Soldier 1: How do you feel about rain?
Soldier 2: Well, the lord sent it, so I’ll take it.
Soldier 1: Do you think that your inability to write your last name or even speak it aloud has anything to do with the anger and resentment you feel towards your father?
Soldier 2: You’re saying because it was his name. His surname. It defines something about me that I don’t want to be defined with. Is this what you’re saying?
Soldier 1: Along those lines, if you wish to follow them.
Soldier 2: I don’t like following lines. I step out of them if I can.
Soldier 1: Well, are we not all on a collision course to meet our maker?
Soldier 2: The facts, however you may interpret them…well, those lesser-known people of the earth, they often do not taste of brine.
Soldier 1: Quite so. Still, all hubris aside, humor me.
Soldier 2: I, dear sir, am not in the humor business. I do not make people laugh for a fee.
Soldier 1: Would you concite cachinnation for free?
Soldier 2: Could be.
Soldier 1: Do you doubt?
Soldier 2: I have, and I may be, and I possibly will too. There is no need to be sure. Doubt is one of the few freedoms we have left. Are we not fighting for…something?
Soldier 1: We fight. This I know.
Soldier 2: That you do, as do I. Both of us know we fight. We fight daily, nightly….morningly.
Soldier 1: For all the dead.
Soldier 2: Yes. As well, for them. But they no longer for the mourners we have become.
Soldier 1: Morningers. Nighters. Afternooners. Teatimers. Cocktail-hourers. Crack-of-dawners. Crepusculars.
Soldier 2: What of the wounded? Do we not fight for them?
Soldier 1: I don’t know. Ask Dee Brown.
Soldier 2: Can’t. His heart was buried right along with him a few years back.
Soldier 1: He was old.
Soldier 2: I wonder if he’s older now.
Soldier 1: You don’t get any older than dead. Dead is as old as you get.
Soldier 2: Bury my body, Lord, I don’t care where they. Cause my soul is gonna live with God. Lead me Jesus, lead me, why don’t you lead me in the middle of the air. My soul. My soul. My soul…
Soldier 1: Hugs are better than nightmares.
Soldier 2: Got it.
Soldier 1: Can there be more to us than battles, the eating of sugary crepes, the promise of housing, the quiet of sleeping with grenades exploding in the vasty stretches of ancient lands without horizons, the trenches, the shutting of your mouth, the plectrums picking guitars, the capillaries connecting aterioles and venules, Madreselva movie posters, rubber-band men on dhows sinking plastic superheroes on scows with toothpick arrows, The Simpsons, heavenly apparitions, battleships, the vicious cycle of buy and sell and live and die and lost and found and the slow ex tempore weeding of the mind’s garden?
Soldier 2: We are all victims of addition and subtraction.
Soldier 1: Oh, all the way Lord, lead me all the way, Lord, Lord, Lord, lead me…out of the way.
Soldier 2: Out of the way of bullets and bombs and the following of orders and the scream of the sun.
Soldier 1: Oh my, oh me.
Soldier 2: Smoke my ashtray, will ya?
Soldier 1: There are places we come from, places we’ve been, things we’ve shared, planes that have been shot down, kinks in our necks, prostitutes, spelling bees, castrated owls, hula-hoops, Tupperware parties, the leavening of the fight, the levity of my tears, plan, plan, plan!
Soldier 2: It’s a drag, love. Isn’t fun, is it?
Soldier 1: A matter of perspective. Riding a skateboard down a steep hill is both.
Soldier 2: Walk, indirectly, towards me.
Soldier 3: Hey! You two. Shut the fuck up.
Soldier 2: I tend to dwell on things. I am an inveterate dweller.
Soldier 1: I am lost in solitude.
Soldier 2: I never feel more alone than when I am around others.
Soldier 1: Nobody knows you when you’re down and out.
Soldier 2: I woke up this morning with an awful aching head.
Soldier 1: Get yourself a coffee grinder. The best one you can find.
Soldier 2: Do you ever get those worried blues? The kind you can’t just worry away.
Soldier 1: Sure. The worry eats away and the worry wins and the worry stays.
Soldier 2: Worry is the washing away of the care from the moment.
Soldier 3: I’m serious you motherfuckers! Shut it!
Soldier 1:
Soldier 2:
Soldier 1:
Soldier 2:
Soldier 3: The lord is strange and strong. The meek have inherited too much.
Posts
