Friday, September 17, 2010

A Bad Angel on a Mistaken Mission



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Who are you who lives in all these many forms?


You are death, who comes for all men.


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We don't know any better.


We move forward, blindly, with the best of intentions, with our fears and our desperation.


Mown down like grass before the scythe.


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You act. You choose one door, the others are shut behind you. On scant information, on ghosts of mirages, on enigmas wrapped in riddles, you wade into the darkness, your arms sweeping before you, your toes reaching out for something solid.

Among the alligators and the beasts of the swamp, the dankness and decay.



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But you have a shining holy light within you.



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It might show the way.



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I couldn't begin to tell you the number of times I've thought that I could probably get killed in the next second or two or three. The number of times I've held on a doorway, waiting for someone to come through, or the the number of doorways I've gone through, waiting for what's on the other side.

The difference between making it and not making it is negligible.

It almost don't have to do with you.

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I remember this one time in particular, this guy was holed up. He had a 7mm mag on the other side of the door, we all knew it, and we'd shot in some smoke and some gas and what not, we were all masked up, a bunch of us hunkered up at the end of the hallway past his kitchen and livingroom, just the closed door at the end of the hall....and the thing is with that 7 mag, it'll just go through your vest like a hot knife through butter. We could have been standing there in our altogether, for all the difference it would make.

I remember thinking, well, you just won't know till it's gone through you is all. And by then you'll either have your brains scattered all over that back wall, or you'll go down with a femur shot or a gut shot or something, and you'll either be okay or you'll be fucked.

In the meantime, lets keep that old muzzle pointed down range, and if he steps out, why, you just let him have it.


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Turned out he blew his own brains all over hell's half acre.




We jumped some when that shot rang out, I'll tell you what.



We went on in, I almost stepped on half his soft palate, six teeth still in it.


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I miss all that.


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Namaste.



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6 Comments:

Blogger Radish King said...

I think of you too there every day every day in harm's way saving the world with all the world's parts rattling around inside you. And that fucking amazing art. I think of you every day and I wing the best of me toward you and your safety and the safety of your family. I can't do much but by god I can love like nobody's business.

Yours,
Rebecca

8:28 PM  
Blogger Elisabeth said...

Disturbing to a high degree and sad and brilliant and all those other things rolled into one.

For me there are too may guns.

Thanks, Dishwasher.

12:45 AM  
Blogger Marylinn Kelly said...

The miracle is we have such as you, willing to do that work and live with the consequence, on our behalf. The rest of us get to hold onto our illusions a while longer.

10:01 AM  
Blogger tearful dishwasher said...

Rebecca-

I feel it, every day.

thanks.

12:23 PM  
Blogger tearful dishwasher said...

Elisabeth-

I know, guns, huh? I really don't hate them, or even fear them. They're just tools.

But I'm afraid of what we do to each other. And I'm glad to put myself between that kind of violence and the target of it.

Most times, even the bad guy isn't all that bad. Just hurt and angry and bitter and selfish and stupid and drunk and high.

Most times.

But you gotta stop 'em, bad or not.


If I could have a superpower, it would be to magically appear right there before it happens, like Tom Cruise in Minority Report, only not that self-righteous. Or good-looking, either.

Ha.


Thanks for stopping by!


yrs-

tearful

12:31 PM  
Blogger tearful dishwasher said...

Marylinn-


Thanks for the kind words. And thanks for coming by and commenting. I'm glad to have your company.


yrs-

tearful

12:32 PM  

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