Dance with the Jews

In elementary school, everyone had something that naturally defined them. Sandeep was Indian (guess he still is). Doug was super-human tall. Dorian was smooth with the cooties-infested ladies. Mary was cross-eyed. Dave was fantastic at kick back (aside: the awesomest game in the world). Catherine was a bitch (her twin was really nice). Melissa was gorgeous. Other Dave had crazy hair. Andy was brilliant. Jess was Canadian (at the time, easily confused with Antarctican). And Leslie was Jewish. But, let’s forget about her because I was the real Jew.

In the United States, being a Jew is a lot like having a secret identity. Aside from huge noses and, for some, a last names ending with “Berg” or “Witz”, it’s hard to know if someone has the Hasidic touch unless he or she tells you. This is true to the extent that some young Jews don’t initially realize they aren’t like the Anglo-Saxon majority. It baffled me when my mom came to my pre-school class to give a short lesson on Chanukah. Didn’t everyone light the candles for eight nights?

It became clear, after that moment, that my family partook in something that few others around me did. When I got to first grade, I met (at synagogue) with a small “gifted” group once or twice a week to learn our clan’s special language. While none of us knew what any of the weird symbols meant, it became clear why our parents made weird “chhhkking” sounds from time to time and we knew how to play dreidel. In other words, we knew things that others didn’t.

By the time I hit elementary school, I became an educational source for any Jew-related question anyone had: What are those little bald spot covers? Yarmulkes. What’s that giant scroll thing? The Torah. Was Jesus really a Jew? Who’s Jesus?

It was questions like the last one that put me in my prime. I didn’t know the answer, but if I gave one anyway, people believed me (well, aside from the Jesus one…). This allowed me to flex my creative muscle.

A buddy asked how to say lines like “Hi Mom” or “Power Ranger” in Hebrew, and I’d speak something that resembled chewing with your mouth open. As a gambling game, dreidel was a piece of cake when played with my Christian peers – the rules had a funny way of changing in my favor. Didn’t want to hang out with someone? Holiday creation wasn’t out of order.

But then she came along. Leslie.

Like Moses parting the Red Sea, fate had ensured that she and I had not landed in the same class. However, the tides inevitably came back together and there we were. Two Jews in a class.

Overnight, I was no longer even recognized as being Jewish. She knew more rituals than I did. Her last name actually was Jewish. And, she was smarter than me. The days were gone where I could creatively construct my own Judaism in the mind of others. Clearly something had to be done to restore my credibility as an Israelite. And that something would come on Heritage Day.

One thing all fourth graders look forward to is Heritage Day, or a super-cool event that kids put on for their parents to “educate” the old folk about world cultures. Part of the day’s performances included a small contingent of students to dance the Hava Nagila (For those of you unfamiliar, the Hava Nagila looks a lot like the Rockette dance, only with Yids and more clothes).

Once the teachers started planning Heritage Day, they taught us how to do the dance and decreed that there would be a try-out in a week. It was on. Leslie would see who was circumcised and who was not.

Over the next week, there was much training. Instead of kick ball, there was dancing. Instead of video games, there was dancing. Instead of the ninja turtles, there was dancing.

Unfortunately, as my training progressed, it made clear another thing that set me apart from the other kids: I was fat. Ultimately, no one, not even politically correct elementary school teachers, wanted to see flesh flopping in strange directions. When they posted the final roster of dancers, it was clear that Leslie had more chutzpah and that I had re-grown my foreskin. From that point on, Leslie was the Jew and I was not.

Mazeltov Leslie.

Beneath Its Bones

It was a normal day for the affected students;
Beginning with math and english and history
And ending with one fist to the teeth
And a head through a window.
On the second floor; shattered glass
Spread at the feet of a crowd
Who scattered as the blood began
To flow from above someone’s left eye.
To students and staff who know nothing else
The consequent spitting out of teeth and the
Bright red trail from the window to the ambulance
Was like a scene from a movie watched too many times:
A repetition, boring and meaningless,
Failing to disturb its desensitized viewers.
In such a way the realities of lasting hatred
And fear embedded in hot blooded veins

Are brought forth regularly and laid out
In drops of blood on high school stairways.
They scream to remind us that we are not doing enough;

That we are only scratching the surface of this monster called violence
And that we will never end the fights unless we reach deeper
Beneath its skin; beneath its veins and into its bones
To find the origins of the diseases that allow
This hatred to thrive and survive.
But these blatant exhibitions are conveniently
And consistently ignored.

If such young bodies can regularly
Burst through barriers and break open the skin
Why can’t we?
What is stopping us from recognizing
Our own fingerprints in the blood left on the walls;
From admitting our role in generation after generation of failure?
Why do we shield our eyes when the injured are led away
In handcuffs, spitting out cries for help
In the form of angry words and empty threats?

Just as there are layers of veins and cells
And bones beneath the skin
There are years of pain
Abandonment, confusion and ignorance
Beneath these brawls.
In these stale scenes a solution waits to be found;
Begs for us to dig deeper and try harder;
Pleads for an end to apathy and a
Stronger commitment to healing the diseases
That make violence a chronic part of life.

These Days

I’ve been wondering these days
Who I’ve come to be
Since nobody out there
Seems to be able to see

I’ve been wondering these days
Where I’m headed
Because the path I’ve been following
Looks to be blocked

I’ve been wondering these days
What the future holds
Since my magic crystal ball
Has it’s eyes closed

I’ve been wondering these days
Where my decisions lead
Because the arrows point all over
And there’s no one in the lead

The Bells Still Rang

One day, a man came
And he made some bells.
Big huge church bells.
Made of the finest bronze,
Silver and gold,
With intricate carvings all along the surface.
And the man built a tower for them
And tried them out,
And the bells rang.

And so the music of the bells
Rang across the countryside,
Beautiful and melodious,
Sweet and moving.
Their sound spread
To the ends of the Earth.
Everyone who heard the music cried,
Because they had never known such wonder.
And the bells rang.

And people came to congratulate the craftsman
On the stirring music they had been hearing.
They came and came,
Until they built up a small village,
Living peacefully with one another
In perfect bliss.
And they prospered and multiplied,
Never suffering any hardship.
And the bells rang.

The creator of the bells
Began to feel crowded by the people.
He taught some children from the village
How to make the bells ring.
Then, he set out
For unexplored lands,
To bring the music
To anyone who had never heard it.
And the bells still rang.

The villagers wished him well,
And gave him many gifts.
The children kept the music alive
So that he would never be lonely.
They cried when he left,
And eagerly awaited the day
That he would return,
Perchance with something even more beautiful.
And the bells still rang.

The years dragged on,
And the man never returned.
Gradually people forgot about the man;
They forgot who made the bells and why.
But they still had the music,
And the children still attended
To their blessed duty,
And the bells still rang.

Some time later, the people began to fight
Over the bells
And the music they made.
Wave after wave
Of invaders came,
And eventually overcame the villagers.
The village burned.
The children screamed.
And still the bells rang.

The invaders took over
And forced the villagers into slavery.
They were no longer allowed to ring the bells;
The invaders took that sacred right from them,
And the villagers suffered under the new order.
But the children could still listen,
And listening gave them hope.
And dreams of a better world.
And still the bells rang.

But there were those who hated the bells
And loved death and destruction.
The followers of discord gathered
From the darkest shadows of the Earth
To attack the village.
Conqueror and conquered alike fought side by side,
Dropping their empty conflict to defend the bells.
But they lost.
And still the bells rang.

The villagers knew a new degree of suffering
At the hands of the dark ones.
The streets were repaved with corpses;
The dead were raped.
The bell tower was torn down;
The bells were melted down in a basin, along with the children.
But some were allowed to live,
And they told the story of the bells to the next generation.
And the stilled bells rang.

The evil ones began to raise the people
Like cattle,
Caring for them,
Only to slaughter them for food or fun.
They genetically altered them,
Causing them to produce so much meat
That they couldn’t walk.
They were made to eat their remains.
And the stilled bells rang.

Eventually the people were no longer needed.
The vile fiends threw them into a pit
To starve to death.
And the demons left;
They had gotten what they came for.
They couldn’t hear the bells anymore,
They had destroyed them
And anyone who could make them ring.
And the stilled bells rang.

The village lay in ruins,
The inhabitants long dead.
The bells were gone,
But their legend lived on,
Out among the hills.
Some believed in spite of everything,
And those that didn’t hunted them down.
And so it was, until Time drew its last breath.
And the bells stopped ringing.

And one day the man returned;
Weeping since the music had stopped.
He rebuilt the village,
And restored the people to life.
They all lived together then,
As they had before, only better.
But the bells were not reforged;
They were no longer needed.
And the bells sang.

Shapely Mother Nature

Nature has the remarkable ability to create an amazing number of aesthetically pleasing shapes, from the spiraling nautilus to the octagonal stop sign to the patterns in the sand left by a lake. They are easy to overlook (though one would hope the stop sign would garner some attention), but when truly looked at a variety of interesting lines and curves can be found.

Here are some photos I took a while ago along the shores of Lake Erie that show some of those interesting lines from nature. Or at least, lines and shapes that I found interesting. Hopefully you will feel the same.

tickity-tick-tick

tickity-tick-tick tickity-tock

wop bam wop-wop bam
wop bam wop-wop bam

tickity-tick-tick tickity-tock

wop bam wop-wop bam
wop bam wop-wop bam

boom plunk
boom kerplunk
boom plunk

wop bam wop-wop bam
wop bam wop-wop bam

tickity-tick-tick tickity-tock

wop bam wop-wop bam
wop bam wop-wop bam

tickity-tick-tick tickity-tock

boom
ker-plunk

The World is Flat

The good general is a liar. Whether he knows it or actually believes what he tells us, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. The point is that he lies. Badly. Chronically too, for that matter.

You probably feel that this needs some explanation. I don’t, but then again I’ve served under him for the past year. You haven’t, so maybe it bears explaining.

Most likely you want me to start back at the time around when I volunteered. That’s fine, but there isn’t much to say. I joined because back then I believed. Believed what? Believed that we entered this war for the right reasons, that it was going well, that we’re incapable of making mistakes, and that a man can become a hero. Oh yeah, and it’d help pay for my education, and my family would never stop going on about my brother, Matt. Yeah, the Hero of Iardi Hill, that’s him. Anyway, I guess that stuff contributed too.

So I joined. No big deal, just fill out a form or two and you’re ready to go. After that you get shipped off to a camp where you’re trained, brainwashed, and finally shipped off to the battle at large. You probably think the brainwashing should’ve set off some alarm bells in my head, but it didn’t. Every country that ever had anything in the way of armed forces or civil defense or whatever does it, so it’s like a fact of life. That should be setting off alarm bells in your head by the way.

When my unit arrived here we were placed under the good general’s command, only he wasn’t a general then. Obviously, that was years ago. Back then he was a colonel. Not a bad one either, or at least that was how I felt at the time. He had us all fooled.

At any rate, my opinion of him held for about half a year. During that time we fought, bled, and died like every other unit. I realized just how naïve I’d been about war. War isn’t going off and shooting a bunch of monsters before your life reaches zero like in some damned video game. War is slowly freezing to death in foxholes, drinking your own urine, and being unable to sleep at night because during the day the two guys next to you got their heads blown off and their dried brains are still on your clothes.

I began to see the real world then. Not the one they tell you about where you go off into battle and come back a hero, but the one where you realize you probably aren’t coming back alive. Yeah, life’s a bitch, but that’s not what this story is about. This story’s about the good general and how he betrayed us. And that has nothing to do with the realities of war.

Like I said, all that back then isn’t important. Here’s what is:

One day (like I said, it was about half a year after I arrived), the good general came to us with our new orders. Instead of sitting there and watching the frontline like we’d been doing for months, we were finally going to press onward into enemy territory. Deep into enemy territory in fact. Like a few hundred miles. We were only told it was something big, no specifics. Only the general area and that we’d be transporting a crate full of something.

In case you’re wondering, it turned out to be Pandora’s Box.

I can’t say any of us were exactly thrilled with our new mission, but in the army you do as you’re told. We were parachuted in during the night. Unlike the frontline, where nothing lives because of all the blood in the ground, we found ourselves in a lush forest. It would’ve been beautiful if we didn’t have to worry about the enemy and all the places they could be. True, we weren’t near the frontline, but if our objective was as important as the good general had made it sound then we could expect considerable resistance.

We made sure no one was lost and the cargo was secure, then got moving. If someone saw the jump, it wouldn’t do for them to report our location after all. We figured the objective to be a good twenty miles or so to the southeast of us. Plenty of time to worry about being seen.

Plenty of time for us to talk too.

“What do you think we’re doing here?” I asked the guy next to me, Timmy. Of course I had some idea, but I needed to take the edge off somehow. Anyway, Timmy was about twice my age at the time, his hair starting to turn gray. I wouldn’t say he was smarter than the rest of us, but he tended to come off that way because he was more reserved. Like for the most part he’d only spoke if spoken to or if he noticed something important the rest of us missed (like the one time he pointed out birds flying out of the woods and it turned out to be an enemy armor unit). It’s not that he disliked us, I think he just didn’t feel the same need the rest of us do to open our mouths constantly.

“Oh, just about anything,” Timmy said. “It could be rescuing a VIP from enemy custody, taking out some new super weapon, spearheading the next major advance, you name it.”

“But why not tell us the specifics then?” I asked. Again, something I already knew.

I could see the patience going out of Timmy’s face. Talking about the inherently obvious tended to get on his nerves quickly, but we’d been around each other long enough for him to know I did it all the time when I was nervous. “The less people who know the answers, the less people who can talk. They can’t effectively torture you for answers you don’t know.”

We walked on in silence for a bit.

“So what’s eating you?” Timmy asked.

“I dunno,” I replied. “Just this feeling I have… though I guess it could just be that we’ve never been this deep into enemy territory before.”

“If that was it, then you’d sound surer of it,” Timmy said.

When Timmy was right, he was right. What I was feeling wasn’t fear of what I knew—it was fear of what I didn’t.

Not long after that that we reached our objective. It wasn’t a base, prison, super weapon, or anything else we’d been expecting. We saw what was ahead, hesitated, then kept walking. When it became clear that it was our destination, we all stopped at around the same time, hoping there’d been some kind of mistake. But there wasn’t.

“There she is boys,” the good general said, waving his arm like a salesman in a bad infomercial at the city in front of us. “That’s where we’re headed.”

“Wh… what?” one of my comrades asked.

“That’s the objective,” the good general made clear. “Your job is to destroy it.”

“But they’re civilians.”

“And your job is to eliminate them.”

“No.” When a soldier forgets to tack the word “sir” on the end of something, it’s a bad sign.

The good general took out his pistol and shot the dissenter in the face before he could react. (Of course it had a silencer on it, we weren’t to be seen yet.) “Failure to comply with this order will result in all of us being executed. For those of you who are thinking about sneaking off, I would like to remind you that this deep in enemy territory you’ll easily be found and killed if you desert.”

We stared at him like cattle. Hell, we were cattle.

“Oh, and put these on before you go down there,” he said, cracking open the crate we’d been carrying with us. It was full of Clollel military uniforms.

Our objective became sickeningly clear to me now. Now I’m sure you learned all this in school, but there are only three countries in the world: our “proud” nation of Hitarth, our enemy Lavhis, and Clollel, all bordering each other, like slices of pie. The area beyond them is the unsettled lands where the serpents dwell and beyond that is the end of the world, where no one goes for fear of falling off.

Anyway, in spite of press reports, the war had been at a stalemate on the frontlines for quite awhile. Clollel had been neutral throughout the war though they’d been known to favor us in trade. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you just how much strain that put on relations between them. Now imagine what happens when you introduce an atrocity. Suddenly our enemy’s fighting a two front war and the stalemate’s broken, probably saving millions of lives on both sides at the cost of a few hundred civilians. And if the plan fails, what do we lose?

Nothing.

“What do you want us to do with our uniforms?” Timmy asked. I wasn’t the only one who saw what was going on.

“Burn them,” the good general ordered. No evidence.

I wanted to say something, but I didn’t want a bullet in my head. Looking back on things now, I think we all wanted to say something. Damn shame we didn’t have the balls to just shoot the good general then and there. I think I’d sleep better at night if we had.

But we didn’t, we did as we were told instead. We got changed and started the fire while the good general laid out our plan of attack, which was really quite simple. Go in, massacre a bunch of people while someone keeps a lookout, set fire to the city, get out before the cavalry comes. Be seen by plenty of people.

“Oh, and while you’re at it see if you can get his body down there in a conveniently unrecognizable fashion,” the good general added, pointing to the body of the dissenter he’d shot. “Thanks.”

We started toward the city once more, the good general bringing up the rear.

“We’re not really going to do this, are we?!” I whispered to Timmy.

“Well, we’re wearing Clollel uniforms, carrying rifles, and marching toward yon city while our C.O.’s behind us ready to pop a cap if we start walking too slow. What do you think?” Timmy replied.

“I think I feel sick.” It was the first thing that came to mind.

“Then just tell yourself you’re not responsible,” Timmy said. “All you’re doing is following his order.”

“That’s right ladies, you’re not responsible,” the good general said (he must’ve overheard us). “All you’re doing is following orders. Whatever happens is my fault, and maybe the guy above me too.”

You want to know the most sickening thing about this whole mess? We believed every word of it. And that includes me, because it was something I could cling to to avoid responsibility. And you’d be surprised how much easier that makes doing something terrible to accept.

Shut the hell up and wipe that look off your face! You only think you would’ve done something better because you weren’t there! Unless you’ve been asked at gun point to massacre a bunch of people you have nothing to do with? No? I didn’t think so. Now then, if you’re done…

We stopped just before the forest ended, each of us getting ready to throw a grenade, except for a couple of guys carrying rocket launchers. On the good general’s command we let loose with the explosives in a volley, then charged into the city. They kinda stopped and stared at us like a bunch of cows after the first explosions… well, the ones who weren’t a little too close to it anyway. Then we opened fire and they panicked and ran. Most of the ones closer to us were reduced to hamburger. Automatic fire’s quite the marvel.

By the end of the first minute it was total chaos. Bullets flying everywhere. The occasional grenade. People running, screaming, dying. An old man tripped and fell trying to get away, and I buried my bayonet in his back. A family ducked down low in their car, trying to hide, and I chucked a grenade through the window. Some idiot poked his head out a window overhead, yelling at us to “pipe down.” I shot him. But all that was okay, because I wasn’t responsible. I was under orders from the good general.

I was laughing.

By then we were pretty much dispersed, the good general standing there and taking in the sites like it was a friggin’ sunset. Timmy and I made our way up the main street. At the time I thought Timmy was shooting as much as I was… even enjoying it as much as I was. But looking back I realize he wasn’t, that he only shot as much as he felt he had to, and even then I’m pretty sure it was always at non-vital areas, or people who were badly hurt already.

Not a day goes by that I don’t thank God that Timmy kept his head. Because if he didn’t sock me in the face the second we were out of the good general’s sight I think I really would have lost it. Not that I hadn’t lost it, but that I’d stay there. And I gotta tell ya, Timmy was a lot stronger than he looked. That punch knocked me to the ground. My hand went to my mouth. A tooth was missing. “What the hell’d you do that for?!” I asked.

Between the people who yell when their angry and the people who still sound calm, I think the calm ones are scarier. Timmy was one of those. “You were laughing,” Timmy said.

I kinda gawked at him. I didn’t understand, my brain felt like it’d shut itself off. “Yeah… so?” I asked, honestly confused. It felt kind of like when I got in trouble for swearing back when I was a kid. You remember how that feels, right? Like you did something really bad and you could tell from the look on your mom’s face but there was that moment before she yelled at you that you didn’t know what it was? That’s how I felt.

“Take a look around,” he said.

Something in his voice made me think he was trying really hard not to want to shoot me. I looked around, but only because he said to. I opened my mouth to say okay or something like that, but he kicked me in the balls before I could get it out.

“Do it again,” Timmy said. “And actually look this time.”

This time I really did look. What I saw wasn’t pretty. A bunch of people lying in the ground in pools of their own blood. Men. Women. Children. Some of them were still twitching, still breathing, still screaming. A man and a woman lay on the ground hand in hand, their brains mixing on the pavement. The buildings were on fire. Some still had people in them, and some of them were burning too. Off in the distance people were fleeing in huge mob while my brothers in arms mowed them down. My gaze shifted to my gun, which had blood drying on the bayonet. And then my hands, also with blood on them. (Sure, it was my own blood from when Timmy punched me and they weren’t exactly covered with the stuff, but it still got to me.) And then back at Timmy who looked like he wanted to cry more than anything in the world, crazy as that sounds.

I understood then that what I’d been doing was wrong. Not that I was responsible. No, not that. I blamed the good general and him alone. After all, I wasn’t the only one who followed his orders. Again, that’s the sort of thinking that should set off warning bells. So I did something wrong that I wasn’t responsible for. And you’re right, that does sound stupid when you say it out loud. But sometimes people think stupid things.

Timmy must’ve seen the realization in my face because instead of hitting me again he helped me up. Neither of us said anything for awhile. “We gotta do something,” Timmy said. I think it’s the only time he couldn’t stand silence.

“Like what?” I asked. It wasn’t that I couldn’t think of anything. The first thing that came to mind was to turn against my unit, but that one was gone as quickly as it had appeared. I don’t care what you think, but they were good people.

Timmy considered the question for a moment. Then his face brightened a bit.

“Well?” I asked.

He shushed me. I was about to say something again when I realized the trash can behind Timmy was crying.

Do you believe in miracles? And put some damn thought into it before you answer. I don’t want some corny, half-assed answer like “They happen every day!” or “All life is a miracle!” If you say something like that I’ll kick you.

A living child—maybe five years old at the most—in a city of death, corpses all around. If she’d been seen, she would’ve been killed without hesitation. But she wasn’t, even though bullets were embedded in the building behind her so close she must have screamed. Yes, I believe in miracles. You know what else though?

They’re bad luck.

Anyway, when Timmy lifted the lid off, she screamed like you wouldn’t believe. His hand was over her mouth in a flash. “Shh… shh…,” he whispered. “We’re not going to hurt you.” I’m not sure she was even listening the way she kept squirming to get free. When she stopped he continued. “We want to get you to safety, but there are a lot of bad people around. So we need you to be quiet, okay?” She stared blankly at him. Hesitantly, Timmy removed his hand.

She began screaming again and tried to get away. Tim caught her and we were right back where we started. “This’d be a lot easier if we just knocked her out,” I said.

Timmy shot me a disgusted look.

“No, seriously,” I said. “She wouldn’t be screaming any more and after that we could just stuff her in one of our backpacks and carry her out.”

“We’ll only knock her out if we have to,” he said hesitantly. The tone of voice he used was the one that means it’d never happen though. “But that’s a good idea with the backpack thing.” He turned back to the girl. “You gonna scream this time?”

She shook her head and, sure enough, when Timmy let go of her this time she didn’t. Less than a minute later we finished emptying Timmy’s backpack and she crawled right in.

That was when the lookout radioed for all of us to pull back. The cavalry was finally on its way to save the innocent. Good for them, but bad for us. If we decided to pull out with the unit, they’d probably find the girl and we’d be executed. If we decided to try getting the girl over to the cavalry… well, they’d probably execute us on sight. Of course if we stayed put they’d execute us too. And if we decided to run away from it all our government would hunt us down and execute us to keep a lid on things, if the good general didn’t beat them to it. Lovely situation, isn’t it?

I’m going to be honest, we should’ve gone with plan B—making sure she linked up with the cavalry. But our training took control of us just long enough to get us out of that alley and back onto the street where some of our comrades were already running, the good general among them. The only feasible option now was plan A, pull out with the unit. Because even if we got the chance to sneak off, the good general would know and come after us immediately.

I think you understand why I’m convinced miracles are bad luck now.

Timmy’s a smart guy though. He realized that if he could get behind the good general in a way he wouldn’t find suspicious, then he could duck into a side street just long enough to hide the girl and maybe even tell her to wait for the cavalry. So he purposely tripped himself.

Genius, pure genius.

The good general put a bullet in his head as he ran past. I know it seems a bit excessive. It surprised the hell out of me too. I think either the good general suspected something was going on or Timmy took too long for his liking. Or both. It doesn’t matter, the girl came crawling out of his backpack screaming either way.

I’m pretty sure the good general knew what was going on as soon as that happened since I was the one he ordered to shoot her. What’s more, he stood behind me and waited for me to do it. And I got the distinct impression that if I didn’t do it soon I’d be joining Timmy. The girl too for that matter.

Slowly, I leveled the barrel of my weapon at the girl. Our eyes met. And I finally realized that I alone am responsible for my actions. I wish I’d figured that one out a lot sooner.

“I’m waiting,” the good general said. And I heard him draw his weapon on me.

I mouthed the words “I’m sorry” and a tear slid down my cheek. She saw what I was about to do and started screaming for her mother, screaming that Timmy said we weren’t going to hurt her, screaming that she wanted to live.

I wanted to live too and I was out of time.

I shot her.

Not a day goes by that I don’t regret it. Not a night goes by that I don’t have nightmares about what I did. Not a moment goes by that I forget the look on her face when our eyes met. None of that will bring her back though. None of that’s redemption.

“Well done,” the good general said. I heard him put his pistol back. “Now hurry up, we need to—”

I whirled around and shot him before he could grab his gun again, getting him high up on the right side of his chest near his shoulder. Clearly non-fatal since he’s still alive today, but I could’ve told you that back then too since it would’ve missed all the vital organs. I’m guessing one of the men helped him to the extraction point or he made it there on his own strength, but I don’t know. I was outta there before I could see what happened to him.

Yeah, that’s right, I ran like hell. The cavalry was coming and I doubt I would’ve been able to stay alive if I finished him off and stuck with the unit. Above all though, I was scared as fuck. Shooting your commanding officer is like… well, it’s like marching into a city and murdering a bunch of people. You just don’t stick around longer than you have to. Unless you want to get caught.

The next year and a half for me was mostly uneventful. Sure, it was eventful for you, hearing about how a bunker was taken or a battle was lost every day on your ever-fucking TV, but not for me. I was just wandering in the woods, always heading east. Of course I ditched the uniform and all the gear I had that looked a little too military that first day. One of the few things I kept with me was the few grenades I’d been issued. I thought they might be useful if I was desperate for some kind of distraction. Walking around in your underwear is also pretty damn conspicuous, so I made sure to follow near road until I came to a small town, where I snuck in at night and stole some clothes from a mall. I also got a pistol to replace my rifle from an underground arms dealer the next time I passed by a large city.

I pretty much went due east after that, always away from the frontline (and hence my country). I know I said that all this time was uneventful, but that’s not entirely true. The first month was pretty damn miserable. Naturally, my country sent people, and dogs, to find me. And they definitely came close to catching me twice.

The first time was because of the dogs catching my scent. I was lucky enough to be near a river, so I dove under and swam downstream as quickly as I could, only poking my head up for air if I absolutely had to. The guys following that dog must’ve been pretty far off since no one was waiting for me when I stepped onto dry land a couple miles downriver.

The second time I stumbled onto a small unit. Again, I was lucky. I hid before they saw me and they went right by me. A group of men wearing no country’s uniform. But their gear looked like it came from back home.

After that I was pretty sure they’d lost my trail. Another miracle. Because when you know a country’s dirty secret, they don’t let you live. Whether or not you’re deep in enemy territory’s irrelevant.

That’s why I stuck to the woodlands. If civilians, spies, and satellites don’t see you, you kind of disappear. I never dreamed how much survival training would pay off so much when I was back in boot camp. And, like I said, things were uneventful. So let’s skip ahead to the part that you’ll be interested in.

A little advance warning here, this is when things get kinda weird.

Well, like I said, it was about a year and a half after the massacre in that city. Yeah, that’s right, around the time the war miraculously ended. Actually this has to do with why the war ended.

I was really deep in the woods now. Like, so deep it’d be a jungle if it was in a tropical climate. I hadn’t seen signs of civilization in three months, or another human being in almost as long. (The two are different you know? Like in the case of a hermit?) I was lost too. Very, very lost. I knew I was deep in the unexplored lands of course, but I didn’t know where.

What did I live on? Mostly rabbits. I never really had much survival training, but my brother and Timmy did and they weren’t shy about sharing it with me.

Anyway, I was walking along like always when I see a guy coming toward me. So, like always, I ducked behind a tree and hoped he wouldn’t see me. This time I wasn’t fast enough because he ducked behind a tree too. I drew my gun and held my breath, waiting for him to make the first move.

I waited a minute. Then another. And another. The forest was dead quiet, and I mean dead quiet. No sounds at all other than my own breathing. When I couldn’t take it anymore I jumped out and took aim.

The other guy did the same. That’s when things started to feel… off. The alarm bells weren’t going off yet, but the kid had his hand on the fire alarm.

“Drop it!” I screamed. I saw the other guy yell something but didn’t hear any voice but my own. And I noticed that the other guy was wearing the same thing I was, had the same weapon I had, had the same hair color, and yelled something that also consisted of two distinct syllables.

I think you see where this is going.

I lowered my weapon slowly and he did the same. We stepped toward each other until at last I was face to face with my own reflection. I reached out and touched the glass. Then I looked to the left and to the right. The forest was mirrored the whole way down. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true! There was a mirror, and it went on for as far as I could see!

The alarm bells didn’t just go off, they exploded. I got the distinct impression I wasn’t supposed to be there, that no one was meant to see this thing, but that wasn’t enough to keep me from screaming “What the hell is this?!” at the top of my lungs. That’s how freaked out I was.

It didn’t help much when the good general answered either. “I thought you might turn up here,” he said, emerging from a hidden trapdoor in the ground. He had his gun on me before I could turn around.

“What is this?!” I hissed.

“This, my friend, is the best kept secret in the world,” the good general replied. I saw that he’d been promoted. A lot. “It’s a one-way mirror, so use your hands to block out the light and have a look. Go on.”

When I saw he wasn’t planning on shooting me immediately I did like he said. It was hard to see anything very well, but there was the edge of a cliff just beyond the mirror. The land stretched out in a barren desert at the bottom as far as the eye could see. I saw a black giant standing still atop a plateau, holding something up to the sky. I shifted around a bit until I could see better. It was a torch. The giant also had a book in its other hand and seemed to be wearing some sort of crown.

“What is that thing?” I asked.

“You’ll have to be more specific,” the good general said. “I’m not going to move close enough to have a look myself after all.”

“There’s a giant holding a torch,” I said.

“Oh, that,” the good general said. “It’s called the ‘Statue of Liberty.’ Like the name suggests, it’s a statue. It was a gift from France to the United States and is made of copper.”

“From who to who?” I asked.

“Two countries, a long, long time ago,” the good general replied. “Back when this mirror was put up, yon statue was still green.”

“Why did it turn black?” I asked.

“It corroded,” the good general replied.

Neither of us said anything for a little while. A gust of wind blew through the trees.

“So why is there a huge mirror in the middle of the forest?” I asked.

“In school you were taught that the world is flat, and if you go far enough you’ll fall right off the edge. This is actually a lie, the world, the real world is quite round. You see, the world you know today is only a mere fraction of the real world,” the good general explained. “A long time ago, back when the statue there was still green, a war broke between all the nations on this planet. Weapons that should not have been used were, and virtually everyone died. Those that we know for certain remained were the leaders of the United States at the time—our ancestors. They spent years building a gigantic bubble to live in, and when it was done they decontaminated it. Generations passed, society was rebuilt, and gradually most people forgot about the bubble. It was not rediscovered until sometime later, and the people in charge—all of them, not just the ones from our great nation—decided it should remain unknown. So you see, we’re standing at the edge of the world.”

All of that’s just a fancy way of saying we fucked up and we don’t want to remember it.

“What the hell are we at war for then?!” I asked. “How can we go to war when we know about this?! How can we be ordered to do what we did?!”

“Because they’re germs,” the good general said. “Germs in our little bubble. Now come away from there, we’ve talked long enough.”

I refused.

He fired a warning shot into the ground by my foot. “I’m not fucking with you, get over here now!”

I wasn’t stupid. I knew he wasn’t going to let me live no matter what I did. I wanted to face death head on. I’d spent too much time running. So I stood my ground and gave the good general the one fingered salute.

But he didn’t shoot me. Instead he just kind of stood there with it pointed at me, ordering me away from the mirror furiously.

And suddenly I knew why. A smile touched my lips that made the good general’s face go ghost-white. I pulled out my gun and the grenades I’d kept.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” he screamed, clearly panicking now.

“Ending this,” I replied. I don’t know if the glass was bulletproof or not, but the good general was definitely afraid of missing me and breaking the damn thing. I tossed the grenades and they landed next to the mirror several yards away.

The good general’s jaw dropped. “You did not just do that! You did not just do that!”

Taking advantage of his shock I shot the gun out of his hand. I thought about killing him, but hesitated. There’d been enough of that. “Get lost,” I said.

“What?” he asked.

That was when the grenades exploded, breaking the mirror. More bad luck. Air rushed in all at once, laced with some sort of invisible poison, and he ran. I lingered just long enough to try to find the trapdoor he came out of. The pressure difference between inside and outside caused the mirror to break further. It began shattering and I decided it was too dangerous to stay and keep looking. To this day I wonder what was down there, but if I had to guess I’d say that the people running this world built it to keep an eye on the mirror.

The war was over the next day, because they had to build a new bubble. Of course, they didn’t bother to tell people that part. When lots of people near the edge of civilization began getting sick, they made up something about biological weapons from terrorist factions that wanted the war to continue. Most people never questioned this, even though most of the effected areas had absolutely no value as targets, being sparsely populated and all.

About three years after the new bubble was done another war started. This time our great nation swallowed up all the others.

I lived in the wilderness for the next five years before deciding that I wouldn’t be able to much longer. Yeah, I’m sick with the “plague” too. It wasn’t a surprise, but the amount of time I lasted had to have been pure luck. Since I’m dying anyway, I figured I’d come back to the civilized world. I’m still alive, so I guess no one recognizes me.

About a year after that, I found out that the good general had been taking part in secret missions for the government since before my unit was assigned to him. Yeah, it was because of that special on TV about it, right after he was given the Medal of Honor.

And so now here I am, sitting in a bar with you two years after that special explaining to you why I got so pissed when I saw the good general on TV giving a speech explaining why martial law needs to be declared to prevent rebellions. Cheers.

In the Mirror

I was on my way out of the house about a month ago when I noticed a beautiful sunset out of my window. I was running late and didn’t have time to take any pictures before leaving. However, I kept glancing at my mirror as I drove away. When I stopped at a red light, I had to take a picture. While this picture hardly captures the sunset, I enjoy seeing the blue sky (that I am driving towards) and the red sky (behind me) within the same photograph.

The Soul Mate

Everyone has their own idea of what a soul mate is. However, most have a very similar idea: the person that the universe has willed to be his or her perfect romantic companion. But what if that’s not the case? What if a soul mate is simply a person that you’re fated to meet and, once met, your life is never the same.

I met my soul mate last week.

It was a slow and lonely Saturday evening and I was feeling a little like pizza for dinner. I remembered that there was a small pizza shop next to the grocery store that I frequent. The pizza shop is one of those places that you pass and think, “I should check it out sometime,” but never do. So, that night, I did.

It was definitely a mom-and-pop joint where you can see the kitchen in all its stainless steel ugliness and has the kinds of chairs and tables that line cheap wedding receptions. Yet, it had its own warmth and the smell of cheese in the oven. I sat down at a table and there she was.

It’s easy to come up with this image of a thin-waisted, well-endowed working woman with a strand of hair gracing her face in just the right spot. But she wasn’t like that. Instead, she was that everyday, girl-next-door ordinary that is so much prettier. Plus, she had a smile and blue eyes that you could get lost in forever.

She came to the table and took my order, sharing some witty banter in the process. I ate my food and paid the bill. I got up from the table and drove home. It doesn’t get more ordinary than that.

Yet, just as I was leaving, I glanced over at the lady who had entertained me for the last hour. Without saying a word, she flashed me a smile that read, “It was good to have met you.” And somehow, that made it all worth it. The boring days, the petty arguments, the feeling of insignificance, and the toll of living life. That smile…that one smile…gave me the hope that I will carry with me for the rest of my days.

Even though I will never see her again, that quick glance changed me into an optimist. If one person enjoyed my company, if only for a short time, then there will surely be others. If one good thing I did for someone brought them a moment’s happiness, then certainly I can help bring such moments to others. If the last hour was worth living, then so is the rest of my life.

And for that, she is my soul mate.

—

I don’t normally write fiction this sappy, so I’m curious what everyone thought of this. Was the language bland, too clichéd, or too cheesy? Did it come on too strong or creepy? Should it be expanded? Or, perhaps, did you like it? Any feedback appreciated.

Alien Landscape

I thought I would post something like this since I have been doing other things lately. It was made in Photoshop and Terragen. Any thoughts are always appreciated.