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.