  Another soldier said, "That could be a grenade." The little cluster of militarized left.

 Hummuna, hummuna the woman said when "the smugglers" took the alien mask off yet another sample.  "Where'dya git it?" Another woman asked. 

  "Long, long story probably best answered by the people it 'attacked', then resisted arrest, flung some friends into a wall," the wounded came forward, "And was 'apprehended' for not having identity papers!" 

  "This is gonna be good shug, I'll catch up." 

  "I really do think people want their court TV back." 

"I suppose you think it's black people."

  The woman had pulled me away from a little clutch of reporters outside a courtroom.  Dressed in Sunday best to my wrinkled four day old outfit.  "I probably don't.  I don't see color."  She undid a purse snap.  "That's what my grandson said you'd say." Her smooth, well-taken care of hands paused on the big handle of the purse.  "M'am.  What are we talking about here?"  She looked across the hallway at the flag.  "That did this.  Who did this to Our Country."  

  I reached out and patted her hands.  "I'm just me.  As a journalist I just report on all sides.  I wish someone had not used that word, infiltrated.  But, from what I understand," she gave my patting hand back to me.  "Yes?"  I looked at my little stack of reporter's notebooks in my lap not confident I really understood.  "The pieces add up to the facts that somehow people did.  I mean, you know, I talk to a lot of people, and, and most people were not thinking about spys and operatives that would, you know, want to harm us." 

  "I know that." One hand was reaching into the purse.  "My grandson said to get these to you," she pulled a taped up envelope from the purse.  "He trusts you to," she let the envelope fall on my lap when I wouldn't just take it, "Do the right thing." She re-snapped the purse and promptly stood.  Smoothing skirt on her backside.  "Nice meeting you," she said.  Her heels not noisy but not unheard as she walked away.

  "Here hold this," the man thrust the boom at me and dug through his pockets for car keys.  "I'm just gonna put this here," a woman said as she wheeled a camera mounted on a tripod on wheels to where I'd sat on a knee wall resting an elbow holding a boom on my thigh.  "I have to run to my car to smoke."  

  "Vhat are vee vilming today?" A man in a vintage 50's suit came and asked me.  "Not entirely sure.  It seems like housewives but, er, the people seem, uh, foreign." 

  "Great to see you got some work girl," a hooded person cupped hands and hollah'd.  "Oh, I did not." I muttered.  "Get up," the camera woman ordered.  She snapped the battery case on a light meter closed.  "What are you doing here anyway?"  

  "Process of elimination," I head pointed to a skyscraper.  

  "Sorry to hear it." 

  "Oh, I wasn't aiming for the Networks anyway." 

  Two of the actors arguing were getting louder and louder.  A man in a jogging suit came and asked the camerawoman, "Is this in the script?" She snapped back, "I wouldn't know.  I'm not her."  She pointed the light meter at a woman with a script.

  "You're chariot has arrived," the normally pensive writer smiled at complex mission accomplished.  The other woman frowned.

"Most are not."

  To a question about "re-joining".  

  The young man had been grown up to not lose his perma-smile, since it's a dead giveaway on feelings like "disappointment".  In fluid situation such feelings can have groups losing part of themselves and/or individuals "mess up".  Not that anyone's perfect, but minimizing what's coming up for me, while a line of workers is going for timing, efficiency, quality, productivity, and "a big finish" even on tiny tasks, well, we'd been learning as we grew professionally.  

  There were qualifications, equivalencies, criteria, and challenges to be wrestled with in an interim.  That we'd lost workforce to an infiltrated "Federal" wasn't putting a fire under our collective American ass because, clearly, it's going to be better if we "safeguard" and "heal up" the parts of our self as a nation that shattered. 

  This was not the first Town Hall type meeting on all matters in the universe the man had attended.  But he was a deep thinker and his "back burner" was bubbling alongside listening.  

     The [airquotes] "special" people, er, ah, professionals will have further meetings for more details.

     "Because it took them so long to, I dunno, come to grips with all that has happened so far," a special friend had traversed the gulf between man and woman, husband and wife, to begin a third-party-involved conversation.  The man had been excited about "the news" even at the prospect of "it might be twins".  But, later he told, as the new reality of war took over "the new normal", it was like being on a bridge like the Golden Gate as a hurricane built, wrastled with, and demolished the infrastructure.  "Everything has to be weighed in considerations and re-considerations." He looked down at his feet.  Way before decision-making, when possible.

  Some of us were in awe at how much stuff teenagers had already gone through in just preparing for (and hopefully warding off) world war.

  A press conference type word from NATO.  Recent but clearly aimed at piecing military action into the puzzle of the future.

  Some important points:

  Europe and Canada will send 4-5 billion in monies for American weapons and air defense to Ukraine in July.

  Some countries are figuring out conscriptions.  

  China is doing a lot of build up without much transparency.

°°°°°°°°°°°°

  Taiwan is trying to work through civilians working with military. 

  Saw it on WION

°°°°°°°°°°°°°

  The U.S. is navigating where lines between the Services sometimes merge, sometimes chain, sometimes combination in situation like Venezuela and Border Patrol/ICE strategy.

The two trainers looked alike,

  so people formed two lines.  The bravest amongst us took up position up front.  Some people tucked younger siblings into hopefully protected spots.  Some middle agers kept falling back in line, some clustered.

  One trainer explained she was going to toss us the "medicine ball".  The other shook her head, yeah.  The one showed us how to "plant feet" and what zone our arms should be in.  The other bounced the medicine ball off her knee higher and higher into the air.  The one asked, "Ready?!?" The other hucked it into a person's stomach.  The person doubled over.  The one trainer put the ball down and went over to the person. 

  Everybody else got in her line.

The man was dusty,

  but not too many days from clean.  He'd been given a vehicle after winding up in Oklahoma on a bus from a midwest airport.  "Not a fun visit," he pre-warned youth that he had worked with as he waited to talk to ranking military.  

  "What's he doing here?" An injured contractor asked his wife.  She found out from the neighbors-who-know-everything.  Her sundress was torn on the bottom edge where it had gotten stuck on a nail.  She held the edge up like it might drag in a puddle now that it was torn.  "It's about the war," she popped open the cooler and popped the top off a longneck and handed it to her husband.  "But we're not at war," the man said.  He took a gulp of the beer.  Of the several people just hanging out, no one said anything. 

  The smell of bacon and eggs was coming from a little apartment above the General Store.  "They want you to come up Zetty." The teenage girl in red clay'd Keds had stopped about a dozen feet from the dusty man.  One foot smoothing a line on the ground.  Hands behind her back like an ice skater.  "Thankya lil miss." 

  Feet heavy on wooden stairs.  A small deck with fading stain, gray even in the sunshine.  A woman had cooked for the men.  She picked up her keys and pocketbook, kissed the dusty man on the cheek, and left.  

  The dusty man zipped up a zipper on the side of his pants and extracted a rolled and folded map of Europe which his dusty hands smoothed out on a small dining table.  The other men looked too big for the room.  Too not fragile to the fragile knick knacks.  Too tough for off-white rug and off-white loveseat.  But they were perfectly calm.  "Tell," one of them ordered the dusty man.  "It was a long bus ride, just kidding."  One guy looked at a taller, broader guy like, Is this a jokester?  Taller held up a hand like a crossing guard.  The dusty man pointed to spots on the map.  Maybe eight places.  His other hand outlined rivers.  "Flood prone.  No surprise, not choice land." He held up two fingers, and said, "Watch.  I will show you where the chaos will collapse into frontline."

  "You must leave," the dusty man was told.  "My love to your family Zetty."  Some were putting on glasses, one was taking off glasses, and one crossed his arms and focused on the faces of the others while glancing at the map.

  Outside, no people.  Just a four-pack of glass Pepsi bottles and some Honeybuns.

"I DON'T hate her."

  The man's eyes misted.  His face went slack.  "Then why'd you just backhand her?" People were streaming to and from getting hotdogs and beer from concessions.  

  The little woman had gone into shock and was against a wall, bent over looking like she was looking for something.  She dabbed at the drops of blood from her split lip on the concrete and was trying to put them back into her lip.  The other people from our never really parting as a unit caught up from the stadium seats. 

  "It's not about hate.  It's not about hate."  The technically "attacker" was with his arms blocking his face and blubbering.  This made some of us see him as he had been, pulled from the bottom of a latrine-house with face so swollen from boot kicks and fist punching he didn't look like our friend or anyone but a captured "terrorist".  

  Oh my God

  Oy vey 

  "We're a mess, but we'll catch up," a woman leader pecked a kiss onto the cheek of a newly with work "returned".  "You sure?" 

  "I can't promise."

  "It's been swell having a fifth honeymoon here on the outskirts of Beirut.  But it seems there are flights, south of here, south of the no fly zone." One woman started to cry.  She'd been robbed by the very man in the corner of the room.  The man with the gun out in the open.  All the singing had made him drowsy but not really sleeping.  He roused.  "Which piece of shit did you marry?"  Minds registered New York accent.  I looked at my feast friends.  Before I could pin it on anyone, my years of travel training kicked up my sense of humor.  But my quip was overshadowed by the hostage holder waving the revolver around at each potential "loved one" and him saying, "Darkie, right?!" 

  "Well, the rest of us are women so that would be the logical conclusion.  However," the women began cleaning up supper, moving about the room, casually standing in front of one another and "the black man".  He wants to get away with the money, so stay cool, an experienced cave dweller had intimated before going to a village for a "leg of salami".  

  I was memorizing all this on a bus in California when it got stopped and people in plain green jump suits held us up.  Separated from the bus had us seeking shelter in a common area vaguely attached to a "clinic".  Some elderly people gave us the skinny as they stretched and shook numb body parts.  Entire neighborhoods hostage to Commies.  Who'd apparently teamed up with all these Godforsaken liberals.  An elderly person knocked into a passing cart and took the granola bars that fell off.  "It's not stealing," he explained, "I paid taxes my whole life.  They took over our hang-out shelter."  

     "What fracas?" A woman with a very Long Island accent was on a big cellphone outside a plate-glass window looking in at five elderly people in paper gowns.  The Asian worker was still in a Communist uniform.  "Excuse me," the woman tried to grab the attention of a passing black woman in scrubs by grabbing her arm.  Her ripped acrylic fingernail scratched the medical person.  The medical person whipped medical scissors from her pocket, cut open gauze and a piece of tape, covered her scratch then looked at the woman.  "You need help?"  The woman pointed the woman's eyes in the direction of the windowed room.  "Why are they in there like that?" 

  "Which center is this?" 

  The woman threw the phone into a big bag and pulled out a crumpled up map.  She showed the woman where they were.  "Hmmmmm-hmmmm...then that's," she pulled a folded and laminated re-positioning chart/diagram from one of her pockets.  Pointed at the diagram, "Unclaimed Property." Both women looked at each other like getting something. 

 

  Just do one little thing at a time.  That was the advice.  "Yeah.  That's how the Colonials built America!" 

  Someone spit out good, dark Turkish coffee, laughing so hard and fast that someone would think of Colonials.  "Didn't anyone else?" 

  "No honey.  In this you are unique." 

  "I don't know why I do that.  I'm always thinking of them.  And frontierspeople!" 

  "History buff?" A man asked as two people helped him get the bomb-proof boots off.  "Don't look at my duff," he said when he went to put jeans on over his longjohns.

  "Not really a buff but it's like I feel connected to people through time." 

  One woman unrolled a nub of cheese in fabric.  Another boiled water.  Someone cut a crusty baguette into strips to dip in oil.  "It just doesn't matter the time period 

  or culture 

  people have challenges." 

  "Human condition."  Someone pulled a jar of olives from a knapsack.  Someone else looked in there for more food.  Tipped it over.  Bits of sand came out on the worn plaster tiles that were covered in dust so people had wet-fingered smiley faces and hearts.  "Huuuh, you went to the Sea?" 

  "Well, I am a mermaid when I'm not reattaching bits of body and transporting the barely living no matter where they get stored." 

  "Remember self-storing in AMERICA?"  Two girls got wide eyes and nodded.  People were taking slow bites and chewing and chewing.  "I just love a good olive." 

  "As opposed to a bad olive?" 

  "Like one bad apple?" 

  "No."  More chewing.  "Olives are different!" 

  "How so?" 

  "When they rot, they just rot.  They wither.  They fall.  They are rot." 

  "Like game over." 

  "Anybody been kissing anyone?" Someone asked before passing a canteen.  A few eewwws and an I wish.  "Not like stupid apples rotting other apples." 

  "Whooo would you kiss?" 

  Imagining and telling stories as dusk melted into darkness.

"THEY DON'T want us too,"

  the man's voice was gone.  Like many allied civilians he'd stood for hours and hours at a "gateway" of culture and travel and spread the word, something has changed.  

  Our friend was dressed as a sultan but had his business suit on too.  As men with machine guns were coming to erect a gate across the cultural gateway, a "checkpoint", he ripped off the curtain that had been hastily sewn together in a robe-ish gown that had survived him getting across a territory.  A woman shoved the heap of good material into an oversized basket-purse.  He stood with his briefcase and spoke in just a raspy whisper to one of the guards in German.  He refused to move his feet from the chalked line where the gate must go.  

  Children streamed past the little knot of us.  "You used to be so nice," said a tiny woman in black garb.  "NOW I KNOW," the man said.  "Those blow up." 

  As we worked to get the explosives like plastic puddy off of them each quarter's children were given health checks, identity cards (dependent of which nation), and snacks which would be taken at gateways, so you better eat it up.  Some spit on us.  Others were vomiting.  Most were crying once they reached the field tents.  Terrorism experts swarmed twin tents to sort plastic explosives from explodable devices.  Children who'd been forced to swallow fuel and batteries and wires and a ticking device or two were brought to special care.  Attendants gave real-time updates on what people--mostly women and children--were being told to say, to live from checkpoint to checkpoint.  Stuff like, I just want to be loved.  Interpreters and translators strung themselves out between bunches of people and individuals making way.

The boy ran wild-eyed

  through the cobblestoned alleyway and then in between plaster buildings.  The woman could not keep up in the same way.  She long-legged her stride beneath the long skirts and rounded a corner thinking ahead about where he'd pop out. 

  Another woman had stayed behind.  She looked at her wristwatch.  "I'll give them seven minutes." 

  After four a man entered the room.  Both man and woman towered over a woman and girlchild slouching over sewing on a table close to the ground.  A basket of sewing on the floor between sofa pillows.  "Pepè, what are you doing here?"  

  The man lit a cigarette.  The woman in black garb and a shawl tsk'd.  The woman plucked the cigarette from his meaty hand and threw it out the door.  "I heard they found another head," the man "whispered" his booming voice.  The woman mocked a surprised look.  Then said in normal speaking voice, "It was a soccer ball." 

  The woman sewing said loudly, in plain English, "She's lying."  A hand moved the basket of sewing towards under the table.  "Was futbol."  

"Did she save your ass?!"

  "There's really something in the tone of your question that implies," a frustrated, tired plop on the sofa.  "Don't get used to that!"  I got up.  "The sofa?" 

  Huhs, little breaths drawn in at a bedroom door opening.  "You girls are up?!" 

  "Coffee?" 

  "Rich and black I would hope."  

  Big cups.  Fresh cream in a carton.  

  "I don't usually, but would it be okay to watch the news?"  

  "It would be, but," the musician woman picked up one end of a long strand of beads and tucked these into a fold of long sweater as she sat on the oversized brown leather sofa with a knee under her.  Competing thoughts took her voice drifting quiet.  The literary woman sipped the coffee, considered the apartment, "Buuuuut, 

  "I 

  "You 

  "Don't have a TV."  A guffaw. 

  "Like in that movie, we don't have a radio." 

  "I do have one of those." 

  "Can we listen?" 

  The radio was turned on and tuned to news.  "Do you mind if I ask 

  No 

  "What are you hoping to hear?" 

  She turned and gave me the evil eye.  "What the fah?" She sighed and sat back down. 

  After listening to what sounded like a regular day's news for a few minutes the literary woman stretched.  "Are you angry?" 

  "Me?  Angry?"  The musician woman picked up a magazine and licked a finger to turn the pages.  She folded the corners up on some pages.  "Can I see?" 

  "No." 

  "But I want to.  I want to know what interests people." 

  "I have no idea where you've been for the last however long, and now we're going to sit here like, like 

  "Like what honey?"  

  She shot the evil eye at the literary woman.  She did not look away. 

  "We ended up in Latin America for a time because, can I say why?" 

  "Oh.  Do you know?" 

  "Was it a revolution?" Heads shaking no while coffee to mouths.  "Drugs?!"  More noooos.  "What then?" 

  "Visiting." The literary woman finally said.  "Cha.  Visiting."  Everyone to the coffeepot for three-way-split refills.