Dear Ambellina...

Reading The Amory Wars... Knowing what happened to the characters makes it even more satisfying.

"I will call you out from shelter. Burn your Wings, you'll know no better."

Not much else going on. Not a whole lot to say. Been reading and writing a lot. So, I started jotting down the dreams I've had since being on the ole nicotine patch as they apparently make my dreams memorable. So...that's nice? I don't know. I just write. So, at about a pace of 5 a pop here we go.

1000 Worlds.

World 1. I have a newborn daughter. My Dad, My Papa, and myself are standing in a rough circle looking at her as I hold her. We are talking about her name and how bad I'll spoil her. I tell them her name is for both of them. We are all smiling.

World 2. I drop the boys off at school. The elementary is Garfield, the same one went to as a child. It is exactly as I remember it. I take the kids to their classes and go to the latrine. As I'm washing my hands a woman walks in and asks me for money. I tell her I don't really have anything on me. She starts telling me about her last sexual encounter. I'm more than a little weirded out. I go home. I am apparently married. She has made coffee and is awake on the couch in a robe. I drink the coffee and lay on the couch with my head in her lap. She plays with my hair as I tell her about the morning. We playfully argue about the definition of a "Dirty Sanchez". She leans over to kiss me.

World 3. I'm in a firefight in our second sector in Baghdad. We are right at the edge of the Green Mile. I am running out of ammunition. I yell for more, but no one can hear me. I get pissed off. I start tearing off my kit and stand up. I say that I'm really, really tired.

World 4. I'm at the mall in Portland. I'm in the Sears looking at appliances. I realize that I don't know where the boys are. I start running through the store screaming for them. I know they have been kidnapped. I start dealing on people trying to slow me down. Every now and then I'll see one of the kids through the corner of my eye, but every time I turn to chase they are gone. I can't find them or catch up to them.

World 5. I'm back at the Mass Cas. I'm in the middle of the Urgent Cares. The little girl missing her legs and part of her face is staring at me. She tells me she is dying. I tell her I'm doing everything I can. But everything I try just makes it worse. All the other casualties start calling for me. The kids are trying to crawl off their stretchers as I'm strapping them down. Nothing I do works. There is blood all over me.

World 6. I'm in small white room. There are photographs covering the floor and 3 walls. I am handcuffed to a chair. After a while a nurse comes in. She grabs pictures and wraps them around her fists, like brass knuckles. She beats the crap out of me. I still can't move. She leaves. I sit trying to get loose. She comes back in and beats me again.

And now, for something completely different. A few selections from the last book I just read.

Rollins "Roomanitarian"

~Song of The Solipsist~
My scar tissue tells my tale. My name is not important. Only the truth I tell and the journey I have made are of any worth. The rest is just the sound of wind and boots stepping down endless trails of cinder, littered with bonesand scraps of metal.
You were the small brightly colored bird the boys incinerated their hearts upon. They loved you bitterly and called you a witch. You wanted to belong to someone. You found one but he tricked you and tore you like a sister's doll in a mean brother's hands and you became the hurricane child, spewing broken glass shards and cat blood. I tracked the blood drops through the snow and found you. You didn't fear me. We saw ourselves in each other and holstered our weapons.
Is there anything here I can call my own? A feeling? A moment? Anything? Will there ever be a time I am truly loved? When I'll know it and not wonder if it's real? Is there something I can protect and love and care about? Is there a truth I can keep that has no fear attached? Will there ever be a time I can be somewhere and it will feel like home? Will there ever be a time I can look around me and know I am finally in the place I am supposed to be? Is there anything here, anything I can see, while I breathe and breathe, trying to stay alive long enough to just be able to be here and know that I am here? Not just any here but the here I am supposed to be in. Is there anything I can call mine that will not eventually be taken from me? Is there anything, anyone, ever?