{"id":29222,"date":"2010-09-28T13:05:02","date_gmt":"2010-09-28T18:05:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=29222"},"modified":"2011-06-03T17:36:11","modified_gmt":"2011-06-03T21:36:11","slug":"pieces-a-reader-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/pieces-a-reader-response\/","title":{"rendered":"Pieces – A reader response"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note:<\/strong> This was sent to me via email by a reader who wishes to remain anonymous, in response to Sunday’s post, Back in One Piece<\/a>. He said to me by way of introduction, “It started out as therapy writing. Putting it into a dream… there are others of us out here like your friend… it’s been twenty years, I still dream about this and other things. There isn’t a recovery really but, an acceptance of responsibility, then coping… maybe one day forgiveness…” And in a second email, “I forgot to add, we buried those bodies…the bone broke when we moved him…a dramatized version of a real event.” — amanda<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cDude!! Dude!! C’mon.\u201d Tim looked around.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?? Who\u2019s that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTim, let\u2019s go dude\u2026 get down from there, time to find some trophies!\u201d Tim took in his surroundings. Yeah, the cease fire, the prisoners, we had won but, we were just fighting??? \u201cYou alright man?\u201d Cosmo asked. Tim looked around confused, the sun beating down on the back of his neck. He slowly got down from the turret.<\/p>\n

\u201cCosmo, where are we?\u201d Cosmo turned and gave Tim a look that said, \u201cYou\u2019re joking, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you fall asleep dude?\u201d<\/p>\n

Tim looked around again,\u201cNo, no man. I must have been thinking about something else.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOver here Sgt. K, I found something!\u201d One of the men shouted. Tim began to walk toward the bombed-out tank. The gun turret lay 30 yards away upside down; something inside the tank was still on fire. Tim walked around the edge of the ripped apart tank\u2026 bodies. The men of his squad stood around two bodies. Arms and legs drawn up, one was on his back the other looked as if he was crawling away. They were human as far as Tim could tell, but even that was a guess. Blackened, mouths open, lips pulled back as if in a final scream, the clothes completely burnt away. The one on his back was the worst. It looked as if the flesh had burnt away from his stomach leaving the exposed intestines cooked into place. Tim thought how much he looked like a bug in one of those glass cases; all he needed was a needle through the middle with a little flag that said ‘Homo Sapiens’.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Like a shovel to the face, the smell of the days-old bodies hit Tim full force and gripped him around the throat and began to tighten its grip ever so slowly. The burnt hair and flesh mixing into a sickly sweet and pungent odor that was almost alien but, in a strange way, familiar. Tim knew he\u2019d never forget the sight\u2026 or the smell.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlright, start looking for anything that\u2019s not completely destroyed for the 1st AD museum,\u201d some roughneck full bird said. Tim looked around; his friends began to tug at the bodies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are you guys doing?\u201d Tim\u2019s stomach started to churn. Sgt. Mark grabbed the nearest arm and gave it a yank, the cooked bone snapped like a chicken wing and the flesh pulled away leaving some dangling skin.<\/p>\n

\u201cCome on Tim, have some to take home and show your kid!\u201d Tim grabbed his stomach, still looking at the mangled arm.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t\u2026 you can\u2019t do that! Hey man\u2026 Stop, stop.\u201d The first swing missed entirely. The second swing hit pay dirt.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou sick son of a bitch I said STOP!\u201d Tim swung wildly; once, twice, three times right in the face\u2026 his knuckles beginning to bleed once again from hitting the concrete building. One couple across the street stood and watched.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with him?\u201d the girl asked her male friend.<\/p>\n

\u201cAh, probably just some wino coming down, he\u2019ll get another bottle soon enough and be back to his old crazy self. Come on, we\u2019re going to be late.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tim slowly realized he wasn\u2019t in Iraq anymore. He saw the couple across the street. He was home, if you could call it that. He watched the couple stare at him for a minute before returning to their walk down the opposite side of the street. He checked his bloodied knuckles; only the middle right one seemed to be bleeding very badly. He wiped the blood on his pant leg and then sat on his hand to put some pressure on it to stop the bleeding. He sat there in the shadows, not too many people out tonight; then came the crying. He didn\u2019t even try to hide it anymore.<\/p>\n

He was never sure why he cried but, he did, frequently. He supposed he cried for himself and for the dead but, a part of him cried for the living. From his view the living seemed to be deader than anyone. They trampled over each other to get on a bus or an elevator. They had no real concern for anyone but themselves. Zombies were Tim\u2019s favorite term for them but sometimes they looked more like cattle, being herded from one pen to the next by an unseen hand. They went along one behind the other, like that game he used to play\u2026 Lemmings he thought it was called. All of these little people following each other around no matter where they went, even if you sent the little suckers over a cliff. Blip, blip, blip, blip\u2026 not one of them smart enough to see the one in front of him fall.<\/p>\n

Then there were the guys like him, the ones who could see the unseen hand directing the dumb bastards to their doom. Labeled as crazy, suffers from PTSD, lazy and doesn\u2019t care about life. The VA telling him,
\n\u201cWe can\u2019t find anything wrong so, it must just be in your head.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yeah, it was in his head alright and his joints and his guts and liver and bones. The crying was easing up. He wiped his eyes on his dirty jacket arm. He thought he might be able to sleep again for another hour or two before he was forced to move. Maybe a walk through the park and a quick wash in the fountain before the kids and the parents came out to play.<\/p>\n

He rechecked his knuckle, adjusted himself and leaned his head against the hard brick wall. \u201cNo more dreams tonight dude, no more dreams. Just some sleep\u2026\u201d He muttered to himself as he drifted into a fitful sleep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note: This was sent to me via email by a reader who wishes to remain anonymous, in response to Sunday’s post, Back in One Piece. He said to me by way of introduction, “It started out as therapy writing. Putting it into a dream… there are others of us out here like your friend… … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":191,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29222"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/191"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29222\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}