"Where are you?"

  "Well you're the one who called me, you should know." 

  "But it's a cell phone." 

  "It smells like a jungle." 

  "Are you saying (i)you don't know(i)?" 

  "I'll call you back." 

  Guys snoring all over the sofa.  Dark kitchen.  Sink water.  Glass hitting against faucet in a (i)scared ya(i).  The voice quiet but loud.  "So you're their woman now?!" 

  "Not sure about that.  Or anything really, after last night." 

  "What happened last night?" Lights flicked on.  Barefeet.  Smooth broadboard floor.  Face being looked at closely.  "I, uh, guess, um, it depends on who you ask." 

  "Well, I'm asking you.  And this is Greece by the way.  It smells like vegetation and air and Sea, not a jungle." 

  "Might smell like a jungle to me." 

  "I didn't ask you that." 

  Silence.  She finished pouring a glass of water.  Strong slender hand brushing spilled water into sink.  Staring.  "Did you want it back in the glass? I know my sons said you're (i)conservative(i)." 

  "I'm in an apolitical couple days." 

  "It didn't look like much." 

  "You saw us?" 

  "Sitting on the sofa all night." 

  "But it seemed like we weren't."  The smooth back of a hand to a forehead.  "Feverish?" 

  "Not really.  We've just done so much traveling together and other stuff and not really, like a break.  Like when you swim all day and are still swimming in bed at night." 

  "Everybody up!" The woman flicked on lights in the sitting room.  The guys came to.  "I like her," she announced.  Yawns.  Scratches.  "Wild dreams." 

  "Maybe because we were talking about the leopard." 

"Whoa." One of the three girl women said.

  (i)whoa(i) said another.  The third, "Big whoa". 

  "Mind blown?" Asked the guy. 

  Nods and one feeling the outside of her head. 

  "What (i)do you(i) think about that?" 

  The man cringed.  "Honestly I think you should all be women of the Bible." 

  "Well, that's not happening.  That was a long time ago." 

  "Yeah, they're not writing anything new in there." 

  "But," one thought hard, "I can't really believe this is all (i)narrative(i) now either." 

  "Should we cancel this?" A subsciption which stood or laid on the table like a bird that had smacked into a glass replica of sky. 

  "Not only that, but, doesn't it mean, like, I mean, everybody writes different right?!" Everyone nodded and eyed the mod Lit magazine.  "So wouldn't that mean there's a lot of versions of the narrative?" 

  One person slightly turned and held on to the back of a chair.  Another dug through shelves for a dictionary.  "Does it mean we're just (i)pretenders(i)?" 

  "Why are the bills still sitting on the table?" 

  The guy looked up over his reading glasses.  "Well, that's (i)their(i) narrative.  I don't feel I owe that much." 

  "Maybe it's like, like, um, like how we all went to war and (i)fought hard(i) but since then, um, some of us don't believe in war." 

  "Okay, I just gotta say, I meet Veterans everyday missing legs and other things, and (i)war is real(i)." 

  "Of course! Not saying it's not (i)real(i)." 

  "What are you saying?" 

  "Maybe.  I dunno.  This (i)is hard(i), especially out loud." 

  "We're not (i)the judges(i)." 

  "What happens in Vegas?" 

  "Like maybe that's what it means." A glance at the sequestered magazine. 

  "Like everybody has an (i)opinion(i)!" 

  "Everybody does." 

"What did your scab say?"

  "Why?" 

  "Well, that's probably what got published." 

  "From the mouth of babes." 

  "Where'd you all come from?" 

  "Derbyland." 

  "Paducah?" 

  "Paducah.  Must've been." 

  "Planeloads." 

  "Of those?" 

  "Disguised as us." 

  "At least (i)on paper(i)." 

"We have to be really careful about

  sharing words," was said amongst work groups.  "What did you say?" A writer/editor type asked as a wrecking ball thwacked the building upstairs.  Someone rolled up the blueprints. 

  "Why?" 

  "Because we're in multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural groups today." 

  "Why's that matter?" 

  "Timing, processes." 

  "Union fighting." 

  "Strike that please." 

  "Why?" 

  "Not allowed to say fighting." 

  "Like not allowed to say God in certain places?!" 

  "Uh huh.  Move your feet, lose your seat." 

  "Lose your seat, it's the freezer or the abyss." 

  Dust clouding the street air, coating thrift store outfits and hardhats.

The tales of the 1990s decade

  were some scattered, some lost, and some as reminders of the complexities of cultural, land, and resource warring. 

  At points throughout there wasn't hardly anyone who wouldn't affirm, (i)this is all warfare(i).  "It couldn't be," both peace activists and strategic deniers swore.  Behind closed doors and in gravely serious tones there was concern. 

  At the same time (i)adherence to values(i) was hammering on the shield of unity.  It wasn't that American unity didn't exist, but the greater forces were swirling most issues into "gray area" and so, posing much of realism into opposition.  In the Arts, Letters, Medical, and Military most issues became cases, and then the arguments of "What are you? A special case?" 

  There was vehemence to social justice especially as what had been a democratic Republic corporatized.  Stalwarts defending the USA, USA were often left wondering about (i)homeland(i) and which jurisdiction "the issue" fell into.  Whichever, thwarters to the success of the Country (i)for everyone(i) found purchase in institutions and attending processes which could be jolted in various ways and even disrupted. 

  "Our propaganda isn't holding up Cap'n," techies were on the brunt end of conversations about (i)How could this happen?(i). But like churches assuming they just weren't "outreaching" properly, the world was shifting quicksand.  There was an (i)all hands on deck(i), (i)put your thinking caps on(i) sentiment to the camps and groupings, but also derailments.  And plenty of bulldozing and occupation too. 

  "Since when did Intellectual become an Occupation?" A blank stare, been-at-the-office-all-day person asked a pauper who filed anyway.  No answer; such was the churn of "crazy" running its courses.  Physical bodies displaced by ideology and ideas/monies.  (i)Nothing new(i), the poor shrugged it off...one more day and...

  "(i)There are rules(i)," people manning anything smacking of "community" warned.  A lot of ambitious people took that as the thing to fight against.  Some (i)within reason(i), many no holds bar, and intriguers bothered to lie. 

  "Let's just do our own thing," was a sort of "Don't tread on me" that was mostly fun and games (i)until(i). 

  "You gave him all dah money?" 

  "Money's not real real." The credit bills mounted and the debt rose and rose and rose. 

  "Can I have a pair of pants?" People in Services asked.  "You may buy a pair," most were told.  "It's the same thing at Staples." 

  Joining Services was made an impalpably heavier weight in decision-making despite the Sterns reminding, (i)Three square in prison(i).  By that time ex-cons might quip, "Yeah two pieces of white bread and something called bologna." 

  "How do we re-find (i)our sense of(i)..." an interpreter named group feelings because of "fine print" attached even to Happy Meals. 

  There were a lot of (i)interim phases(i). 

  At a Salvation Army shelter... 

     "Are you really going to go?" 

     "To the women's group?" 

     A terse nod.  "Hell no.  My man be coming up.  I saved $6.99 for a Big Mac we gonna share." 

  The younger girl making mental notes of every word, every expression, every breath.  A ranked woman coming along.  "Is the gab work-related?" 

  "No m'am." Eyes sinking lights. 

  "Then I suggest you zip it." 

  "I am." Another woman called out. 

  The younger girl hiding a sudden look of astonishment.  "Her hair pretty too." 

  "It is," said the bigger sister type.  "Why don't you find out her beauty secrets." 

  "Seems stacked against us." 

  "It does." The man, newly salaried, immovable on both working. 

  Inside a van..." technology" cramming every inch/centimeter...

  "Bloody farthead! Show me that friggin' thing again [an atomic clock counting down to nuclear wasteland] and I'll, (i)I'll(i) 

  The stock photo flashed again. 

  "Gimme that joystick," one man to another.  Text moves on one monitor enabled a grenade launcher and (i)whoooosh(i) the man verbally penned the sound into a microphone.  A guy a half a world away grunted an (i)Oy(i) and literally put a moped visor in front of a videocamera that had written lettering that read: 

          SPLAT 

  "Welcome to the postmodern world superimposed on everything we thought we knew." 

"We'll let you opine then."

  It was a long way until then. 

  "It's more like the end of that book," an eye glance in the direction of a knapsack's contents.  "At least, right now, there, like a tide went out." 

  Physical bodies sitting on a train of a building's second floor.  Might have been a split ranch mall, but had been some sort of palace.  A diversity of writers and editors, videographers, documentarists, movie makers, visionaries and fact finders.  Minds flying around to (i)make sense(i) of it, (i)war(i). 

  "How do you think I feel?!  You've used me as a, a thumbtack!" 

  "Do you mean pushpin?" 

  "I mean," the woman looked around at the enormous walls of the place, "I mean to say that all my life I've (i)reported(i) these things, (i)NOT(i) established frontlines." 

  "At least there weren't flamethrowers." 

  "You keep out of it." 

  "How can I? It's literally all around us." 

  "Don't catch the fever!  It's madness." 

  "Is she angry?" 

  "She has an actual deadline." 

  "What is it?" 

  "It's supposed to be a fish.  I paid for a fresh catch du jour." 

  "Honey, nothing is fresh here this time of year."  A man gently smacked the nightgowned woman on the duffer.  "Oooooo, except the men." 

  The brown paper tied with a bakery string was put on a table.  Carefully opened.  Newspapers and a handgun. 

  People milling about made espresso and started reading the papers. 

  One from the States had eyeholes cut in the print.  People carefully opened each newspaper.  A column missing here, a column glued beside another column there. 

  "There must be one from every country here." 

  Another woman barefoot padded into the kitchen. 

  "She doesn't have her glasses on," someone narrated. "Get my purse," she ordered as she stuck a used tea bag in her mouth. 

  "It's not ON THE BOOT." 

  "Do you feel kidnapped?" 

  "Is there an island, uh, south of the boot?" 

  "Several." 

  "Keep looking." 

"Sit in (i)that(i) seat."

  From the jumpseat then, letting the overwhelming "feelings" still in camera shots explaining "what's up?".  

  "Hopelessness is despair." 

  "Despair is a sin.  It's disobeying God who sent us Jesus." 

  Flags curtly wagon-circled. 

  "It was the civilians," someone explained to (i)needed to happen yesterday(i) elders, (i)greatest generation(i). 

  "They're freaking out 'cuz they don't (i)believe(i) there are all those troops." 

  "Take the photos." 

  "But you don't understand." 

  "I understand very well." Diminished light from another room caught the woman's face in a sort of pinhole.  The rifle butt bruise taking on a shape bigger and more serious than the hockey stick shape being fought about as people may have fought over an only log cabin on the Old West frontier. 

"In many ways," the palm-sized hologram explained,

  "All this started with your father and I trying to understand our own mortality." 

  Leaves falling, little snapping sounds of stems broken by hardfrost. 

  "We gotta go," said one of the young men in a formal club sportcoat. 

  "I'm not ready," another admitted gently. 

  "We can talk about this more, later." 

  "But it was all I had." 

  "They can see the ring in the face shield!  And (i)those(i)," yet another young man held up a scrap of shredded clothing symbolizing which group, "Are on the square perimeter, on foot." 

  "Commander?" 

  The text layer over the hologram of the long lost mother was a see-through countdown of self-destructing. 

"Break out the dimes."

  The man's wife found somebody she trusted and gave the box emptied of sweets but filled with dimes to the person.  "He's the trucker our group is sponsoring," the woman said.  "Does he bring the milk to the school?" 

  "Different kind of truck," she said while pulling a sandwich bag of beef jerky out of her little purse.  "Why don't you want to see him?" 

  "It's not that! But, I, we, me and the kids want him to feel, uh, (i)better(i) about his role as Dad." 

  "Oh.  And why dimes?" 

  "The gas went up nine cents overnight!" 

  "How'd you guys know that?" 

  "Grapevine." 

  Lights on the semitrucks were starting to come on after wee hour naps. 

The mother turned the TV off.

  "Hey! What are you doing?" 

  "Whaddya do that for?" 

  "Aw.  Bye Raymond." 

  "Maybe that's what's (i)dumbing us down(i)." The mother put the remote in a drawer. 

  "We're not dumb." 

  "Are we?" 

  "I'll be in my room.  What kind of world is this? Our own mother calling us (i)dumb(i)." 

"Ladies and Gentlemen," the room hushed.

  "I will now, I would like to, introduce y'all to America's first All Black newspaper since the NorthStar graced the peeping eyes of those who could read, (i)those who DARED to read(i)." 

  People looked around to see who might be embodying such contraban in the Old South. 

  Tuxedo'd servers outlayed cloth napkins. 

"Here's the problem," said the

  man with the bloody hands.  "They don't like us much unless we give them money." 

  "They don't want the rice?" Asked a young missionary who'd been instantly employed by a non-profit in a long chain of "graceful exit". 

  "Are they shooting at us?" Asked the pilot who'd unstrapped and started to get out of pilot seat. 

  "Of course they are." 

  A girl took his hand and poked a pen around in the blood.  Fished out a piece of bullet or shrapnel.  Held it up towards a jagged hole in the doorway of the fuselage.  That hurt but the man winced and stuffed down the emotions associated.  Grabbed a stiff cardboard Org identification placard and held it with the wounded hand out the portal.  It immediately acquired two holes. 

  "I'll get us out of here." 

  The pilot didn't even restrap. 

  Bags of rice were dragged and dropped out of the doorway. 

  "It's unshedooel'd," the pilot explained on a radio. 

  "Wasn't supposed to be like this," a young person offered an Org tee to the man with the wounded hand. 

  "Ideals don't go very far out here."

  "Will you have to report it?" 

  "Report (i)what(i)?" 

  "(i)The incident(i)," defined the woman in the lavender smelling stiff collared shirt. 

  "What incident?" The man looked at his swelling hand and folded the tee-shirt and put it over the wound. 

  "I wouldn't have to," said another man.  "I signed a waiver." 

  "Terminal?" Someone asked. 

  The man nodded.  "Just a do-gooder nowadays until, you know." 

  Other small planes and jets with supplies had also landed at the out-of-the-way airstrip overgrown with weedy grass. 

  Whether spontaneously, out of habit, or prompted by ideas uttered the various groups had largely set up their folding tables.  Some even propped up their names and numbers.  But an awkward silence weighed upon the people looking at each other. 

  "Give them all a breakfast bar and an applesauce please," the voice inside one of the grounded planes was almost echo-y.  Someone tried to get closer to see the voice and another voice cried out, (i)GUARD(i).  A tight-muscled man put hand to gun in chest holster, drew it, and pointed it toward the sky.  A tiny person in the doorway of that plane tremble-handed an Org bag with the goodies to the guard.  The guard kept the gun aimed skyward and passed the bag to the emissaries. 

  "They're calling it (i)shrinkflation(i) in our Country," someone held the bitesized oatmeal and chocolate breakfast bar between two well-manicured fingers. 

  "Anyone have any ointment? The tube in our First Aid kit is dried up and I stubbed my toe," someone announced.  Someone turned to go to a plane.  Someone else said, "Use this," and pulled a tube of antibacterial cream from a fanny pack.  A person removed shoe and sock, squeezed ointment onto a piece of napkin, and put the "bandage" over stubbed toe.  "Thank you." The item was wiped with an alcohol pad and handed back but not taken.  "Keep it." 

  "Thank you." 

  The sounds of apples being eaten took the place of talking for a little while.  This clearly challenged some people who would normally be (i)talking through(i) what next.  But a level of maturity-required had been plied with the gestures of goodwill. 

We'd played tag all the way to Candler.

  "What interrupted the scrumming?" A fertility doctor wanted to know.  At the same time Ziggy was being harangued by an elder about not wanting to put his big boy pants on, a younger (i)whapped(i) his sunburnt ass with a golf towel, and the "shared girlfriend" pitched a fit about being given a literal cabbage instead of money for a night out. 

  Someone focused a Justcam on the Kennedy Center and the delayed from real time images were printed before the crew on the move unplugged. 

  "We gottah get back to DC DG." 

  "But we didn't get a chance to visit yet." He held arms open for a baby girl tackle.  She swiped the golf towel from the young'n and threw it in the guy's face.  "Have fun with commercials." 

From one extreme to another.

  "YOU MEEM'D ME MOTHERFUCKER!!" 

  "OhmyGod, please be going now." 

  "Any last words of advice?" 

  "Hoping not my last words I will tell you what a swami told me once when I was getting on a raft to get out of South America (i)alive, still alive apparently(i) 

  "The point?" 

  "Don't be a piece of seaweed caught in the surf of a turning tide."  The white van doors were closed. 

  (i)Resolved(i), remember his flash of smile, it emerged like a turtle's head in a pond, bright, strong, then re-submerged. 

  "Somebody killed Kenny!" A woman with a beard and a stout miniature dog on arm reiterated, (i)everything's getting cartoonish out here(i). 

  "It's not like we didn't know, (i)we knew(i), but we couldn't let on."  An elevator descended through floors and floors of servers.

 

(i)Squirrels on pie(i), someone

  started singing to the tune of "Girls on film," and others voiced the instrumental, (i)doootalootah(i), (i)squirrels on pie(i),  (i)dootahlootah(i).  The video camera flung up into a tree by an irate parent caught "the thief" even while most of Eastern Tennessee was attuned to hunting down (i)who would do such a thing(i). 

"Just keep your group mania out OF HERE."

  The normally calm, bookish woman's voice twisted itself into the tail of a tornado before an exasperated sigh of (i)Gawd(i) roped the last of the run for information. 

  "Would you say the experts are being hounded?" Someone gingerly covered a microphone.  "It's not on," she lied.  The woman pointed a pen at two guys in matching tee-shirts quoting a movie.  "You two," eyes looked around for an EXIT, "Still in school?" 

  Elevator doors opened and doctors in scrubs exited as a group then split up for specific work. 

  "So you're saying it's the computer's fault?" 

  "What happened?" 

  "Anyone need a lawyer?" A hand held business cards like a rummy hand of playing cards. 

  "The whole program had been gutted." 

  "So?" 

  "So we put all the work online." 

  "Just out there for anyone to see?" 

  "Like anyone can bid on chopping down a five thousand pound tree?" 

  "Doesn't mean I'd pick just anyone!" 

  A person in scrubs and rubbery shoes wheeled a cart of what looked like art supplies close to the door of the wounded expert.  "Casting," the med tech reported without the jokes usually attending his parallel take on everyday life. 

Before Matlock was Matlock.

  "Gen X" was "coming of age". 

  There was sort of a bedsheet shaking. 

  "I'm sick," a guy opened a front door a bit and proved himself to have a thermometer in his mouth. We'd come through the climax of a forced PC--foreign operatives having actual place in politics and other professions of our nation.  A confusing mess of (i)who can be trusted(i) and (i)with what(i).  

  Wave after wave of youthful vigor had to be met with the pegs for guardrails all over the Country.  In the excitement for a future that would include us there were standstill moments and herd rushes.  There was also a comradery to just being American with the freedom to join (or not) various groups and lifestyles.  That freedom alone presented a need for levels of security around "sensitive" information.  

  Yes, the wall had come down in our own Germany.  But chaos is not such a great idea, better to (i)do the right thing(i).  "And what is the right thing to do?" A girl asked the Gen X white guys at a table outside of a cafè.  One asked, "Why you asking us?" And another asked, "What are you trying to do?" 

  "It's been a dreadfully slow morning," the barristá came out and told her boyfriend/promise partner/husband-to-be.  "Let's see if we can borrow a truck and get some day work," one of the guys said to the other guys.  And they got up, walked down the street, asked to use an old truck, got permission, told: (i)we'll put gas in it(i), and drove it to the gas station.  That day, after some phone calls to family with a good understanding of what was up locally, they hauled wood, ran errands, fixed a woodsplitter, wrangled a scared sheep, glued broken flowerpots, shared beef jerky, scraped layers of mud leftover from old storms, and found stuff like a radio thrown out because the batteries were dead.  And some crates for a sibling that (i)never gets to do much because...(i) autism or cancer. "Likes records," the guy dug into his brain to find the space where he'd spent time with the sibling, gotten to know the person inside "the box". 

"You're a piece of shit."

  It was one of the first pieces of narrative taken from someone's brain chatter, put on a piece of paper, and openly denied by a support group.  One person affirmed the person's humanity with various evidence supporting the fact that the person was neither a terd nor mostly made up of fecal matter. 

  The person needed more offloading of internalized narrative so the group listened to some music and imagined power shields capable of deflecting further insult and verbal abuse. 

  For some people (i)resiliance(i) starts with something like that. 

  The question was, (i)Do you think AI can be resiliant?(i) 

  A couple people conferred and answered (i)yes(i).  It was explained in the "simple terms" of replacing a negative with a positive, a negative with an affirmative.  Programming such a "warrior" would put AI into the category of winning and losing humans who either survive or die. 

Sugarcoat and the snake lunges faster and harder.

  It's been the experience of some. 

  Jump to defend and be the first proven wrong. 

  There's real "pinch" in sword clashing. 

  There's also a wild ride in the creativity of showmanship. 

  There is sometimes utter disappointment when someone cannot un-be themselves. 

  And while most people have lived through life and death situation, not all have fought.  Not all have walked away.  Not all have struggled through not doing that again.  Not all can see, maybe the bar should be raised. 

  As a writing-type I can understand well that there are challenges in narrative and "the show" that seem like bleak days in prison where not much really happens; or some character is dead, (i)now what?(i); or how in the world does an author get readers from point x to points elsewhere in the alphabet?!  

  But I can also understand how real men and women are not just pins in a map, not just stickers in a sports or political book. 

  I think that sometimes in the nation stories of the whole big history-in-the-making there are leaps made just to keep the story going until tomorrow.  Some people, for example, don't have the capacity or platform to get all thesis about strategy or deep explanation, so they point out highlights or insert bullets of text and talking points.  A recent foreign election--(i)first time since the nazis!(i) 

  Oh, the images conjured by the reference.  Oh, the deep feelings of revulsion for all of humanity.  For being human.  For having to vote.  For voting whether or not we want hate to rule the day.  Such talking points serve to make people stop listening.  But there's a bit of breath held in that much defending or allowing/permission some not-me humans that much power over weapons and communications.  

  Fish on hooks sometimes with media. 

  And preference to understand the real people even as we are swept along in ethereal currents of political proportion. 

  Writers often rip and crumple, stomp on and hide pages of writing.  Then sneak back and re-consider, or, burn/delete, or put away chunks of idea made manifest in text and script. 

  Politics and media have similar processes. 

  Masses of people engaged in the same movements produce. 

  "I am asking you to think about what you are doing right now!!" An on-the-way to being an academic-in-action woman finally unbunged her theoretic brain and just said it.  (i)Critical thinking(i) defined. 

  "That's what you meant? By all this?" A rolling suitcase of research and think and writing/talk (i)about(i) had been piled on a desk.  The desk held up.  Someone gasped at the emperor with no clothing.  There was a palpable release of emotion attached to and associated with that much scholarship being performed so....(i)simply(i).

A sizzling sound, a pop, and thin smoke behind the glass of

  the entryway. 

  "Bedbugs?" Someone joked to a reporter whisking her own hair further away from the (i)development(i). 

  "Is that a wig?" 

  A tongue stuck out instead of an (i)FU(i). 

  "I really think we should get away from this building," a supercalm team lead said as if reporting the score of the weekend's football game. 

  "Why here?  Why this County?" A person charged with the task of generating questions was like a popcorn machine after an energy drink. 

  "And why is the front entrance of this territory literally burnt up?" 

  "Is this a territory?" 

  "Looks like it used to be a school or something." 

  A trash can flaring up into a blazing fire had even more people backing away from the building. 

"Stop. Just stop crying."

  A throat clear, "Wait." The man in a trench coat with ballet shoes around his neck like a locker room towel issued the order to a chaffeur of a Chevy.  "Why you cry baby?" 

  It was a headful of impressions.  All of us, ten, fifteen years on.  Mostly ahright, a little worse for the wear, with a lot a heart, darkness closing in, and this, now, (i)this now like an eye of a storm(i), she said raising her eyes up to him. 

  "Well, it's a funny thing.  People have historys, or herstorys, with themselves and with each other," the man had picked up the eyeglasses smushed into the matted grass and slight mud and was endeavoring to explain.  "And that's why people can't stick together?" A strong hand took the glasses.  "Any fingerprints on them?" Asked the person who did a cast of the bootprint over the smushed glasses.  This was checked.  Photographed.  Handed back.  Dirt rubbed off on a shirt bottom. 

  "Maybe it was because we were brainstorming." 

  "On what?" 

  "A script.  We want to look at the saga of Russian revolution up 'til now, post Soviet Union." 

  "That's what you young people were up late talking about?" 

  Nods.  "And then we got blitzed." 

  Someone else well versed in the history of war was quick to point out that getting roughed up was not a blitz.  "Well, we were asleep so it felt like it." 

  "Anyone missing?" 

  "Some people got an early start." 

  "You think they took human shields?" 

  "It's a complicated topic.  More so at some times more so than others." 

  "Break it down." 

  "The tent?" Another person came over and asked. 

  "That too.  I need to know what you mean." 

  "A lot of hardcore diplomacy depends on where the fronts are hot and cold.  And, well, in some fields of work, people have to pay someone for safe passage or the people in a zone can be considered captured or hostage or used as human shields." 

  Faces drained pale. 

  "We should get to our destinations." 

  With that the barbeque was concluded.

"What are your questions?" A moderator asked of

  our little bunch.  Mostly colleagues but also a couple strangers.  Strangers with some of the shared basic credentials for (i)intellectual conversation(i).  A girl decided from a little list and explained, "Before we got switched up again as groups, we were really getting into motivation factors." Everyone was thinking about war.  So we have questions like, (i)Why harm someone?(i), and (i)What's your future seem like it might be(?). 

  The questions were delivered into another room of tables like fresh meat. 

  Some goofy, overtired moments.  Someone started singing "We are the world," and someone spewed from what had been the Soviet Union sang, (i)We are a tink tank(i). 

  And spontaneous letloose talking like grappling hooks.  "So you say billions and billions of peoples but each on their own for getting money and food?!"  An American not yet attached to an org or corp gulped.  "Yep." 

  People exchanging articles of clothing as currency.  "Have a date night?"  

"It's really about each person before the Lord," the priest said

  somewhat distracted by the flash bulbs of the crime scene photographers and the flared up disgust of the detectives who'd stayed.  Many refused to enter the desecrated seminary. 

  The parish had grown and with that growth had come ideas about community and divisions around the application of church. 

  "It's about the Sacraments, church is really about the Sacraments," a nun in an old fashioned black habit had wrestled open a locked closet and retrieved a mop and a bucket.  The children told to stay with the holy people were magnetized and asking questions.  There was a feeling of a dam having been broken and all the people being like logs floating off and getting crammed against an unfamiliar shore. 

  "I blame this on the Jesuits." An organ player in a sweater and dress slacks waited for the photography and gawking to pass to the next practice altar before setting a tipped over holy candle upright amidst the spraypainted symbols and street objects arranged on the slab of cement.  "How so?" Another sister in a more light colored habit put a cardboard box on the floor near the now-defunct altar.  Even before they'd entered the vast basement of praying places they'd been instructed to consider the site just a building that needed cleaning up.  "I'll say," said a captain of a nun in pajamas and an overcoat. 

  "Is this what you were writing?" A woman from a different program held up the notebook and asked. 

  "Maybe." 

  "What just happened?" Another person rushed into the wooden-walled room and asked. 

  Sighs and the plunking of book bags onto metal chairs in a circle. 

  "People can't even agree on the meaning of the word (i)dog(i) so how in the world can they uphold Academic tradition?!" 

  "We're at war again." A Veteran announced. 

"Hold it right there robot."

  "I prefer humanoid.  

  I prefer humanoid. 

  I prefer humanoid." It kept "saying". 

  Two EMTs helped the person off the gurney. 

  "But I can't join if I don't give my biometrics," kind of whined the young man. 

  "What all did you stab with these?" An MP asked a nurse who appeared to be human but faded of vitality.  The nurse showed, still full. 

  "That's why I invented this," said a woman tasked with safety, group safety, and so nation safety.  "What is it?" A consumer report writer asked.  "Can I get a volunteer?" The woman joked.  She put a patch of fabric on her wrist and turned up the sound on a wireless monitor.  People ooooo'd and ah'd and someone asked, "But what about hackers?" 

  The inventor didn't miss a beat, "Good question.  I have more thinking to do." A subdued round of applause came from people both protecting their own inner circles and charged with guardian/service  jobs. 

The often-amazing cycle of human interaction with nature.

  Sign flashes FEMA working on waterways! 

  Another hat in the ring.  It's an additional layer of administrative guidance in a complex web of caretaking.  People in WNC carekeep a lot of forest area. 

  This endeavor involves locals and visitors/guests.  All people with varying degrees of skill and talent and interest. 

  "Did you know?" Great conversations often start with little jostlings.  People cramming into tight task schedules, kinda feeling each other out with antennae.  (i)People of the past built the little hatchery spot with shaking water.  And this?  This frees up some of the eggs that mama fish are nesting inside.(i)  The "shaking water" spot is in a creek or a brook; a cement pad/square often submerged in the running water just like the ancient rocks smoothed by the flow. 

  "Different kind of running water," a person explains of all size trees tipped over on the slopes of the mountains.  (i)Saturated soil often atop rock and affecting the earth in between tree roots.(i) 

  "And the people cleaning the campsites?  Is all this work coordinated somehow?" 

  "It is."  

  "Go slow so I can take a picture!" 

  "For tradespeople, well, it's actually more than a courtesy to take pictures of any jobsite," the woman explained diplomatically by way of introducing a young person to a construction crew.  "Why?" 

  A leatheryneck'd man went into a story-of-the-day-so-far which involved crew getting arrested on the way to work; two too hung over to work; stolen materials that hadn't been put up overnight; stuck with not physically strong workers not off on service duty somewhere.  

  "So, now behind schedule?" A writing/photography team asked.  The man sighed, and let his head hang, frowning.  "Did you know that a lot of the people, clients and workers had to take some time off to re-schedule everything?" 

  "We can't do that." 

  "Independent?" 

  "Not public, more private, but not a corporate thing, but we of follow the 'cane money." 

  "Cane money?!" 

  "Hurricane's create budget cycles." 

  "Do you know if it's the same budget as the Department of Agriculture?" 

  "Why?" 

  "The States are working within the department spheres on account of hot war Overseas." The person covered mouth.  "Not sure if that's (i)classified(i)."  People tiredly stared at a campfire. 

  People approaching.  Coordinating types jumping out of saggy, sunbeaten camp chairs.  "Ag?" 

  "Interior." 

  "There's more of you guys down three sites." 

  At certain parts of the process it's easier on people tasked with transcending personal politics to rise to the challenges of administering resources to not "relax" together.  And of course, mix in the tiles of War Department into the tile puzzle of function and there's stuff that cannot get talked about in a general crowd. 

  It's a professional American tide change when parties and religious forces and a participating "public" all have to accomplish a goal.  And some people think big even as others micromanage and still others fight for some modicum of "independence". 

  The best of great work hard to explain themselves.  It's not necessarily "politicking" especially when systems get rearranged into a good amount of bid work and contracts. 

  "Furthermore, I looked at the statistics.  You hot young ones and the cougar over there are in the minority.  97.5% of the men here are (i)married(i)." Eyebrows were going up, lips frowning and sort of snarling, and a few people dropped heads in hands.  "I'm gonna call her out on the statistics," said a magazine writer.  "But you're not in the Forest Service, how would you know the stats?" A young person asked. 

  "Where's she getting the half a point from? I wanna know." 

  "None of this is the point.  Why can't we get to the point?" 

  "Oh the drama."