He killed himself. He went and did something stupid. He wouldn’t. He didn’t. He couldn’t. He went and gave the world a reason to forget about him and move on to bigger and better things that he never could, even though his parents had always wanted him to go onto something bigger and better for himself, something they could be proud of, something like a doctor or lawyer or some other such person who saved lives or healed pain. Some stupid kid who went and did something so incredibly stupid that people wanted to forget about him and all of his troubles and every last word he had ever spoken for the sake of healing themselves in a way that he never could and never even thought to. All it was was some stupid kid. It wasn’t much of anything. But it wasn’t. It could have been any number of things. It could have been a misunderstanding.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Perspective
By Patrick McCormack (Bio on Choices)
The snow was thick on the ground. Weeks of accumulation. It was wearing on us. You can only live, eat and sleep in a frozen foxhole for so long before you get driven mad. So, early one morning I took a walk along the line, alone.
I must’ve gotten turned around and wandered over to their line. What a dumb shit replacement thing to do. I trudged along for a good mile before it dawned on me that I no longer heard English voices through the brush. Then, suddenly, footsteps heard in the distance.
I dropped to one knee and unslung my rifle. I couldn’t pinpoint where the steps were coming from. My eyes searched every direction. Then he appeared. Two steps through the brush and there he was, about 100 yards in front of me. He immediately saw me, his MP-40 sub machine gun pointed right at me.
There was no sound. The snow had stopped falling. I didn’t blink. There wasn’t even a breeze. It was as if the entire world was frozen.
My rifle trained at his chest, finger on the trigger, I saw every detail of his face. Pinhole eyes under that Kraut helmet. The face of born soldier – flat, broad-nosed and huge chin. We stared through each other’s sites for what seemed like days but couldn’t have been more than a few moments. Both of us alone. Wandering. Brought to this frozen hell and looking for a way out, even for just a moment.
Eyes still locked on the German soldier, I lowered my rifle as three consecutive thuds echoed in the sky – mortar fire. I looked up to the gray sky, then back to the German. He was gone. No trace of him. I turned and ran toward the line, holding my helmet on as mortars burst around me. I got to my foxhole, and one year later got home.
I like to think we both had enough of the killing. We both wanted each other to get home.
___________________________________________________________
Out for a smoke away from the others I must’ve gotten lost. We’d been holed up in that shell of a town Bastogne fending off the Americans for months. So I strolled off on my own away from the decay, the noise and the nonsense of this campaign.
Three cigarettes later I heard footsteps in the distance. I tripped the safety on my weapon and took one last drag of my smoke before I tossed it and stepped through the brush ahead. One American soldier knelt down about 100 yards ahead of me.
We both froze. Statues in a museum of war. Rifles trained, waiting to fire.
Three thuds burst in the distance behind me – our mortars. The American looked up and I stepped back into the brush.
I knelt down and inspected the slide on my MP-40. To this day I still don’t know how it jammed and that American got off with his life.
The snow was thick on the ground. Weeks of accumulation. It was wearing on us. You can only live, eat and sleep in a frozen foxhole for so long before you get driven mad. So, early one morning I took a walk along the line, alone.
I must’ve gotten turned around and wandered over to their line. What a dumb shit replacement thing to do. I trudged along for a good mile before it dawned on me that I no longer heard English voices through the brush. Then, suddenly, footsteps heard in the distance.
I dropped to one knee and unslung my rifle. I couldn’t pinpoint where the steps were coming from. My eyes searched every direction. Then he appeared. Two steps through the brush and there he was, about 100 yards in front of me. He immediately saw me, his MP-40 sub machine gun pointed right at me.
There was no sound. The snow had stopped falling. I didn’t blink. There wasn’t even a breeze. It was as if the entire world was frozen.
My rifle trained at his chest, finger on the trigger, I saw every detail of his face. Pinhole eyes under that Kraut helmet. The face of born soldier – flat, broad-nosed and huge chin. We stared through each other’s sites for what seemed like days but couldn’t have been more than a few moments. Both of us alone. Wandering. Brought to this frozen hell and looking for a way out, even for just a moment.
Eyes still locked on the German soldier, I lowered my rifle as three consecutive thuds echoed in the sky – mortar fire. I looked up to the gray sky, then back to the German. He was gone. No trace of him. I turned and ran toward the line, holding my helmet on as mortars burst around me. I got to my foxhole, and one year later got home.
I like to think we both had enough of the killing. We both wanted each other to get home.
___________________________________________________________
Out for a smoke away from the others I must’ve gotten lost. We’d been holed up in that shell of a town Bastogne fending off the Americans for months. So I strolled off on my own away from the decay, the noise and the nonsense of this campaign.
Three cigarettes later I heard footsteps in the distance. I tripped the safety on my weapon and took one last drag of my smoke before I tossed it and stepped through the brush ahead. One American soldier knelt down about 100 yards ahead of me.
We both froze. Statues in a museum of war. Rifles trained, waiting to fire.
Three thuds burst in the distance behind me – our mortars. The American looked up and I stepped back into the brush.
I knelt down and inspected the slide on my MP-40. To this day I still don’t know how it jammed and that American got off with his life.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
The Diamond Jewel on the Crest of Francois the Giant
by Momar Van Der Camp
You are standing on a circle, or something that may or may not look like a circle. But it really should be a circle. Move left. Or move right. Backwards or forwards. It doesn’t matter, especially if it’s a circle, because it’s a circle. After you leave the circle (which you must, for life in a cycle is a never a cycle), you jump about 30,000 feet in the air to touch a face that isn’t there. Or is it? It might be, who cares? Somehow, something else happens (!) and you manage to place your feet on some kind of platform somewhere. The platforms (as they have now doubled, then tripled, and so on and so forth), shake and tremble, or maybe not, it seems that they do, but that doesn’t really matter. You start to bleed from something that happened earlier 30,000 feet in the air and now your legs dangle under things that are or are not there. The dangling stops you as a giant, who really is a midget wearing pants, or maybe not, stands above you shaking a finger in your face. You were trapped in a circle, which is now a square, and then might turn into a triangle of sorts. It doesn’t matter. You don’t really pay attention to the circle as the cycle continues. Your body starts to crumble and crack into a million tiny little rock-shaped figures that look like dust mites crawling out from under a microscope to rip open a body of bed sheets, or maybe it doesn’t crack and crumble, as then you find your final destination! Or not.
You are standing on a circle, or something that may or may not look like a circle. But it really should be a circle. Move left. Or move right. Backwards or forwards. It doesn’t matter, especially if it’s a circle, because it’s a circle. After you leave the circle (which you must, for life in a cycle is a never a cycle), you jump about 30,000 feet in the air to touch a face that isn’t there. Or is it? It might be, who cares? Somehow, something else happens (!) and you manage to place your feet on some kind of platform somewhere. The platforms (as they have now doubled, then tripled, and so on and so forth), shake and tremble, or maybe not, it seems that they do, but that doesn’t really matter. You start to bleed from something that happened earlier 30,000 feet in the air and now your legs dangle under things that are or are not there. The dangling stops you as a giant, who really is a midget wearing pants, or maybe not, stands above you shaking a finger in your face. You were trapped in a circle, which is now a square, and then might turn into a triangle of sorts. It doesn’t matter. You don’t really pay attention to the circle as the cycle continues. Your body starts to crumble and crack into a million tiny little rock-shaped figures that look like dust mites crawling out from under a microscope to rip open a body of bed sheets, or maybe it doesn’t crack and crumble, as then you find your final destination! Or not.
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