"Stop hitting me. What do you want me to see?"

  "Those are our voting rolls," she said to a man tasked with "bringing it in".  A perimeter of safety into a dangerous zone.  The journalism of place overwhelmingly proving why a (i)distrust in America by Americans(i).  Marketing, public relations, and big money donors/investors paying a lot of people to break it down into "manageable bites". 

  A quick check of who in the region might know the legalese around which crimes.  "More than just supposed voter fraud?" A voice on a conference call pushed for a little more detail.  Some interagency people wondered aloud if the stolen rolls and recent targeting for violence-against might be connected. 

  "Like (i)totally(i) connected or just a lil bit connected?" A guy in kevlar half-heartedly mocked a "valley girl".  "Not as important as obtaining the evidence," a man warned. 

  "Speaking of," a woman nudged someone to see. 

  "FUCK NO." 

  "We have to get in there now." 

  A latecomer grabbed a post-hole digger instead of a door basher in the rushing to task. 

"How did the meetings go?"

  "No more talking about those." The man handed what looked like fancy fashion shopping bags to "the little woman with a big voice" and disembarked.  In actuality it was a too warm coat, dirty underwear, and a pistol.  The gun purchased for self protection after violence in a ceasefire. 

  "Where you staying tonight?" 

  "With you, but not now.  Look, new toy." Said with many layers of meaning.  As yet not confident in the American military's wherewithall.  "It shows where those," he pointed to the sky, "are most coming from." 

  (i)POUND, POUND, POUND(i) and a voice, (i)EVACUATE, EVAC, NOW, GO(i)

  "WAKE HIM UP! NOW, please." 

    Thick, thick smoke, voices bleary.  "FIND SOMETHING METAL, GO, go." 

  "Missile?" 

  "Fire!  In basement," pointing (i)down, down(i), person out of breath.  Strangers on a high-rise stairwell. 

  "Saboteurs." 

  Just a glint of silvery metal in a flashlight.  Spurs on cowboy boots. 

"Whaddaya say? Go tie up some guy's genitals

  with a zip tie, or..." 

  "Whatever the (i)or(i) is would be the better option." 

  "We need to leave here." 

  "He would know.  Trust me." 

  Even before Fallujah the people were sensing seismic battle, and also that sense of concrete.  The kabosh on college for now; the thick-headed stupidity of people partying in shelters;  the sinking dread of dead end.  

  A kibbutz on borderlands between more settled than nomadic people-area became a symbolic touchstone in days of conflict unfolding.  Young and poor, the combination of factors lent itself to questioning everything.  And the many answers of the wise and wizened which seemed trite or quaint until such knowledge was saving lives. 

  "Why would they do (i)that(i)?" A man who'd stuck with service and family asked a radio. 

  "Broadcast it out or the action itself?" A woman asked. 

  "Both.  Or no.  Help me move these waters onto the shelving." 

  "I think they put it as (i)news(i) because it's become too dangerous to try and win the settlers over to keeping sane and civil" she said as she hiked up a knee-length skirt and dove into offloading a palette.  "Is this all they sent?" The man nodded a yes and counted the trays of bottled water.  The numbers he wrote on a form that was like a middleman between accounting. 

  "You know, the other night an elder woman to us, but not a mench, confronted papa."

  "Why?  The war is not his fault." 

  "He'd made a point at weekly meal to say that (i)war is for the youth of a nation(i)." 

  "And what did Marion say?" 

  "How dare you sit on your plump ass behind fortress walls conducting a war but say it is the youth." 

  "I bet the meal went downhill fast." 

  "The guests left.  And two more bottles of wine were drank.  That night." 

  "I'm sure that helped." 

  "Even if it's up to the youth just to defend, there is growing issue with a future life.  But the aggression will be the death of us." 

  "Yep.  Where will we be with no generations because of vengeance?  That's why they harm people that way.  They are caught in the messaging of wiping out the other." 

  "I don't know who can change." 

  "Maybe no one.  Maybe it's in God's hands." 

"I can't give you all the details,

  or even any of them," said the resolute man.  "What kind of question is that?" Was wondered out loud on the earpiece.  "Piece of shit magazine type." 

  "They're jockeying for assignments bro." 

  "Because it's an open case!  An act of terrorism no less!  Against our nation!" 

  "He needs help.  I'm going down there." 

 

  Relieved.  Ears still ringing from the explosion.  Sent to see where activists and protestors had had a standoff with "out of touch" politicians. 

  "The footages have not all been pieced together but there's no question that some of the people that were here, were also there at that time, and maybe, hold on, hold on," fast forwarding and rewinding. 

  "Be easy on the tapes boys." 

  "Because it's not a free-for-all," suits had spilled onto the lawn chasing paparazzi-in-disguise out of the building. 

  "Is this a change in tone mate?" 

  A stone-faced middle age man saw the young person being asked that split second doubt the silent strategy and crept up behind the zoom lens carrier questioning.  Knees into backs of the knees.  Camera then hanging down.  Another suit pulled at it.  The strap rubbed against the man's neck.  A third suit, a woman, pulled a pair of scissors from skirt pocket and cut the straps. 

  "Let's get more.  Same way," the suits moved away from the man rubbing his neck. 

Red faces, people barely breathing.

  "It went as a free market lets it go." Said a man of his trial budget.  "We can ask for another disbursement," said a woman sent into the field to help keep things on track. 

  "What we can't do now everyone, is be totally transparent." 

  "About the money?" 

  A sigh and breath out.  Shoulders slumping.  Rubbing a swollen ankle.  "You should cut down on the salt.  Just saying." Said a medical person.  "The money, yes.  And pretty much everything else too." 

  "Why? Anybody want this wine open?" Nobody did. 

  "Overseas, there had to be filtering put in place as survivors grouped up and in some cases moved on to another area.  So what started as (i)you're either with us, or against us(i) was honed into trust exercises and real vetting.  This had to happen in union with our strategy.  And it was fierce fighting so we couldn't be totally open about strategy." The soldier rubbed his temples. 

  "Things get more compartmentalized." Said a woman who also then told about "being in" since Vietnam.  (i)Whoa,(i) some of the people present commented. 

  "They'll also be some division of labor." An older commander eyed a younger commander.  The younger laser focused on the coffee table asked a question.  "Why did the photograph lady get rip shit mad?" 

  "That's not what we're talking about right now." 

  "Yeah, but she did.  Smashed the loop down and..."

  "Let's try to get an answer to that but not right now." 

  "I know why," said another communications person. 

  "It's getting off topic and we don't have extra time.  But keep it brief." 

  "Someone up on the hill had an unauthorized photo published as PR and it was compromising of the Navy and really everything." 

  "Really?" 

  "It was before more careful censorship." 

  "Ok.  Let's try to agree about these points on the Minutes.  And if someone can't we need to know why." 

  "Right." A recorder held up different sheets of paper.  "All anonymous 'voting' since opinions were messing with the minds of the upper ranks." 

  "So why even have this meeting?" 

  "There's so much in the pipeline that needs a going over, this will help the people bringing our stuff to more general meetings." 

  "Wine anyone?" 

  Still no takers.

On and on about GDP...

  It felt like we couldn't get enough oxygen even in the outdoor corridor stuffed with cafè tables. 

  "Almost time to interview your neighbor," a man with bushy eyebrows said in English and this cut through the din of Babylonian-style lunch talk. 

  "Okay." A person turned on the little tape recorder's microphone.  "On my countdown, say (i)fungible(i)." 

  "Why that word?" The French woman asked. 

  "It'll sound good in his deep voice." The Jewish woman replied. 

  "Leave my (i)husband(i) alone.  Don't nitpick on him when he's stressed about making a talk." 

  "I'm not ahstressed." 

  "Here," money for espresso.  An eyeroll.  "Please?" 

  She went to the small line of people waiting. 

  "I just think it might be better to team up." 

  "So you don't think we know what we're doing." 

  "Did not say that." 

  "I'm sure our ineptitude is pretty obvious." 

  "Don't.  (i)Don't cry(i)." The man handed one of the women a linen napkin. 

  "It's obvious how?" 

  "Look at us.  (i)Pathetic(i).  It just took five women to pool coins from around the world to buy one espresso."  Crying. 

  Reaching to safeguard the one espresso and two bean sprouts gleaned from the counter, two women's hands knocked into each other and an unexcited voice reported, "Half an espresso." 

  "I'll only put my tongue in it." 

  "Ew." 

  "I meant as (i)my share(i)." 

 

"Pick her up out of there."

  "But you just said not to be under your orders." 

  "That's not nuclear waste fool," the man in jeans and wet sweater pointed down at the girl dog paddling with her feet. 

  "We're not your commanders anymore." Another man on a bicycle but not knowing to get off or go said.  His voice echo'd some in the cement tunnel.  "If we ever were." 

  "Oh God.  Here's a towel." A small-framed woman dug around in the bicycle bag.  "She's lost her arms." 

  "But the water's not bloody." 

  "He just said it's not nuclear water." 

  "Oh Lord," a shallow breath in to sigh.  "Still broken or I'd be in there me self." 

  "Are you English?" 

  "We've been British for a while in our neck of the woods." 

  "Don't look at my butt." 

  "Hard not to I need the leverage." 

  A smack.  "Are you one of those?" 

  "Intelligence?  Dumb as a rock." 

  "Why'd you smack me when she was insulted?" Jeans guy asked while feeling the heat rise in his cheek. 

  "Not insulted loves.  Just out of the loops for a while." 

  "Where have you been honey pot?  My pies are sucking.  Like cardboard.  That one called them cardboardy.  I'll pull, you push.  Aim for the towel." 

  "Don't 

  "Bite me again and I'm leaving you in there." 

  "Pull on my neck." 

  "Push!  Lift the butt cheeks like your a stool!" 

  "Stool pigeon fer sure." 

  Like a cork the figure, mostly metal boned, rose.  Four arms worked to get under armpits and (i)heave, 

     (i)HO(i). 

  "Bloody stuck on a bit of cable or something." 

  "Is my make up fucked up?" 

  "Fuck you for eating all those waffles." 

  "Hold up, hold up." 

  "Johnny cakes they called them." 

  "Shit, shit, tipping over." 

The line of freak veeks stalked the grid

of dirt roads.  Puffs of dust in a smear of sun and soil. 

  Sparse talking.  Budgeting drinks-for-the-day parched. 

  An amphitheatre of parking. 

  "Wait here." 

  A little photograph pulled from a vest with many pockets.  A gruff pull on a shirt collar.  "You claim this man is a friend of yours?" A suddenly worried nod. 

  A knock on the paper thin door.  It creaked open.  People having tea.  "Excuse us, have you seen this man or this woman?" Photographs food stained and crease-crumpled. "I gave them the visitor's pass (i)on lunch(i)." 

  A horn blaring. 

  "I just meant to beep it.  It won't stop." 

  "LOOK!" 

  People creeping low, then stopping in place. 

  "GET THEM I'M SICK OF THIS,"someone hollered and spit out teeth. 

  The getting away made it to partially buried vehicles, dune buggies. 

  A careful chase. 

  Twinkies hitting the windshield. 

  "We're gaining on them!" 

  "Give me the megaphone!  And turn it on this time." 

  Man driving glanced past woman passenger.  Hit the pedal. 

  "Watch it!!!!!!" 

  A hastily written letter: 

     It wasn't your fault.  Ours got squashed between humanitarian out and us coming in.  We got T-boned by the Syrians with chemical weapons.  We miss you. 

  Put with other mail.  

  Catapulted.

"Sprats brats!"

  "Is it the money 'cuz I could buy you lunch." 

  "Toast, tomato, avacado and sprouts.  I actually bring them the stuff from the Farmer's Market." 

  "And they sell it to you?" 

  "Hmmm-hmmm, but by the third bite I need this," she took a packet of mayo out of a skirt pocket. 

  "Where'd you get that?" 

  "Seven tenths of a mile, that way," the sandwich and the man's nose almost collided.  "Convenience store." 

"What's it look like boobula?"

  "Like, like, darnit ya know I suck at poetry." 

  "Like what?" 

  "LIKE SHAMU POOPED." 

  The wind gust clipped the tiny car TV and the man would've gone off the cliff too but for being tied to the others. 

"PUT YOUR BALLS TOGETHER!"

  Some people looked down, some people were staring at the baby fat faced man with the suddenly wild eyes. 

  "I DON'T KNOW WE WERE JUST TALKING AND IT CAME TO ME." 

  "We're not even supposed to have balls," a by-the-rules Science nerd-woman immediately started throwing bags around in her hatchback.  "You're obviously stacking!" A wild haired woman crossed arms, then went towards, then crossed arms, then went towards.  "Ladies! There's no need to fight," the guy with the idea took one end of a climbing rope off the back of a pick up truck.  People started chanting, (i)fight, fight, fight(i). 

  Other teams had gone for morning walks, shared strips of chewy fruit, swapped spit.  Still other people were self-isolating, various reasons like not getting movie stars and singers sick, conflicts of interest. 

  "She said," a young man pointed all around at the milling about group, "It had to do with the pace of everything speeding up and, and, a vagueness in the locust." 

  "Did you smoke the while scooby snack brother?" 

  The man did the (i)squish your head(i) finger thing.  "Only two tokes.  Not the point." 

  "Let him talk, he's a zero." 

  A team lead who'd gone off to "take a piss" to "where you gonna take it" came walking out of a dust devil.  Brushed the sand off his shoulders.  Adjusted his belt buckle.  "What are we talking about here?" 

  "Ixnay on de bawlsie idea." 

"Our reading was, well, uh,

  it was," the dried bloody faced man leant towards and whispered, "from the Bible."  A nurse swabbed the blood and put it in a cradle of many swabs.  Asked the man not to "donate" any bodily fluids.  "But I just did," the man's calm eyes furnaced mad.  He (i)hummmmmph'd(i) and flapped a long leather glove onto the arm holding the horse's reigns.  He shuddered his disdain.  "Around what?" A woman asked.  "Around (i)field politics(i)," the man scanned the horizon. 

  "So you all were reading the Bible?" The labeled Reporter looked around at a vast assortment of humankind. 

  The man waved people out of the way with both gloves in one hand, revealing a palmed pen, and dismounted.  "Help the Nurse get off her horse," another mounted man ordered. 

  "Most likely not all of us.  But the point is that," seltzer water handed to the man.  "One point on a 360° out here I would guess.  What was the passage? In the Bible?" 

  "It was (i)gospel(i)." 

  "Here's our inner circle's journal," a weathered woman with stern-looking lips started to hand it over when several lawyers stepped forward and body blocked the pass.  One wagged a finger. 

  The man tried to snap his fingers but they'd gone numb.  "Turn your back to them," he heard and complied.  "Everybody stand still while the crime scene is photographed." 

  "Crime scene?!" The man croaked like a bullfrog. 

  "Stand still." 

  An Army man thumbed through the datebook.  "There's readings everyday.  More than one." 

  Tears streamed down the man's face.  "Was it the night of the gunshots?" 

  "Yes," the Army man closed the leatherbound thoughtfully. 

  "Corinthians 14." 

"So, wait, you think

  "Us all thinks, Sir." 

  A finger in the air to magazine people.  "They tanked us in the market, but that's not the lead." 

  Receiving the thin portfolio, "Sorry, you all, would that be y'all, y'all think, maybe of course, that 'someone'," the man held up hands and marquee'd quotation marks, "Perhaps might be staging (i)last resorts(i).  Let them know, okay?!" He waved an open palm toward the real U.S. Army people seated at a folding table. 

  "What'dya give this guy to make him so much more personable?" 

  "Jesus, where the hell you been Mississipp?" 

  "Just orange juice," a Red Cross worker checked on a clipboard. 

  "Here's my Introductory Paragraph," she handed the looseleaf page up to the man on the soapbox.  "Guts of the Scientific Research on this are somewhere back there." The line of people changing their minds about ordering their lives went out the lobby door and around a block. 

"He's not really," the man

  threw something from a dumpster to a recycle bin, "One of these." A girl wretched.  Everyone was in plastic suits, gloves, booties. 

  "He just doesn't have normal emotions back yet." 

  A radio crackled.  "Got something.  Could be related." 

  Someone looked at a screen of symbols.  "That's like half a mile away.  I doubt it." 

  "That's not really what I'm saying." 

  "What are you saying then? And why be a dooshbag?" 

  "I'm saying we need you over here Sir." 

  "That's more like it." 

  The special vehicle's tires rolled over electronics smashed to smithereens, food bought in bulk but squished, and dozens and dozens of hospital gowns.  "You think they're all on the loose?" 

  "PULL OVER!" Someone in the backseat rattled the driver's seatcage.  Got out and bagged a gown.  Got back in.  "These are new." Thrown into the wayback with other shards of "the puzzle".  

  The baseball game on low sported a bat cracking and a loud crowd cheering.  "Did you know they pipe in the crowd these days?  For moral support." 

  "It should be here."  The intersection was not yielding the co-worker.  "Look!" Everyone turned heads to the right.  The co-worker.  Obviously arguing with a tow truck carting off a jet engine.

Bad Blood

  "What am I supposed to say?" On camera she appeared to be talking to a plastic spider plant.  She was back up, back up eyes on a remote surgery.  "Yes, I'm still here."  The Peoples' Clinic had been bought out by the State.  "Of course the family is a mess.  They think their beloved matriarch is dying.  And has been for like thirty-six months." (i)Ooooo, too close, too close.(i)  "Now I'm supposed to tell them, (i)we were wrong, they were wrong, somebody front door'd up, the rubrics got messed with, the standards were warpy...what?" 

  "Let the intern monitor the surgery and come with me please," a thin-haired similar looking woman appeared at the desk.  The excitement was palpable.  "What have you got?" 

  A hand pressed down on a shoulder ready to fly down to the urgent care room without locking the handgun away.  "A man in a barrel.  And a woman who seems frozen.  Just hitting the man over the head with a chalkboard eraser." 

  A special safe in the desk being locked.  "You serious?" 

"What else did you guys

  learn there?" 

  "See, it's a different understanding of the world." 

  "Like how so?" 

  "Like," a deep sigh, "Money isn't the only factor in the meaning of (i)forever war(i)." 

  The other guy refocused his eyes in the Google glasses and snagged a (i)notes(i) file for the desktop.  "And, there wasn't that dreaded classification of WMD, before 

  "Okay, great," said an outgoing team lead.  "Make sure you tell everyone else." 

  "WHAT THE HEAHECK IS THIS?" A woman had pulled a sheet off a real size reproduction of the outgoing team leader.  There was a palm slap imprint in the thin "skin".  The woman took all of this in.  "Wife had enough of missing you?" 

  The team lead shifted his weight in the office chair and put his elbow on the arm.  It fell off.  "Kids actually.  They've won this round." 

"Just GO. Get outta here.

  Remember everything our generation taughtcha.  (i)Go.(i). Live your lives."  The great white Indian put a foot down on the place where the hoop had been broken.  "Mine.  I will fix it." 

  "The political nastiness is (i)never(i) going to end," a scarred face poked itself out of a closet and scared some people. 

  "Look at them." 

  "Yeah, they just pack up and go on their way." 

  "That's because a military life goes on and on, but it's different for civilians." 

  "The public just gets dumped on." 

  "Like any of us knows what to do as the war, as the wa," another asthma attack.  "Leave her alone," a man rushed to her side and helped her sit down.  "Don't stress." 

  Someone went to a woman with a purse and dramatically explained asthma attack.  An inhaler was produced. 

  "I guess some good news at this point is that it's people dedicated to politics that are making way back to Congress." 

  "But the campaign." 

  "They all raised a lot of money in other ways too, so they can tone down all this." 

  "You know, I do feel better having met so many other people who are at least not apathetic." 

  "Yeah, we're leaving the rest of this to the political animals." 

  "Hey, they're not that.  But they are as disciplined as the military on strategy and acting once they get there." 

  "MY VIDEO!  LOOK, LOOK!  If you like Country music.  This is cool." 

"Girl," she said to the

person in the gorilla suit, "Nobody goes through cultural transformation without having some issues." 

  "Come on ape!  Come inside so we all can eat."  Others started making all manner of monkey family sounds. 

"We don't know what

  to do with our parents." The middle-aged siblings had gotten call backs on jobs they were interested in doing.  "In town for health care?" One stuffed a slice of devil'd egg into his mouth and shook his head vigorously (i)nooooo(i).  The other revealed try outs for pre-young-adults. 

  Someone graciously offered to hang with the parents at a day camp for austistic spectrum people. 

  "Bring the eggs!" 

  "They have their own food." 

  "For us."  The parents searched pockets for reading glasses, ponchos, and hydration tablets. 

"This is Xtreme."

  The rafting guide had ducked the river tour into a spit of earth on an island that had been worn into a ramp.  A man not really dressed for rafting wrung out his dress pants.  An observer noticed, (i)bulge in pocket, no bulge at island stop(i). 

  "It has to do with weight.  So much rain adds so much weight to our gear." 

  "And persons," another person tried to wring out clothing. 

  "Probably too many variables for it to ever be an Olympic sport." 

  "Then how do people live?" 

  "We keep it to friendly competition on this side." 

  "Right, it's not legal in our country to lethally eliminate competition." 

  "Someone's carved out a fire pit." 

  "Sandwiches anyone?" Someone else held up a grocery bag dripping water like it was a solar shower. 

"See how it's," the person

  started a sentence for the observer to finish.  "Like a fishtail?" 

  A nod.  "Once it's launched it gets it's swim on and can go pretty much anywhere depending on it's," a glance at photography of the night sky with and without the dark forms portending destruction.  "Payload?" 

  "Fueling technique, fueling capacity," the person drifted into thought. 

  Out of the pool.  Water streaming off bodies built to machine their way through all terrain.  Not that the people were the machines, but everything about their persons were being developed to precision and poise.  "Could rival," a coach who'd eyed the competition speculated. 

  People hungrily took their tags back.  

  "Why would they say that about the Tira Masoo?" 

  "What'd they say Darling?" 

  "Said there's no straight answers about how many people cross it." 

  "Well, that's not good dinner talk." 

  "How was your day?" 

  "Part of the answer has to do with where the fighting is.  (i)Fine(i)." 

  "And maybe also what a popcorn was saying about before 'monied'?" 

  "Probably.  There's always budget cycle and before it's hacked out there's a lot of 'army comparison'." 

  "How so?" 

  "Basics.  They've got 5000 troops.  They've got 25." 

  "Lotta mouths to feed." 

  "They don't feed theirs." 

  "No wonder so much infighting and, um, creativity on getting resources." 

  "Yah, thieving." 

  "Rape, pillage, and burning, nothing new under the sun.  Oh, and by the way, the Global Village messaging is not helpful.  Not with so many people defending their own lettuce patches." 

  "We'll be sure to let Washington know." 

"Just listen."

  "Everybody needs to stop blubbering.  That's number one." 

  People couldn't.  Wives and husbands smacked each other in the face.  Some couples followed suit on their individualized ways of helping each other focus, (i)right here, right now(i). 

  A person tapped into the Morse Code apparatus, "Our Editor has been shot in the knee with a poison dart." 

  Morse coded back was a question: Was it a tranquilizer? 

  The tests on the editor's body which had to be done by the editor using the one hand not paralyzed were not a match to any of the known "tranquilizers".  The apparatus coded back that the editor would be put on "the list".  The editor declined.  A taped-together walkie talkie informed everyone that the editor was not allowed to decline services. 

  "But then I met Melinda and I knew I was in love," the Cyborg explained to people missing limbs awaiting prosthetics.  Many had driven from several states away to wait and wait in a low profile, long hallway'd building rented by the CCP.  And it was many of these people who jumped off gurneys, benches, chairs, and in one case onto a Construction Site pole when what-looked-like "robo cops" entered the building with machine guns.  They formed two rows of threes as Asian men in underwear and not and shackled, were marched into the building.  

  The TV with the friendly cyborg changed into a static circle and that blew up into an angular faced black man.  The TV told, "These are defects.  Let them pass through to the Inner Chambers." The beings with the machine guns broke into in front, in behind, still at the door.  

  "Don't get sucked into the worm hole people," a white coat admonished the people sitting in the chairs seeming-to-be watching the television. 

  "Now everybody's pissed." 

  "I really could care less right now." The Team Lead stayed resolved.  Crunched more aspirin, gnawed on Beef Jerky, and drank black coffee.  "I need an update," he told the air.  "It's a wireless bubble," his good assistant explained.  The "bad assistant" had trashed his office, cut the lock on a file cabinet with a "finger nail", and stolen the Classified folders after a blanket "re-ghosting". 

  The update revealed all temps had left the building.  And both the Cultural people and the Military people were greatly annoyed.  Mostly because there wasn't enough time to keep abreast of (i)fluid situation(i), let alone hope to re-boot strategy. 

  The team lead tried to beep into a room.  The voice attempt was blocked.  He tried his swipe card.  That didn't work.  "They've already re-coded those."  

  "Kay.  This is a decision point.  And I need the team of teams to understand that there are currently instances of sistering programs.  That is being done so we can get a grip on what we don't know." 

  "Oh.  OH.  Can you leave this on.  She's a new chef the big wigs hired." 

  "No prob.  Here's the remote but it doesn't make the worm hole disappear." 

(p1)"The man came out of the building."

  (p2)"The man came out of the building." 

  (p3--the writer)"Got it." 

  (p2)"Did you find your mother?" 

  (unsub)"No.  Just this." Man started to hold up a three pound roll of bologna, person two: (i)Whoa, whoa(i). 

  (Team 1) "Okay, we're going to send in a Social Worker." 

  (Team 2)  "We wouldn't until the area is cleared of the ghost gun." 

  (T1) "Okay, where is it?" 

  (T2) "Believed to be in the bologny." 

  (P2) "There are robots heading down the back slope." 

  "Mrs. Potholder.  What are you doing behind the bookshelf?  Oh Lord." 

  "Put unresponsive but still breathing." 

"Who wrote that?"

  "Kurt Vonnegut for all I know, it's been a hundred lifetimes since I've been in school." 

  "Not the quote, the program." The person put in place to "co-exist" with the paid people blinked as if trying to wake from a dream.  "And, by the way, they are eliminating redundancies by the end of the week." 

  "So?" 

"I really don't know. You

  can prolly find out with your drones." 

  "Not sure either.  There was a routine campfire, everybody ate their one egg, and when I woke up this morning, just gone." 

  The camp counselors looked at each other, (i)truth(i)?  Truth. 

  For several days the salarieds wondered out loud.  Shock at the size and scale of the Forest.  The pounds and pounds of papered policy was undisturbed and left where it had been secretly (at great cost) delivered. 

  Shrugs and less snides by the few that had somehow kept their jobs. 

"Knock, knock, can we come in?"

  "They're the first guys!" 

  "Yeah, we're done discussing rape, breast cancer, lactating, and monthlies." 

  "Is this the writing workshop?" 

  "Yeah, the real life womyn's group is over." 

  "Be brave!  Cross the threshold." 

  "Hi." 

  "Whatcha studying this semester? Technically?" 

  "Writing.  Literary Journalism.  World Affairs.  And you?" 

  "Cyborgs." 

  "Why does the big tablet out there ask, (i)What is art?(i)" 

  "I think because it's a good question.  Plus the MFAIA had been in here.  And they are sort of torn and exploded on this whole life is art, art is life thing." 

  "And then mix in activism." 

  "That I don't do.  Getting up in the morning is as willfully active as I get." 

  "Did you go to the panel discussion?" 

  "The human rights thing?" 

"IT WASN'T OUR GOVERNMENT,"

  (p2)This is a group satellite chat, so be careful what you say.  Hi mom.  Here we are in the Space Age!  Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful here.  (i)chairs scraping across floors(i).  Aw, now everybody want to talk to mommy and daddy.  We're getting image.  Oh, you look nice.  Yep, dressed up for a kind of house meeting of wayfaring travelers STUCK HERE AT THE MOMENT because of the travel shut down.  (i)gun butt smashing nuts into another metal chair(i)  Nope, don't need any money wired, it's not hard to save money in times like this.  (i)a hand closing a lap top.  a gun placed between person and lap top.  a person getting up and dragging metal chair shackled to.(i) 

  "Put in pile." 

  "Scorned women.  You don't have to be that." 

  A kicking in of a door.  

  "You're right.  She doesn't." A drop kick.  Face punches.  Two not very big guys.  A pistol shooting out the door lever on another door.  "Get them up!" 

  "Women.  Always laying around in their underwear.  But what good fortune, so many."  The women struggling to get unpiled.  "OW!  This one bites." 

  A hallway.  Man with bloodied boxers, hands behind back following along.

  Laptop on lap, chair with shackled woman being carried.  Another room.  

  Hours go by. 

  Voices.  "We found them in there." Door being opened.  A man in a doctor's white coat and two women nurses with loose fitting street clothes over uniforms.  "Let's get them upstairs." 

  Days go by. 

  A familiar face.  But with bulky eyeglasses and a briefcase.  A note pressed to glass.  

          MY CLIENTS. 

  Let in. 

  "First question.  Where are their pants?" 

  Barely a glance at them sitting in chairs.  "Why they need pahnts?" 

  "Ok.  Next question.  Who are they?"

  An unenergetic shrug.  "Maybe you find out." 

  A wander towards.  A comparison of faces to paperwork.  "You there." No one looked up. "Why is your hair singed?" No answer. 

  "Right then.  I'll need to go to a store.  I'll be back." 

"It was right here."

  Desert all around. 

  "The bomb landed and we, we," she shook her head a little. 

  "Did you bump it?" 

  "No, I, we, I can't hear yet." 

  "We'd run along the barricade on the road until it bottlenecked.  People with rugs and goats.  We sort of spilled into the desert." 

  "There it is!" The car had been pulled and then pushed into a line of (i)leaving(i).  "I can get it open." A man in Afghani clothing and boots opened a hatchback.  Broke a tripod into two parts and used the single leg to pry open the door.  A sachel was retrieved.  And a light sweater. 

  "There's no place to go! Go home! The road is ruined!" The man shouted in three different languages to all the people just waiting.  He got quiet as we approached a pick up with surface-to-air rocket guns.  People put whatever they could on their heads and formed wavy lines of stragglers on the other side of the cement.  Until nightfall. 

  Weeks go by.  Just chaos. 

  "Nobody cry or let on." 

  "We had to bring Pearlman home." 

  "And they went through his shit." 

  "You mean, his body?" 

  A slight nod and a hand involuntarily to cover a mouthful of response turned into a forehead scratch.  "We had to look in his journals.  No one knows where half of your stupid, stupid age group of people are." 

  "(i)That(i) is what you two should focus on.  (i)NOW!(i)"  Forcing the breath to breathe and the words to come out.  Curving the wills into orders. 

  "It's not that easy to explain.  What we know is that," eyes scanning passers by, searching for a Higher Power to help explain this and everything else.  "That it's more like a Corporation at the moment." 

  "That must be why.  Some diplomatic people were sent with Private Security." 

  "There's like a bend." 

  "Waxing poetic?" 

  A slight nod of the silk head scarf had it slipping to reveal trembling lips.  "I'm told there was in World War II." 

  "She's not a historian." 

  "As the Allies occupied on top of other layers of occupation, there was a bend of forces," choosing words like choosing the most delicate scallops in a potful.  "We have to be careful not to use military words (i)except(i) when quoting them." 

  "I must bring them now." 

  "Where?" 

  "You all stay here.  To the embassy." 

  "This is as far as I can go." 

  Blown out buildings, graffiti'd barricades, no people.  "Don't get out until I read this and pay." 

  "Why does this say Assistant?" Nobody responded.  Paper money pulled from a billfold with different currencies.  "What does it say?" 

  "How much?" Figuring with a pencil and paper. 

  "Why would an ambassador-type meet with me out here?" 

  "This much.  American." 

  "I don't have American.  You can take this money or nothing." 

  "I tried to schedule the photo op for earlier at the embassy." 

  "Everybody get out." 

  One person did.  Which brought people out to a street corner. 

  "Get back in." 

  Doors locked. 

  "Roll down the windows and (i)get out(i)."  She took the bills but for an adequate pile out of the billfold.  Reached it to the driver.  While the driver was counting the money, also reached up and unlocked the doors.  Badly jumped out. People also in the backseat pushed and the person who went out the window's pant leg was stuck.  "PULL!"  (i)Rip.(i)  "I can tell my tooth is broken." 

  More people.  Signs for "World Peace".  Beer bottles with ripped up fabric sticking out.  A torch thrown just as another vehicle drove up.  "Get in!"  Hand closed in door being pulled shut.  "It won't close.  Move over!" 

  "We are six ON ONE SEAT!" 

  Car squealing tires in reverse, back and back to a cafè'd sidewalk.  "Time for an espresso?" 

  "Get out!  Everybody out." 

  "Who's got the camera?" 

  "Hold on." 

  "Don't." 

  "Are you the defiant one?" 

  "Are you fucking serious?" 

  "Let's just take the picture right here," an arm waving at the people seated but then evacuating the sidewalk. 

  "We lost the camera." 

  "How was Beirut?" 

  "None of us would know." 

  "We saw you come from that side." 

  "We DID NOT." 

  "Take the money inside and get black coffee.  Go." 

  "Some writers have done research into the Beirut business." 

  "Not us.  We're academics." 

  One man from the front seats grabbed a guy from behind, twisted his arm up like a chicken wing, shoved his face into a table that collapsed, so he yanked the arm broken and smashed his face into a sandy wall.  People came out of the cafè with half a dozen cups of coffee.  These were thrown at the thugs. 

  A .9mm pointed at one of the women and a steaming faced man saying, "You're next bitch.  Don't think that's not a fact." 

  Spitting. 

  Driving off. 

  A cook bringing out a tray of just cooling chocolate croissants.  "Just in time for sunset mademoiselle." 

  "Oui.  And more coffee." 

"Are you gonna parachute out?"

  A hand squeeze.  "Not on this trip.  I've already lost my muscle mass." 

  "Maybe we will." Said a tall, muscled boy in a tight oxford shirt. 

  "Who are they?" 

  "We're all from the country," a ragged, short-haired girl said.  A guy leaned across three seats to shake hands.  "Come because we care about this Country." 

  "That's a common theme again." 

  "That's the good news.  But I read Sociology reports all night and there's still a lot about ourselves we don't all know." 

  A steward gave a "head's up" p2p...we were going to have to ditch our pillows. 

  "Like what?" 

  "Have you heard of rap music?" 

  "Sort of I guess." 

  "That's sort of influencing more music to speak truth to power." 

  "Not only power.  Or, it's about other stuff too.  Like, how we are failing to step into our own power." 

  A stewardess carted a steward towards the back of the jet.  "We'll be coming through for your reading materials." 

  "NO WAY!" Someone stood and declared.  "I agree," somebody else stood.  Others stood.  One guy shoved his down the ass of his pants. 

 

The TV crew threw it to an anchor, so

  the anchor could communicate with "above ground" general communications and LIVE NEWS. 

  "We're going from weather to sharks here on the West Coast.  Stand by." 

  An Aussie accent rose above the din of beachside cafe, "Did you say sharks?" 

  Women with microphones and mostly hair being shoved around by "breeze" stabbed at the air between the two men. 

  The anchor pursed lips together tighter as a sign language interpreter cussed and told the back up interpreter, (i)he's being close-lipped(i).  On video recorders in the round everything was happening like a silent movie. 

  "Hav-i-ee." An in-studio news crew answered a cue phone.  "An earful of voices," told an audience of locals.  "(i)SUPPOSED shark attacks.(i)" 

"I did. I ran the numbers.

  "Half the people are (i)garbled(i) and half the people are writing about them." 

  "God I love a DemocRACY." 

  "Gotta love it." 

  "I don't.  I don't have to (i)love(i) it.  I don't HAFTA love anything or anyone!" 

  "Bitters anyone?" 

  "Did you take my picture?" 

  "We're not even supposed to have that thing." 

  "Who changed the bike path?  Without my permission?" 

  "It just kinda happened." 

  "How (i)shorty(i)?" 

  "I thunk it was The People of The World Onsamble." 

  "And who gave the Junkies paper?" 

  "Did that start the bust?  Busting out.  The busting out of the Ice Castle?" 

  "And who is going to 'just float' out their and get those people?" 

  "Have I seen you on TV?" 

"Honey you can't be in here."

  "Okay, but don't say (i)can't(i) 'cuz then I'll want to." 

  "Okay, I'll say (i)shouldn't(i) but don't call me cuz." 

  "Why can't I?" 

  Before the woman in the flowy clothes could answer, a tall ebony-colored man in very shiney shoes stepped away from a box of rattles and looked down at the little women.  "Don't call us shorties," one said.  His voice was deep and rich but stuck in his chest.  "Because we're about to get (i)ethnic(i)." 

  "And you think we're 'too white'?" 

"Honey, why is

  everyone in the neighborhood jumping off a cliff?" 

  "I'm not jumping off a cliff," said the man in the blue suit, red tie, standing in the open doorway. 

  "And where is my mountain bike?" 

  The megaphone contraption was mounted on a soapbox.  It told the Sea, (i)because some STUPID parent OR PARENTS said, and I quote, NONE OF YOU WILL EVER AMOUNT TO ANYTHING(i). 

Lady answers the phone,

  "End of the world; May I help you?" 

  "Ew, no.  I was told this was the Library of Congress phone number." 

  "Not in a total blackout.  Not tonight anyway.  Besides I'm at home and I've slipped into something more comfortable." 

  Guy covers the payphone mouthpiece with a hand palming an alcohol wipe.  "Lady, do you think this is your husband?" 

  (i)click(i) 

  "Call back, call back." 

  Fourth ring answered.  "Are you some kind of pervert or something?" 

  "Me?!  You're the one who told me you're in your nightie." 

  "Who is this?" 

  "One of the professor's students." 

  "Is he," a hesitation, "Teaching everyone well?" 

  "Oh yes.  But most of our group went off together and we got held up at the restaurant." 

  "If you need to know where he is, you'll have to call him because I don't know." 

  "Well, that's just great.  He threw his in a fish tank.  Do you know anything about a vigil?" 

  "His cousin Vergil?  What's that static?" 

  "A VIGIL I'M NOT SURE WHICH MINISTER." 

  The line went dead.

"She hasn't come out of there."

  "The transport blew up Sir." 

  Long legs crossed the makeshift "room" and arms and hands windmilled papers and photos and flattened life jackets sent as part of desert survival all over the space.  Hands found neck, neck and body to sandbag wall.  Feet off the ground.  No time to choke.  Faces livid purple.  A knee to the groin.  Running away. 

  "You're (i)fired(i)!!!!!!!!!" This broke the silent hours of the night like a screamer/missile. 

  "It was some sort of old school apparatus." 

  Face slumped, worn soft by the out-rage. 

  "One group told us it was to tow the ta, transport.  Like a donut on top.  A donut on a stick.  And a chain threaded through moved it, but it had some sort of radar in it, so, it, (i)yawn(i), jostled the front line on the screens the guys use.  Then they slammed it around.  TBIs.  We got some out before it blew.  Into bits.  Rough shape.  Casualties outnumber survivors today." 

  "We don't lose.  We don't give up.  And we don't lose.  Not ever."  The man had finished putting on a special jumpsuit.  "Is this the file?"  No answer.  "Take all of them.  The files.  They are coming.  (i)Go.(i)" 

"Our train was late."

  One explained to another.  A shirtless man with a deep gouge wrist to elbow sniffed the air.  

  "And then we realized they disattached the car with the supplies." A chunk of train tunnel smashed into the concrete floor and burst into powder. 

  "Why are all these people half naked?" 

  "We'll find out." 

  "Here, take these." Filter straws. 

  Fires and choking smoke.  Militants in head scarves.  Blood and guts from tramplings.  Shouting in speakers.  "What are they saying? The over and over part." 

  "Now you are nothing, and we are in control." 

  Heaps of military uniforms.  Mounds of purses and wallets.  Flags in oily grime. 

  "Take these," a man and woman giving stacks of credit cards to armored figures with machine guns. 

  "If.  If we survive until some Allies get here." 

  Bomblasts and crumbling ceiling added to the density of the thick air.  People passing babies and small children towards the rails, and down under the ledge of platform. 

  "Why can't they stop the terrorists?" 

  "We don't use that word." 

  "Right.  What is extreme in total war?" 

  "I wonder if it's like some other places in the world where no one can dislodge workers in career streams.  And the workers are all interchangeable." 

  "Well maybe that, and, one cannot legally accuse a criminal without a trial, without evidence." 

  "And, one cannot assume someone will repeat offend.  Or, pre-accuse someone of being violent.  They get freed and are re-taken in by some groups." 

  "Stretch your leg.  Reach that bottle of water.  I have vitamins." 

  "THIS PLACE IS NOT ON THEIR MAPS!!!!" 

  "FUCK." 

"Look at what they gave us,"

  she announced. 

  "For what?" 

  "Did you aid and abet?" 

  "Give them money?" 

  "Eat any of it?" 

  "WHERE DID YOU GET THAT?" 

  "The Chinese studio." 

"Bring it!"

  "Yah know, I don't even know if I can find the place again."  Three chairs blocking the door.  "And you're just a musician how do you suppose you're going to fix this?" 

  "First of all," a tall, skinny sofa table behind the chairs, "I'm not (i)just a musician(i).  I'm also an (i)activist(i)." 

  "Oh great!  I'm (i)sure(i) that'll help." 

  Bare feet on the chairs in the door crack.  "Who else is in there?" 

  "None of your BI." 

  "Give them this one." From a folder of hand drawn on papers.  

  "And if you can get back in, find this guy, and give him these." A business card and pages of story.  "Can I read it?" 

  "I wouldn't." 

  On the knee wall was the champagne bottle hacked at with a pocket knife, next to the bottle, missing the cork, but full. 

  Painter's tape covered all the names and buzzers.  A ball of yarn and clothespins hung out the window.  The hand drawn sign was attached with clothespin and pulley'd up. 

        THIS IS NOT A VIDEOGAME 

  A turn to leave. 

  A cab hailing whistle. 

  A head in a towel, the (i)wait, wait(i) finger held up. 

  A piece of paper coming down on the yarn, a half-eaten banana as a weight.  Blue ink. 

        NO SHIT 

  Another turn to leave.  Another whistle.  Another note. 

        Where is she?  

  A ripping off of tape.  (i)Buzz, buzz, buzzzzzzzzzzx(i).  "Like I'd tell you." 

  "Like hell you won't if I let you in." 

  "You gonna rip my fingernails off?" 

  Door opening.  Not the towel headed person.  "You better make this quick.  We're grooming them." 

"I'll go with you!"

  Middle of the night. 

  "I would not." 

  "I'm sure we can sort this out." 

  "You're both fruit loops!" 

  "Whatever you've done, we can deal with.  I can get more jobs.  Let's go." 

  "Whoa.  I mean, this is a whole different level than being put in a cage for overdue library books." 

  "What (i)did you(i) do?" 

  "I told the truth." 

  "I wasn't in this Country at the time." 

  "I write books." 

  Everyone looked at the $37.48 between us on the table. 

"Why is the building's alarms going off?"

  "New facial recognition (i)doorman(i).  Did you get the champagne?" 

  The two people were speaking to each other on an intercom system, but could see each other.  She left the bottle of champagne on a knee wall and waved a (i)have a good time(i). 

  People inside the high rise kept talking through a scientific theory about heat domes. 

  The buzzer buzzed.  "Oh she must have decided to come up." 

  A glance out the window revealed a woman swatting the air around her hair.  Looking up.  A look of horror.  Then running as a drone dive bombed at the target. 

"Why on earth are y'all so,"

  the woman's voice almost echo'd in the hallowed hall and she sounded like she was whispering when she got close to the group.  A group of individuals.  Individuals sharing a foot long piece of duct tape cut into mouth-size pieces that signified, (i)I can't talk about that, not here, not now(i). 

  "Can you repeat the question?" 

  "Why is everyone on the planet so isolated from each other?" 

  "Yeah, like we aren't trillions of humans.  Or one nation under God." 

  "You first." 

  "I cannot.  I cannot speak to any of this." 

  "The lawyers got to you?" 

  One person shook head, (i)sadly, yes(i).  But somebody else said, "Because I am truly NOT partisan,  and my role in this big beautiful world and nation is to defend this Country." 

  "I cannot (i)betray(i) my Country." 

  "How would that happen?  Did it have to do with the request?" A head shake yes.  "But wouldn't it just be like educational to explain to a citizen how the renovations are all bunged up with Congress's health care and some trash can in a park in Montana?" 

  A weak (i)hmmmmmmm(i).

  "I suppose, if the citizen wasn't an investor, some explaining might could happen." 

"Your mother's on the phone."

  "Hi." 

  "This is your mother." 

  "So I've been told.  Thanks for having me.  Everybody okay?" 

  "Yeah, I'm letting you know something." 

  "Okay." 

  "I did some soul searching and feel renewed in my cause." 

  "Okay." 

  "I'm going to see the Pope!" 

A hand smooshed a

  face in a different direction.  Up close an ear heard, "I just think your ethics are blurring with my law." 

  "Away, AWAY!" A passing Magistrate's Aide hollered.  But the pile of people scrambling for the copy of the Constitution knocked out of someone's hand was grid-locked and writhing in a very most reserved way.  

  A skinny man walked up with a briefcase and set it down. 

  A tank-topped person also walked up, put hand on the gun in his waistband. 

  A little woman blew a whistle and everyone froze as authorities sorted out the pile and the chain of events. 

"Looks like the freaks found something to sign."

  Some Congressguys grouped up to fake falling into a table and knocking the proposal onto the floor.  Seeing this unfold in a crowded room, women stepped between the aggressive young men and the junior Congress person with a look of shock but ire on his face.  A senior Congress person came over and introduced himself. 

  

  "They are bullies.  I know their Greek fathers." 

  "Are you being philosophical?" 

  A chuckle.  "Frat boys." 

  "I get it Dad! You're independent-minded and stubborn and you don't want people to steal your ideas before you sell them your ideas.  I get it.  But for Christ's sake," woozy, had to sit down, "At least communicate where the fuhfront you're going.  We're all political targets too!" 

This was a crisis.

  It was manifesting in worldwide elections, economics, and between equally statured grown ups.  It was metaphored for many of us as cracking in ice. 

  The buzzword was "trust". 

"We'll have to make our own."

  A skateboarder wheel-ambled up, popped the board up with a foot, and laid it wheels-to-sky on top of some surfboards. 

  "What?" 

  "Magazine pages.  Think local." 

  "Cue cards.  Try not to be obscene." 

  "I've got an idea," a girl traveling in an RV with her parents said. 

  "(i)Whoa, whoa(i) Easy on the idea part of free-style time m'am."  A man with an arm on a shelf taped to his torso winked; "I'm the recorder for this session." 

  "Look, lemme get the storyboards to explain." 

  "What kind of (i)session(i)?" Some totally decked out hippie chicks literally peeled themselves from the inside of an old van's floor and seats and peered under and over and through sunglasses to involve themselves.  "Likeah Leary kind or a music kind or a thurpy kind." 

  "You cougars jam?" 

  "Oh we jam alright." One elbowed the teller.  "'Specially since we hooked up with the Pioneer Woman." 

  "Wait, what?" 

  "You all hooked up in there?" A young, black, professional historian started to back away from the van. 

"We're just telling stories,"

  a large crack in the hotel wall cracked even more. 

  "Someone should have that inspected." 

  "And getting reading recommendations." 

  "Off to bed children.  I'll fill you in in the morning." 

  "Somebody better fill that one before morning," a man looked at the shape of a small mortar in the cement floor behind the bar. 

"You can't write about that anymore,"

  people were told once they'd paid for their travel and boarded the planes.  Some people tried to get off of the planes sensing the absolute danger. 

  "Heard he slept with a Kpopper." 

  "He did not," his mother held up a little red flag.  A stewardess tried to unbuckle the flight attendant seat belt and found it magnetized or glued (i)clicked(i).  One still standing came out of the cockpit and locked the bathroom door lock quickly transferred to protect the pilots.  She put the key down in her bra. 

  A man visibly shaking stood and faced the people behind him.  "Who here has been writing for magazines?" Another man stood and clipped a badge that read, LAWYER, to his suitcoat outer pocket. 

  A woman on a gurney cried out in pain. 

  Another woman with a face so swollen, black and blue, and blood coming out of crevices, that people winced and oh'd and broke into whimpering said, "I just need you all to see me and then," people started to get up and move towards her mostly because she was near an open door and the plane had started down the runway, "Then I am taking two aspirin and resting."  She sat down and a friend-for-life put a grocery paper bag over her head. 

The footsteps coming down the basement palisade were

  soft. 

  Of the dozing people only two seemed to hear them.  The moustached man put a giant father hen hand out flat as if it were on a drum.  The hand signed out the game plan. 

  "Stuck in there?" Two sets of eyes behind a desk top as a spit shield asked of the man behind the even more giant bars. 

  "Is Ted in there?" One asked after answering a flip phone. 

  The man's hands raised to his face and subtley pulled at the moustache.  It didn't come off.  His voice boomed and was self-reflective at the same time.  "I can't say I need your help." 

  "Then don't," a speed dial (i)no(i). 

  "Yeah, we haven't seen anything." 

  "Have a good night." Together the pair backed down the hallway.

"My question is:

  "Why are you guys so mean?" 

  The question had come from a section of "audience" still dressed in work clothes, dress pants and skirts and dresses.  The meet-your-neighbor style Intro to the Outdoors day event had quickly moved from "There's the river," to a Q&A when two rafters had a bit of a mudfight.  "Are they trying to kill each other?" A child took a grown up's hand and asked.  The group "organically" veered away. 

"Come in, come in."

  "What are you doing back here?" 

  "Airport's not letting anything out." 

  "That's too many directors in the same room!" 

  "Not if we don't fight." 

  "Have you seen this one?" 

  "It's pretty funny." 

  "Night." 

"Dead batteries shurh."

  The Sea Pilot's face was burnt skin stretched over skull so this news was received with no facial expression.  Just a slight turn of the head. 

  "Vhat vould oooo thaid?" 

  The people who'd boarded the vessel had put themselves in a (i)best function(i) order and two young people started to put aloe and gauze on the pilot's face and hair-gone head.  It took maybe twenty seconds for the pilot's hands to raise and beat the air. 

  "I have the messages," a middle-aged mom patted a locked tummy pouch. 

  "We've not been allowed to report.  And these boat passengers haven't been able to report position." 

  "I'm shocked." A man said sarcastically. 

  "You should see what people donate as AID," a woman explained as the man put scissors in his mouth, sinched his waist elastic, cut the extra and put that in the beach bag to disembark the vessel with Commanders only passing through. 

  Real sailors boarded. 

  "The jist?" Someone asked someone. 

  "The media called 'it' a cork in a tinderbox and an analyst tried to explain without explaining what a 'straight' means (i)geographically(i)." 

  "Of course." 

  The last of the daylight disappeared. 

"Sir, may I ask

  A paparazzi used a paper megaphone to holler, "Let's just skip the mother may I's." The crowds surged forward. 

  "It's Mr. Graham right now.  What was your question Miss?" 

  Fellow Republicans filled in the spaces around the speaking men so they wouldn't get knocked over and "trampled".  

  The girl stood her ground in a sea of people slithering past barricades.  "What were you venting about Mr. Graham?" 

  "Honey, I am a man of feelings.  And it hurts me that half or more than half of my fellow Countrymenpeople think myself and this gentleman," he waved a crushedbone wrist and hand at the "generic" Mr. Paducah, "Are (i)racists(i)." 

  A firecracker popped somewhere. 

  People started scattering and running again. 

"Why are you

  wearing a fake moustache?  Duck!" 

  "Colonials must have been shorties." 

  "Hardly all women." 

  "Okay, look at this map in the emergency lighting." 

  "What are you having for lunch?" A Rosie-the-Robot filemover asked as it ran through the paces. 

  "Feels like we're in the future already." 

  "Look at this," the moustached man threw down a Directory page, (i)pissed(i). 

  "How is anyone else supposed to look at something you've thrown on the floor like a toddler?" 

  "Pick it up," the man said vaguely. 

  Some moved to and a Personal Trainer suggested, (i)I would not(i). 

  "Hell no!  I've been kicked enough on this visit." 

  "Yeah, I'm kinda over being a doormat." 

  "What's angered you?" 

  The man scooped up the page.  "See how easy it is." He put a perfectly manicured thumb nail under the name Greenspan and pointed with a pointing finger through all the dots over to the room number. 

"I am going to deem it vigilante activity the next time

  that happens," the owl told the people gathered near the alcove. 

  "What happened?" A Press track'd student asked a Judicial track'd student. 

  "Um.  Best I can say is that things got out of hand again." 

  "Any legal action on this?" 

  "Not yet because everything's been done anonymously." 

  "Are there people in there?" A Multicultural Advocate asked of a coat closet. 

  One person nodded.  Another said, (i)maybe(i). And a third stepped closer to listen.  As he did so several other people made all kinds of static noises.  "What are they doing?" An Explainer pointed to the closet and said, "They're in there with a Shrink to expel feelings.  And these are making white noise." 

  "Why are they expelling their feelings?" 

  "They want us all to be robots!" An Intern snapped. 

  "Burn out?  You know there are meditation classes for you all." 

  "Us all, like we're one intern." 

  "Let's ask."  (i)knock, knock, knock(i). 

  A mentor Senator opened the door. 

  "Time to talk Sir?" 

  "Is it that time already?" 

  "It's only 7:17, but I meant, do you have a moment to talk to the students?" 

  "About what?" 

  "Why you're in the closet Sir." 

  He looked at the door frame and said, "Oh, I suppose I am." Shut the door and thanked everyone for the opportunity to vent.  Then came out gently closing the door behind him. 

  A student expressively raised eyebrows and flash bulbed a camera with no film.  "Did I say you could take my picture?" 

  "We don't really have to have permission." 

  "Let me see if that's true." He looked in a work-in-progress policy book.  The part about photographing was highlighted in gray.  "I guess it's a gray zone right now." He walked to a backless bench and sat down.  The policy book beside him tabbed with different color'd sticky notes. 

"I can't afford to p, pah, pay for the

  pod." 

  In an orange jumpsuit the man spoke into a (i)recorder(i).  Pulled up from the seat in shackles.

  "What's in the pod?" One man asked another. 

  "I dunno." 

  "Maybe the equipment he stole," an agent was handed a file by an assistant. 

  "What's going on here?" 

  "Things went screwy." 

  "When?" 

  "When some of the cities went fully self-serve." 

  "On what?" 

  "Oh, you know, parking, cab rides, gambling, movie making, torture." 

  "Yeah, but public's still public, right?!" 

  "Depends on whom you aks." 

  "What's that supposed to mean?" 

  "That's the fifth person to walk in here with a loaded firearm.  Out and ready to use." 

  "Are you gonna kill yourself again?" 

  The lady picked up a desk phone, dialed, re-picked up the handgun and absent-mindedly waved it around as she explained for the third time that she understood things had changed but a schedule is a schedule." 

  A man smushed down the dial tone button and reached for the receiver, "Unless," he said, then started whispering in her ear.  The woman just about melted into his arms and let go of the gun as he slide his hand up her bare-skinned arm.  "I think that's the better way to spend the rest of our visit here in California." 

  The man put the gun in his baja shorts pocket and it fell on the floor.  He whispered to the woman again and bent to pick up the gun.  Put it in his waistband.  "A real seedy one." 

  (i)Cha, cha, cha,(i) the woman kicked up a leg as they left the room.

"That's like the eighth one they

  took in there," the young feminist pointed to a wall with a sofa table and fern on it.  The Tour Guide went through a number of possible scenarios in history from Colonial spies to Watergate, but calling the bluff of (i)how feminist; militant(i) decided this girl was weak enough.  "Ghosts," he said out loud.  "You obviously see ghosts.  Feeling okay? Need some water?" 

  "Take the blindfold offa me." 

  "I don't hafta." 

  "Do you have any gum?" 

  "Ours got laced." 

  "With what?" 

  "Syanide." 

  A muffled jostling.  "You do this one." 

  "I'm telling you right now, no one is (i)doing(i) me.  Not here.  Not now.  Not ever.  Do you know who my father is?!" 

  "Why? Are you a feminist?" 

  "No, I'm waiting for the right man." 

  (i)hmmmmmmm(i) a deeper voice said.  "This one has potential.  Hold her here.  (i)I'll be back(i)." 

  More jostling. 

  "I just think they should of sent someone more legit." 

  "Are you guys stuck in here?" 

  "WHY WOULD WE DO THAT? THAT WOULD BE TOTALLY STUPID.  GOD." 

 

"You can do it Kim!"

  "AND IN THIS CORNER 

  (i)finally(i) 

  "WORTHY OPPONENTS!!!!!!" 

  Backing out of a wooden closet door was an Ancient Forest sized human butt.  The Vegas hotel sheet covering most private anatomy. 

 

There was a final group holler of

  (i)HEAVE,(i) and then a hushing of people in the vicinity up top.  And then a scraping sound that may as well have been compared to men moving large blocks of rocks on either side of the Nile. 

  (i)Scraaaaaaaaaaaape, pause; scraaaaaaaaspe, pause(i).  More hushings and (i)shooshes(i).  Hands smacking the air around a pair of people honestly perplexed about the positioning of the Oympic rings on an inner-office memorandum.  Someone drew a safety gun and pointed it.  Lips rested into permanent frowns. 

  Stethoscopes to cement slab floors and callings over.  Gestures delineating (i)where and what(i).  Heart monitor machines fitted with packages of electronics.  And someone hopelessly trying to cut the printouts. 

  "Those are ours," one somebody said. 

  "Those are not?" Somebody else asked.  "Rhetorical." 

  Another somebody put the binoculars over the eyes of a man in a wheelchair. 

  "He's going in." 

  "Manhole number?" 

  "Not readily available." 

  "On my count then." 

"They're in the foyer Sir!"

  The man smoothed the lapels of the suitjacket he'd gone "home" to retrieve.  It was the one he'd meant to put on in the morning, not the one that smelled like Biscotti. 

  "What building are we in?" The man asked a black woman Capitol Police person.  AV people checked the mini-monitor of the next room.  On screen all of us behind the wall could not be seen.  Just the wall.  A Coordinator looked too.  "Is that pitcher crooked?" An Aide peered at room readiers and then at the monitor on a cart with covered, uneaten lunches.  The Aide pulled at the front corners of his blazer and the unseen, veritable steam rose through his chest, up into his head, pushed up his eyebrows and he took a breath.  "It is.  But I'm choosing not to demerit anyone at this time." 

  "Heard," said a uniformed. 

  An Honor Guard lifted a curtain from a plate glass view.  "The Lobby.  I know where we are now," Senator Graham said and took several envelopes from a breast pocket. 

  The horses stood perfectly still and magnificent in the center of the Lobby floor.  The riders unflinching. 

"They're coddling him."

  "Like you should talk." 

  "My opinion?" 

  The cafeteria plates rattled as the dishwasher trays hit bumper-to-bumper on the rollers. 

  "Hand me the sprayer." 

  "If you knew the amount of and kind of photographs people, just regular people, have of most of these DC people, doing unspeakable things, sins and such, you might understand why the men want to safeguard a guy like Graham." 

  "Three more carts hurry up." 

  A shirt hanging over an apron had a curiously lumpy bulge. 

"Armies from all over the world,"

  his hands drew an earth and a world stage and he poked a finger into the palm of his hand.  "Here.  Now." 

  "Are we being invaded?" 

  He brushed the question away.  His gold bracelet getting caught in his arm hairs.  "From all over the world?" A kid with a pie sized lollipop asked. 

  "All over the world." 

  "I better let the girls know so everybody stays safe.  Those types get a little rough.  And most are here today, gone tomorrow." 

  He hung up the phone and rehung the receiver.  "That's my point.  Hear me out.  They can stay like that here today, gone tomorrow, or," he drank the rest of the pineapple juice in a big can.  "Or," a lady poked her military husband.  "Or, we can sign 'em up to fight with the best Army in the world!" 

  "You're crazy." 

  "Standing army at that," the military man said almost with a snore.  The ice cubes in his glass wilting.  "It's damn hot here this time of year." His wife pulled his shirt down over a hernia belt, took his glass, went to the wet bar and got him a mineral water. 

  "It won't be.  Standing.  It won't be for long." 

  Boys in shirts and shorts stood in the doorway suddenly and told they were going "cruising".

"Well, okay then, who gave

  them the coconut rum cake?" 

  "The Congo Line," one kid said, smiled with missing teeth, and belched. 

  "HE DID!" A girl pointed then crossed her arms. 

  The grown up pushed the den door open farther. 

  A man on the sofa covered in girls. 

  "Tellie!  (i)How dare you(i)

  The man stood.  The girls on his lap falling to the floor, his hands saluting and rolling out a red carpet in the air, and then into his pants pocket for cigarettes and lighter. 

  "(i)Just drop in without notifying anyone(i)." 

  "I'm not dead, why would I send notification?!" 

  The lady swooshed a clinging child weighing on her skirt.  "But still," 

  "But still nothing.  I was all over the place.  On TV." 

  "On TV," the lady repeated, her mind swimming. 

  "She's fainted!  Get me the ice bucket." 

  The bunny girls fanned the lady with a Reader's Digest and TV Guide.

"She's refusing to let us surrender Sir."

  "Why?" 

  "You want the long, short, or redundant version long-legged mac daddy?" 

  The man much taller than the students put his fingers to his face and massaged pressure points.  "Your daughters picked the handle Sir." 

  "Just tell me when the students get to take the tour." 

  "Copy that." 

  A flurry of clipboard exchanging and comparisons between named groups and scheduling. 

  "How 'bout us?" A diva of pop music asked as she poked a head around a corner.  "Nope, not you guys either.  The Koreans are kicking our asses in your field, your genre." 

  "Where is everyone?" 

  "Right.  None of us public count as anybody." 

  "They're in the Situation Room." 

  "For how long?" 

  "Well, it would've been shorter, but the ceiling caved." 

  "Oh my God.  Did they all survive?" 

  "Like you care." 

  "I'm a seat sniffer." 

  "Nobody else on the planet would admit that." 

  "I can't unsee that." 

  "Here," one man passed his brown bag lunch to a woman in charge of the crossing guard whistle. 

"THAT IS NOT YOUR PROPERTY!"

  The woman had been flying for thirty-two hours and her voice had settled way down deep in her chest, but the thugs clearly heard her because they froze. 

  "Would you lower the rug please?" A lady cop asked a man in a jumpsuit operating a pulley and boom.  "Where's the rest of my stuff?" 

  The three men bobble-headed there eyes every which way but out the window.  The lady cop walked to the window, spied the jet evacuation ladder and the pile of belongings down below on the City street. 

  The woman put her foot on the lowered rug and dug through a purse for paperwork and ID.  Young people rushed into the room and started looking everywhere.  "Did you find her?" 

  "Find who? I'm busy right now." 

  Other law enforcement came into the apartment.  Thugs were handcuffed.  Newspaper photograph'd in the hallway. 

  "I found them, I should get the money." 

  "But I drove you." 

  The father gave them both a ten dollar bill and asked, "Where were they?" 

  "They fell asleep on a train." 

  "It was adorable." 

  "Where are they now?" 

  Footsteps up and down the subway stairs. 

  The thump, thump, thumping of more trains coming and going. 

  "I've seen that piano before." 

  "What piano? I've just been to the eye doctor." 

  "That one there next to the hole in the wall.  With the flowers growing out of it." 

  "They smell dead." 

  "Where did you see it?" 

  "In this magazine.  Here, this one," it was taken from a briefcase. 

  "She looks like Caribini when she wears her purse that way." 

  "She does not Stanley.  She's in schoolgirl mode." 

  "How does she seem to you?" 

  "Better.  And look!" Several other women were wearing their purses the same way. 

  "Why would that be there Harry?" 

  "No idea." 

  "Here," a woman gave the man her purse.  "Go get breakfast, you'll feel better." 

  "You want anything?" 

  She shook her head (i)no(i). 

  "Lucy, put it on your list." 

  "What mum?" 

  "The piano.  Why here.  And get more sleep." 

  "Yes mum." 

"Why are all those people running

  from that side of Town?" 

  Professionals played off not knowing.  A "water boy" unfolded a cheque-note that had been hurriedly stuffed into his towelapron. 

  "Helms is in town." 

"What's that offensive smell?"

  "The Press pool." 

  "Da Queers."  

  The two men looked at each other.  

  "Leezy!" 

  "Oh God, my father." 

 

"Did you forget?"

  "Is that your pimp?" 

  The woman looked at the two men.  Salad on fork frozen between plate and mouth. 

  A waitress dropped a tray of food. 

  The woman disappeared. 

  "She's in there with," a boney man looked at a list and pronounced, "Shoes." 

  "OF COURSE, with legs like that how could the guy not be a ballerina?" 

  "I don't think he's a ballerina." 

  "But you just said he was.  And that you saw him in a ballet in Virginia." 

  "I did!  But they don't call guys who do that ballerinas." 

  "So the guys a faggot who has a sissy job?" 

  "What do they call him?" 

  "In Russian?  I'm not sure.  And male dancer sounds, I don't know, weird or too strip club or something." 

  "Honey, that is not where you want to be." 

  "Tell me about it." 

  "Can you please leave." 

  "The room?" 

  "The City child.  Let's get lunch." The beautiful bald person flopped the wig back onto head, took heels in hand, went into the living room and "rescued" a party platter from a coffee table piled with "coffee table books".  "Are you the one that hangs with the North Korean guy?"  An eyeroll, penciled brows up and down.  "Kind of direct child.  Are you one of them?" 

  "Naw, I'm a Christian Republican.  Where are we going?" 

  "Rooftop.  Better view." 

"What was your first," the

  sexy-to-the-hilt person licked lips, and continued the interview, "memory of me?" 

  The silouhette said, "You don't know who I am." Other silouhette paintings snickered and coo'd. 

  "I can't get it up anymore," the man being interviewed groaned. 

  City streets, broad daylight.  "What was yours?" 

  "Aw, come on." 

  "I just thought we could warm up for the actual." 

  "You wanna walk all the way there?" 

  "It's seventeen blocks.  That's nothing." 

  "You don't have money for a cab, do you?" 

  Stilettos and mile long legs stepped over an oily puddle between the curb and the street without looking.  Put two fingers, both hands, into glossy lips bigger than Mick's, and whistled.  The shrill was so loud it might have cracked glass if the window after window in that neighborhood hadn't been bulletproof.  

  "Uptown.  Don't tawk to me 'til we get there dawling." 

  Grand Central. 

  "Sorry I'm late." 

  "Anything fun?" 

  "Three jobs.  No." 

  "You?" 

  "Sigh." 

  "Let's grab a sbarrow." 

  "I won't be able to poop until a week from tamorrow." 

  "Diner?" 

  "None left." 

  "I left you in charge of preservation of our City and there's no diners left?" 

  She tipped the billfold.  Out came just a receipt. 

  "Hotel room?" 

  "Dry cleaners." 

  "Stay with him." 

  "But he looks different." 

  "He'll look the same as now all the way there." 

  "There where?" 

  "D.C." (click)

  "As I was saying little one," Willie took the steaming cup of black coffee from a nice looking Country woman, "It was my writing time." 

  "The commute?" 

  Some of the latté foam stuck to his moustache.  Another band guy put his own finger up to his own lip and tried to catch Willie's eye. 

  "Fly on your lips or something?" 

  "Same shitty 'tude, different day I guess," the man said.  Stood and fished a letter from his pocket.  Put the letter and a guitar pick on the food tray on Willie's lap.  Other men stood.  "Did he just quit?" One asked.  "Happens everyday.  It's his ritual until he gets his sauce on." 

  Willie got up and took a window seat.  Neighborhood after neighborhood was passed through.  Then he cleared his throat and started talking again.  "My point is that I believe in you kids." 

  A National Guard with a machine gun pointed at the floor near a door held up a fist. 

  "Quiet!" A civilian suggested.

"I assure you, we were not having sex."

  The woman shook her head slow and 

  (i)Vhat mess dees is?(i) 

  "Okay.  Okay.  So we can't go back that way." 

  "She said it was perfectly quiet and still then 

  "A (i)whoosh(i)?" 

  "Whatdoesthisguyonlyaskquestions?" The pilot was in shock; all tremors and teeth chattering. 

  "Like a zipper.  Yes, that's what she said.  Like a jacket being unzipped and then everything exploded." 

  "Well, probably not everything." 

  A hand reached over to prevent the use of field radio. 

  "We'll ask my father.  He always knows what to do." 

  A man named Viktor barfed in a lunch bag. 

  "It's been twenty-nine hours." 

  "It doesn't matter if it's one thousand.  We're not going without them." 

  The rug on the floor creaked lumpy.  A shadowy figure emerged and put the rug back neat.  "Too neat?" A hoarse voice asked. 

  "They already made it to Greece." 

"THAT'S HIM!"

  A wizened man in Ghandi pants looked at the travel DVD player.  "He was," the man searched for the word by taking the thinking man pose, standing up.  One that never sits down like Buddha.  "Show me," a well-known journalist in the movies pulled him gently but firmly to a two foot clearing between people with their backs to each other.  She mimed filming.  He acted the man.  (i)The man had a sachel. 

  "Or a briefcase baby," 

  (i)He had swords pointed at him.  But, but the sachel was stuck to him(i) 

  "Oh, I know it was baby." 

  (i)Others, apes?  Another group maybe came with rocks and the man got on his knees and(i) 

  "We know baby.  We know why everybody in this old world prays.  Right baby?!" 

  (i)the man took a pen from, oh it was a fancy man with a suitcoat, took a pen from his pocket, his breast pocket, and motioned for a rock(i) 

  (i)ha, ha, ha(i) "She said breast." Guy covered his mouth.  "It was real loud in my ear."  The woman tyrned the filming toward him and he yawned and stood up straight. 

  She made the keep going, keep going hand sign to the man telling the story.  (i)The man motioned for a rock and peace, no TWO men wouldn't let go of the rock.  Man gave them his watch.  They put the rock down.  Man showed stuck to sachel, the other two picked up rock, and(i) 

  The crowds started backing up.  The woman went to the man, mimed putting the camera on the ground, and helped the man act what had happened.  Just as a Hasidic Jew fell backwards over the man telling the story, she stood up and flashed a compact with a mirror then started saying, "They picked the lock."  Over and over until a live TV crew skinnied through to her.

"YOU LET me out of

  THIS CAGE!!!!!!" Things seemed little and far away on the monitor. 

  "How many?" 

  "How many what?" 

  "Tribes?" 

  "Twelve originally." 

  "He's asking how many tribes the so-called peacemakers are entertaining?" 

  "It's not entertainment." 

  "That is correct.  None of this is amusing." 

  "Anything but." 

  "There were several that signed this!" A wet scrolled up piece of paper was pulled from a tight jeans pocket.  People donned reading glasses and followed the well-manicured hand that took the piece of paper with a pair of tweezers and put it on the group viewing table. 

"Honey, go get the Jordanian pilots."

  A younger generation's rep was like WTF.  "That's the last exchange we are doing," a middle ager didn't look at anyone and said.

Boxes and boxes of books.

  "What are you going to wear?" 

  The house had gone quiet compared to the daytime construction.  The man looked at the woman to answer the question but something in the fireplace caught his eye.  He absently repeated something toasted to at the Post confirmation gathering the day before...(i)a shakey peace(i). 

  "Here, here, a shakey peace is better than no peace at all," a glass was raised.  A small, rotund woman put her glass down on the little table for guest registry.  "Americans are all alike.  (i)Dreamers(i)." 

Ring, ring "Oh my God, the phone!"

  "Busy?" 

  "That's Lena.  (i)Click, just kidding.(i)" 

  "Horne or the other one?" 

  (i)a choke cough(i) "I tolya to finish drinking first.  And what is it? Here smell this." 

  "Hewo." 

  "Hi Love." 

  "We've got that shot you asked us to take that day." 

  (i)knock, knock, knock oh hold on if you can(i)

  "JAVIER!  SO GLAD YOU COULD COME!  HURRICANE COMING IN LIKE A FEW HOURS I KNOW CAN YOU HELP US? 

   Still there?" 

  (i)Gone.  Everybody's always gone so quick these days.(i) 

  "Not us.  (i)Maintenance(i) never ends." 

  "What's in 'the tunnel' m'am?" 

  Hands reached for the walkie talkie not on the seat beside her.  A tiny frown but botox'd lips barely registered the emotion on her face.  She rolled her eyes.  "Twanswate." 

  "What language lady?" 

  "Wemains." 

  "I can't say that word." 

  The cab driver looked up from a phone.  Tried to find somebody to read the amount of four hundred and seventy three dollars.  "American," he said.