Omar's Dream

A month later Omar returned to the caves to wait for me. He had a dream.

“I’m afraid you will have take your boots off,” said a soldier wearing a 45-caliber sidearm with an M-16 slung over his shoulder when he saw my scarred climbing boots at SeaTac airport in March 2002. They had steel rivets.

“Anything interesting happen while I was away since September 1, 2001?”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“Do you mean the half before the shift or the half after the shift?”

The G.I. answered with a dull blank stare.

A retired homeless bag lady approached security. “It’s good to know that 450 airports in early 2002 hired more than 45,000 workers. Maybe I can get a screener job here.”

“Why not?” said a T.S.A. official standing near an X-ray machine. “Each month, screeners take from passengers about a half-million things, including 160,000 knives, 2,000 box cutters, seventy guns.”

“Look like things have improved since I’ve been gone,” she said, pushing her grocery cart down the discount aisle. “Now I feel really safe.”

Along the concourse I studied glossy high definition pixel posters of airplanes slamming into towers with the admonition:

Beware!

This could happen to you.

Live in fear.

Report any and all suspicious activity.

Do not trust anyone.

Spy on neighbors and report them to the Secret Police.

Do your civic duty.

Be a Patriot Act.

Big Brother Is Watching 24/7

I’d created this reality with precise clarity.

Returning to the United States of Amnesia after centuries on the ground in Morocco and Spain I sat in my Tacoma tree house. I worked in a room bathed in light.

I had a maul, a hatchet, and a double bladed axe named Laughter.

Inside shifting forest tides, I was buried beneath 150- foot tall Douglas firs waving in wind.

A blade’s swinging, singing weight edge sliced through old growth tree time rings with ferns, moss, and rain.

I sat down spinning out tales, weaving spider webs on a loom of time. My mirrors reflected everything.

I carried Omar’s palimpsest through the forest. It was a bird song trill and spring music with owls, ravens, crows, eagles and vultures circling on thermals offering shamanic visions of clarity, insight and ancient wisdom.

I established a refuge from the storm with simplicity, serenity and sanctuary.

Living on the edge I savored shelter in a bird’s song. Trimmed cuticles spiraled into spring. It snowed flowers.

I looked deep into the forest of the mysterious manuscript. It was true and filled with sensory details. I connected new narratives with Omar’s animal skins revealing adventures, quests, dreams, conversations and awareness blended with joy, delight, courage and healing energies.

People wondered and wandered, chained to the earth to pay for the freedom of their eyes. We see through our eyes not with our eyes.

I resumed my Spanish exile.

ART - Adventure, Risk, Transformation - A Memoir

Destiny

“Books are an ice axe to break the sea frozen inside us.” - Franz Kafka

+

After a war everything is easy.

In 1969 he volunteered for the Army, left the world and flew over the pond to Nam. He walked out 364 days later with his shadow - a bag of bones.

He is a ghost driving a meat-covered skeleton made of stardust riding a rock floating through space.

Fear Nothing.

Transformed, he experienced free time in the long now.

This is what happened, more or less.

One of his names is Lucky Foot. What does that mean?

He elucidates in simple, clear, precise, concise English the language of savage barbarians.

It means, as an experience junky possessing genetic variant DRD4-R7 addicted to new adventures, he brings prosperity to merchants, rest-a-rant owners and nondescript sad, neglected, abandoned and emotionally well adjusted hot to trot red sheen women among humans struggling to survive life’s labyrinth without a center.

He gifts luck to money changers, manicure girls, beggars, banana women, landmine amputee survivors, ice and rice sellers, student-teachers, tinkers, tailors, soldiers, spies, textile merchants, weavers, artistic genius children, orphans, noodle mama, tea and java purveyors, gardeners, gravediggers, literary outlaws and craggy faced Dan, a boat captain in Hoi An who worked as an interpreter at MAC V during the Vietnam War.

Fate and destiny is the same thing.

If he grows up he dies.

Security is an illusion.

He presents good fortune to Rita, author of Ice Girl in Banlung, barbers cleaning his ears, high-heeled sandal ladies, love sock purveyors and rent-a-life companies.

HCE. Here comes everybody.

90% of life is showing up. When he shows up their day, life, fate and glittering fortunes improve. Karmic destiny.

Fate laughed with him in Morocco on 9/11. He was in the Sahara. He did not take possession of that event and perpetual aftermath. Fear sells.

Destiny danced with him on the is-land of Amnesia in Southeast Asia and exploring Turkey, China, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

Before returning to Nam in 2009 he lived on a string of 15,000 archipelago islands between Malaysia and Papa New Genie gathering evidence about the human condition.

Each island is a letter. If you string letters together you create a word. This word depending on your imaginary perception of truth-value may or may not have meaning for you like Beauty - your true reflection in still water.

Beauty has no tongue.

A small journey expands life’s tapestry. He’s a needle without a compass. His needle leads a thread. Threads weave a conversation.

Move like a river, rest like a mirror, respond like an echo.

The Language Company

Odyssey of the Hat

Sitting in Trabzon, Turkey in early September 2012, he decided to get another Akubra from David Morgan near Seattle.

He’d had two in his short life. The first was a Banjo Patterson received in Eugenics. He wore it in China for three years and another year in Ankara/Bursa.

He gifted it to Zeynep before flying to Indonesia where he received a Snowy River. He gifted that cat in the hat to a Ho Chi Minh lover before walking the Nam-Cambodia-Laos-Trabzon path. In Trabzon he ordered a Traveler.

In late October two days before the Sacrifice holiday, Sit Down called from Trabzon, “I have your customs documents here.”

“Perfect timing,” said Lucky. “I’ll be over tomorrow. See you at the office.”

Process: Meet Sit Down and walk to the customs bureaucrazy near the port where Russian container ships unloaded crates of baboons.

Go to Office #1. Office #1 man sent them to Office #2 man. Office #2 man said, “Go upstairs to Office #3 man.”

Ring around the mulberry bush. Here we go and where we stop nobody knows.

Office #3 man was not at his desk. Another man said the value of the Traveler ($135) would mean BIG customs duties ranging from $25-75 depending on (a) his mood (b) international currency fluctuations based on speculative financial trades after the market closed and (c) his executive decision to charge said custom taxes in (1) Turkish Lira (2) Euros (3) Dollars (4) undetermined.

Lucky selected #1, filled out forms with blue ink on a line printed for that purpose the man entered data into a computer databank stamped some forms formed some stamps adjusted his purple Windsor fit to be tied neck knot smoothed his 100% blue cotton medium sized shirt into government issued tax pants nestled next to a black plastic belt above shiny handmade black leather shoes smiled and said, “46TL. Pay downstairs at Office #2.”

The portly going bald Office #2 man was loquacious. They exchanged grins paperwork and telepathy - We are in this together.

He copied essential documents accepted 46TL stamped and signed where he was authorized to because it was important necessary and fun. He handed forms back, “You brought me luck today. No one smiles here. Everyone wears grouchy pants. They rehearse eternal morose ambivalence. Go to the Receiving Office fifteen kilometers from here.”

Lucky smiled, “Every day above ground is a prodigious day.”

Lucky and Sit Down hitched a ride on a garbage truck overflowing with past, present and future used grammar textbooks. The RO was a cement building in an industrial park. A bonfire burned in front.

“Why?”

“They are destroying evidence of Kurdish and Armenian genocides, self-autonomy dreams, regretful memories, future fears, and Turkish democratic ideals,” said Sit Down.

A man in a death mask threw Human Rights Watch on flames.

“I see an eternal flame for international peace,” said Lucky.

“You’re dreaming,” said Sit Down.

They walked through dusty rooms filled with boxes.

The Receiving Director sat at his desk with a brown account ledger from 1900. Modern technology obscured. Lucky handed him formless forms. They shared tea and small talk. Spoons danced with brown leaves and sugar molecules.

Two workers carried over a long box from Holland. One slit it open with a serrated knife. He handed the Director an invoice, no voice and silent voice.

He enumerated the contents as the director marked off items in his book with a leaky pen: two aluminum bike frames including magnesium handlebars, miniature pedals, custom designed Italian foam seats, sprockets, chains, Shimano gears, hollow Zen bell from Kyoto ...

GPS navigation gadgets, four titanium wheels with be spokes, two hydrocarbon water bottles, two polyurethane reflective helmets featuring solid blue racing stripes augmented by spiral nebula galaxies ... three pairs of form fitted black and blue iridescent bike shoes ...

three pairs of water soluble black/white racing gloves, synthetic shirts, shorts, and quick dry underwear in fifty shades of gravitational necessity.

The Director double-checked items in his ledger and handed the silent invoice back to the man. He put it in the box taped it shut and pushed it away.

The Director handed him a lucky paper. He disappeared into a cavern.

He returned holding a box with white sticker #2443. The Director verified the form from Office #2 man. Tick. He handed over the form and box, “Here you are. You brought me good luck today.”

“Thanks very much. Luck favors the prepared. Thanks for the tea.”

Lucky and Sit Down enjoyed thick coffee in Trabzon while seeing / hearing a Kemil player sing laments.

They confirmed future conversations about residency permit paper work, shook hands and he returned to Giresun by hot air balloon skimming the BS.

On his last evening at the language company he helped scared students. “Open your head open your heart and open your mouth. Say ah.”

Students chimed, “First we open our wallets. Ha, ha, ha.”

He carried the box to his cold empty apartment. He pasted #2443 in his notebook. He opened the magic box. Size 59 in Regency Fawn.

Box paperwork said, “The Traveller is the Akubra to accompany you on your travels. It is made in Akubra’s pure fur Pliofelt, a soft pliable fur felt developed specifically for crushable hats.

The pre-creased pinched telescope crown is 4 3/8 inches high. The welted brim is 3 inches wide.

The brim has a unique memory insert that allows the hat to be manipulated back to shape easily after being packed or crushed.” Unquote.

Addendum in invisible ink: Travelers wearing this hat cannot be crushed, folded, fooled, spindled, cheated or manipulated. This hat brings the wearer good luck. It spreads fortune and prosperity to others along the way. This hat allows Travelers to appreciate diversity, freedom and tolerance with beauty, truth, and gratitude.

Nine years on and worse for wear like all of us it stays strong.

The Language Company

Memory

Tribal adults and children survivors of 9/11 sifted through leftovers searching for sustainable resources. They needed essentials: food, shelter, water, air, sex and stories.

"This is the day of my dreams," said a girl with a diamond in her mind watching fireworks explode over the Willamette Valley in Eugene on the fourth of July. Her wisdom mind reflected 10,000 things.

Omar opened his book, traced braille and read.

“The honorable monkey mind trickster wandered through her expansive museum sensing pure intention, motivation and reflections. If she is not careful and paying complete attention the monkey mind will run wild splashing green jealous slashes, red anger strokes, and blue attachment colors on her beautiful canvases. While some ignored it at their peril others respected monkey mind and kept an eye on it with respect and dignity.”

“It was a mindfulness,” said a woman sketching shadows.

"Now I see why Picasso painted Guernica in 1937," said a blond kid kicking stones, raising dust.

"Everything we love is going to die."

"Yes, we accept loss forever."

She cleaned her canvas with a camelhair brush while leaning against a wall of sound. The echo was deafening. Silence is the loudest noise in the world.

"Picasso was a great thief," said a museum curator. "When you see his work you see the influence of all great artists."

"The ancient texts predicted this," said Other, a seer.

He sat in a pile of splintered wood sharpening the edge of his knife on a small piece of flint taken from his old sweater pocket. Sunlight glistened off his finely honed Spanish blade as he worked it under the skin of a pear. 

"They talked about choices and unintended consequences," said a woman digging for water.

"I’m thirsty," said Little Nino.

"Be patient my child."

"Yes, said Jamie. "It takes faith."

"You can’t take faith to the bank," replied a girl.

"True," said Other, "faith doesn’t know where the bank is."

"A bank is what holds the river together," said a child.

"Faith is a woman in this tribal tale."

"It will take more than Faith," someone said stumbling over piles of discarded twisted logic.

"Speaking of falling faulty towers, it will require firm resolve, an unyielding capacity for vengeance, retaliation, and retribution in this living memory," said Lloyd, an unemployed insurance underwear writer from classless London. His three-piece Brooks Brothers suit was in shreds.

"It’s because of the amygdala," counseled a doctor.

"What’s that?" said Little Nino.

"It’s a location of the brain where fear lives. It’s a knot of nerve cells and tissues. We think anger lives there as well but we don’t know for sure."

“Yes," said Alfredo Jari, “memory is the duration of the transformation of a succession into a reversion. In other words, any internal obstruction of the flow of the mobile molecules of the liquid, any increase in viscosity is nothing other than consciousness.”

“Can you put that in plain English?" pleaded a lit major.

“Yes I can but I won’t.”

“Their collective archetypical memory was heavier than collective unconscious and lighter than consciousness,” said an analyst named Jung.

Lighter than wind.

Fat democratic spectators cheered from sidelines. Consumers swallowed bitter tears of greed and desire.

Let’s go shopping to reduce our fear of poverty, said nations of sheep.

“The archetype can't be whole or complete if it doesn’t allow for the expression of both good and evil in the conscious or unconscious,” drooled a sedated American soldier in a VA hospital wheelchair. He needed an exit strategy.

“More drugs, nurse!” he screamed. “I coulda’ been somebody. I could'a been contender!”

All he received was his pitiful wailing voice echoing in empty chambers.

On a movie set medicated military reservist wives dressed as cheerleaders jumped up and down in wild mind agitated states of abandon. They filed for divorce after taking lovers while their husbands looked for improved body armor in oppressive Middle East desert heat.

They were the undereducated doing the unnecessary for the ungrateful.

Other visualized their death while poverty’s heirs prayed that instant replay would change reality.

Weaving A Life V1

The Priest Confesses

“May we resume our deliberations now?” said a pedophile priest with a Big Unit mobile attached to his ear. He heard a long distance confession from Boston, “Why me? Not me.”

Not wanting to make an ass of himself in public, he knew he’d face felony charges when they found his big hand had been on the little hand. He knew he’d never make Cardinal as a stool pigeon without a prosthetic leg to stand on. He whispered to the congregation.

“We must make plans for the ordained conquest. The heathen are massing their cavalry on the mount of Venus as we speak on these vital matters of church and state.”

Idiots in rapture supported his religious ideology. Faith based her initiative in him.

Worm Hole, a mathematician, manipulated statistics on a child’s carnivore place mat. He created black holes to explore their gravitational pull. Space was more beautiful and mysterious than time.

“And now we’re here,” he said pointing to a small blue marble floating on a cosmic map. “It’s amazing how many people don’t appreciate their existence.”

“Yes,” said a knight errant, “there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all the earth’s beaches. Try putting that into your hourglass.”

Everybody laughed except Bumsfield and his greedy buddy Dicky Chainsaw from Why O Ming.

Knights spinning around the round table guessed the military-industrial campaign might end by spring. They didn’t know the year so they surmised seasons.

Veterans, children, orphans and women knew it’d be forever. Someone had to take the fall and remove leaves clogging the Rivers of Tears. Seasons were theirs for the taking. It was a crapshoot. They all knew it.

Dice man played his hand, “Snake eyes!”

The room became quieter than 1.7 million unmarked Cambodian graves where orphans played with unexploded ordnance.

“We hit a Blue Cross building yesterday,” said a psychotic coalition general. “Was it red or blue, I can’t remember. You know how confusing things get in war.”

“Oh no,” said the priest, “not another cross to bear.”

At the word bear the mathematician looked up in horror from his predator place mat. A huge Alaskan brown bear with blazing eyes charged out of a forest carrying a decapitated wildlife ranger.

“We have a situation,” radioed a Cobra helicopter pilot circling the grizzly scene.

His radio crackled, “You have permission to fire.”

He pressed his magic red button. A $50,000,000 dollar Hellfire Tomahawk Missile blasted the beast to kingdom come.

“We’re saved!” yelled orphans. Gutting the beast with Berber knives and Tibetan daggers they salvaged every part of the animal. A kid named Export packed the testicles in Ice-9 for a Hong Kong pharmacy.

Authorities arrived. They dragged the priest away for questioning after numerous Irish children accused him of sexual abuse. He requested to speak with someone at the Holy See.

“We’ll see what we can do,” said a member of the Vatican SWAT team preventing anguished angry parents from strangling him with his rosary.

“Crucify the hypocrite,” yelled the high masses. Priests in crisis management modus operandi looked at new cardinal points on their compass. They needed an alibi.

“Roast him over an open friar,” sobbed a sacred heart mother of all transfusions.

“Rest in peace…” sang an angelic choir. “RIP it into shreds.”

“Let him write a check.”

“There’ll be a penalty for early withdrawals,” salivated a Vietnamese hooker lying on a thin mattress caressing a big hot strawberry flavored OK #1 condom.

“Any causalities?” queried a Foreign Legion mercenary just back from Yemen where he was shortlisted as MIA. He’d hitched a ride with a camel caravan across Oman heading to Kurdish/Syrian refugee enclaves near Turkey.

“Friendly fire wiped out a few of our forces which is to be expected,” reported an analyst. “Journalists, photographers, and an Italian intelligence agent bit the bullet so to speak. They’ve filed their final report. Wrong coordinates I’d suggest. They’ll be embedded forever. We have unconfirmed reports that Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Afghan hospitals are overwhelmed with the dead or dying, amputees, grieving mothers and widows. 500,000 and rising.”

“So it goes,” said a historian turning their hourglass over as sands of time fell in love with the gravity of thinking.

“We suspect they are executing their own,” said a junior minion. “We’ve bombed beans, rice, cooking oil, water treatment facilities, power plants, and oil refineries. The price of crude is escalating as members of OPEC agree to disagree. They’ve had us over a barrel for decades. Any sheik maintaining four wives has to keep pumping. Staple expenses went through the roof at a fire sale. The cost of staples is driven by supply and demand.”

“Humanitarian aid is a noble casualty for the price of peace,” said a coalition officer waiting for extradition on mass murder charges. “Politically cheaper than body bags.”

“Those are back ordered,” said a supply clerk from Kansas City with an 8th grade education. “77,000 body bags were shipped to a southern Italian military installation before we invaded Iraq with the intention to occupy. Boxes of rancid democracy lie stranded south of Basra marshes. Pallets of freedom sit abandoned along the highway of death between Damascus and Kuwait.”

“Is the democracy smooth or crunchy?” said the chef.

“We can’t wait. We’re screwed,” said a selected two-faced Fascist puppet president from O-Zone. “We bought the ranch. I’m moving to Argentina A.S.A.P.”

“We’re not screwed,” whined a minimum wage slave. “When factories are finished producing expensive weapons of mass destruction, recycled petroleum products for happy meals and flags they will reconfigure their machines and production target quotas.”

“May I speak?” requested a poet.

“If you must,” said an officer buffing his medals with Brasso.

The poet tuned his Arabic oud instrument of mass distraction and sang a sad lament about a person dreaming they were free in a free country.

“Ingenious,” said a literary critic. “Uses language in imaginary and metaphorical ways. Gives it a goof feel.”

“We’ve allocated a percentage to Asian sweat shops,” said a textile importer. “To be specific: China, Thailand, Saipan, Malaysia, Burma, Vietnam and Cambodia, where one-third of sixty million people make less than $1.00 a day. Factory slaves are working overtime. They have absolutely no choice in the matter. A buck a day is a hell of a deal. Once the feds and W.T.O. leave us alone we’ll realize a handsome profit when all is sewn and done.”

“That’s nothing,” said an analyst, “it’s a two prong effort. We’ll construct air bases and military installations to control Middle East oil and air space and we’ll let American corporations buy all the Iraqi assets. We’re sitting on vast oil fields. Sweetmeat.”

“Perfect,” said Chainsaw, the greedy VP staring at a Spanish butcher dripping blood. “Where’s my cut?”

A security advisor spoke. “Last March we launched the largest psychological operations in our 225 year history. We have 1,000 PSYOP personnel working to sway Iraqis, Afghans, Iranians, and Syrians to join the rebuilding effort.”

“Are the PSYOP leaflets proving effective?” asked Colonel Sanderson with extra crispy clipped wings on his shoulders. He was molting. “We want them to see the democratic rationale of our occupation and walk on the bright side of life.”

“Propaganda is more based on untruth,” said a philosopher.

“Their illiteracy rate is high,” snarled a shoeless education major from Oxford. “Many of the fliers are being recycled as toilet paper and novels. Maybe we should have included lexicons?”

“Too expensive,” said a primary teacher named Laurie Lie. “We have standards to maintain with excellence. If we kill all the children no child will be left behind. This is our destiny for glory, truth, and democratic economics. The freedom and opportunity for children to go to school and develop independent critical thinking skills is our global educational platform. I suggest we set up a tax-free book foundation in Nebraska.”

“Excellent suggestion. Let’s call it Omaha Beachhead Incorporated with a buffet table.”

“It’ll be generations before we’re able to gauge the effectiveness of paper propaganda,” said a wood products CEO raising his options value. Adjusting his golden parachute, he grabbed the ripcord to bail out when share values plummeted.

A silent blind Touareg living on the edge of their deliberations knew they existed in a twilight zone beyond sight and sound bites.

“Who let him in here?” said Butler, pointing at Omar. “He should’ve been sent to Guantanamo Bay for interrogation and deprived of his civil rights with no access to legal counsel. He’s clearly a war criminal or a literary outlaw. Bag his head, shackle and torture him until he confesses or dies. To hell with the Geneva Convention I say.”

Knights ignored him. “Just bring us some food. Now,” yelled starving warriors rattling Moorish sabers. Blades flashed Chinese white, Permanent Orange, Pale Green, Cadmium Red, Viridian Hue, Lemon Yellow, and Prussian Blue.

“We’re experiencing limited success distributing electricity, food, water, medicine and a new artificial currency,” said a civilian. “We need to focus on fixing water treatment plants and restoring their infrastructure after 8,000 smart bombs laid waste.”

“Where does The Waste Land end?” said T. S. Eliot. "I will show you fear in a handful of dust."

“The end is the beginning,” Omar said.

“If your rough draft changes by less than 10% you’re done,” said an unemployed literary agent arranging DNA syntactical building blocks on a marketing platform.

“We need to make sure we connect the dots between 9/11 and Iraq,” said Intelligence. “If we are successful, coerced politicians will get out of the way and give us a ton of money like a glorious $600 billion or more to rebuild what we’ve destroyed. It’s our way or hit the heavily mined highway of death. You’re either with us or with terrorists is our message to the world.”

“Yes,” barked Faustus, Director of General Incompetents, “these malicious vermin are obstacles standing between the Iraqi people and security. They are terrorists...no, they are rebels...no, they are freedom fighters...no, they are guerillas... no, they are...insurgents.”

“Whatever. The road through Babylon, Tripoli, Tehran, and Damascus is endless. Our campaign will be well received. We will liberate the oppressed,” said an old white haired man named Regime Change wearing a pacemaker. He loved a girl from Why O Why Ming with a big spread near Bend Over.

Members of a House and their corrupt nefarious Congressional colleagues, doing nothing but squabble and bicker and delay and waste taxpayer money playing party politics for another term with automatic pay raises, looked at him with contempt, incredulity, amazement and pure terror.

“We ain’t in no fucking jungle on this,” sneered a nautical Delta Seal with ringmaster approval. “This war is on track Jack.”

“Collateral damage is a sorry fact of life,” said a man with a whip cutting through red tape.

“Bring them on I say,” yelled Bumsfield. “Our God is bigger than their God for God’s sake. Look, it’s easy, here’s what we do. We know the United Nations is useless. We’ll create false claims of nuclear and biological threats feeding 9/11 FEAR. Then we give the sheep a solution.”

Create a problem. Create a solution. Save the world.

Curveball came in for short relief. “I know where it is.”

“Where what is?” asked Bumsfield.

“All the non-existent Iraqi mobile labs full of toxins and nerve agents.”

“For an alcoholic spy and fabricator you have a lot of nerve,” screamed Tenant. He used to be Lew but now he was just plain Jane Tenant from a defunct housing project. He was on a speaking tour making big bucks after his slam-dunk fell well short of the net.

“Look,” said Curveball. “I gave German intelligence the high hard stuff. They don’t understand the American pastime. They said I was past my prime. They co-opted me with women and booze. A hell of a lethal combination let me tell you. They grilled me over a hot flame. I became a double agent. I was beside myself.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Bumsfield, “a classic bipolar case and your mother wears a straight jacket on the 5^th floor. We distort flimsy evidence from a worthless Intel source saying Sad Man is an immediate and direct threat to our national security. He’ll attack us in forty-five minutes.”

“But,” said President Bush League, waving his one-way ticket to Patagonia, “that won’t give me time to finish reading about goats to the elementary kids.”

“No butts sir,” said his spokesperson. “Skip pages. Get to the verb.”

“Isn’t this strategy too vague and deceptive?” asked a garbage collector in Marrakesh.

“Vague and deceptive stuff happens all the time,” said the man cracking his cool whip. “What planet are you from, amigo? We have the national propaganda media machines eating this flag waving patriotic bullshit. We con the world with these fictitious stories about Sad Man being a threat to us with his weapons of mass distraction and start a war to remove him from power. Problem and solution in one enchilada.”

“Brilliant,” said a civilian military contractor from Texas, “What then?”

“It’s easy. We know the dictator’s been bluffing all along to maintain his power base. Ask Curveball when he sobers up. Sad Man never had weapons of mass destruction except for the mustard gas and expensive munitions we sold him to support his eight-year war with Iran ...

The world doesn’t know or care about that fact. His military will collapse like a house of cards. We send in 150,000 young, poorly trained National Guard units from America’s middle and lower class mind you, take some losses sure, but that’s the price of doing business while we establish a quasi-official coalition government with us in total Control of everything. After a decade we send any military survivors to Afghanistan for 20+ years. Money & Power & Control, yes sir, the American way.”

 * Forbes: In the 20 years since September 11, 2001, the United States has spent more than $2 trillion on the war in Afghanistan. That’s $300 million dollars per day, every day, for two decades. Or $50,000 for each of Afghanistan's 40 million people. In baser terms, Uncle Sam has spent more keeping the Taliban at bay than the net worths of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates and the 30 richest billionaires in America, combined.

“What about the local people?” said a humanitarian aid rep.

“Screw them. We’ve liberated them from a dictator for God’s sake. They should be eternally grateful to us and get down on their knees in sand thanking us.”

A public relations flack spoke. “For propaganda purposes we’ll let them form a provisional government so they’ll be distracted and think they have real input in how their country is going to be run. It’s like we’ve controlled Kuwait and Saudi Arabia oil production for years. They increase crude when we tell them. They shut it down when we hit the off button.”

“When do we get the contracts?” said a Texas oilman washing his bloody hands.

“All in good time. Rebuilding the oil industry will be tied to larger deals. We’ll start you off with easy contract stuff like mail delivery, detention camps, prisons, roads, schools, building hospitals and supplying food to the troops. That will keep your people busy for what, 20-30 years, easy.”

“Sounds great,” said the contractor. “This is going to make a lot of my friends very happy.”

“Hey,” said Hally Burden, “war is good business. Politics is business and business is politics. I love it.”

Everyone had an agenda. Blazing a trail, beaters eliminated environmental impact statements. The grass was very high. Inhaling, they found Kyoto on a map and deleted it from their servers while Pablo and Salvadore created art for an upcoming show at the asylum. It was sold out. Standing room only. Their accountant was pleased beyond words. It was an excellent return on their intuitive investment.

A child said, “It’s not so much that there is something strange about time...the thing that’s strange is what’s going on inside time. We will understand how simple the universe is when we recognize how strange it is.”

“This show is X-rated. Get your ass out of the room and get to bed,” yelled their divorced, manic-depressive father, “or else I will beat you with this stick and stone your mother to death for adultery. If I have to tell you again I will send you to Drapchi prison outside Lhasa where, in 1997, five Tibetan nuns committed suicide after being beaten with clubs, belts, and rubber hoses filled with sand for refusing to sing Chinese Communist regime songs. Don’t for one minute believe they killed themselves with honorable intentions to end their suffering.”

A bearded fellow from the Taliban Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice spoke.

“We agree. Lashes, stoning, amputation of limbs, hanging and crucifixion for flaunting our rigid Islamic laws is true justice. Women lose their virginity if they drive a car. It’s a scientific fact.”

“What does that have to do with anything we can measure?” said a nuclear physicist.

“Everything and nothing,” said Rose, a psychic healer who was not, according to their official top secret Trilateral New World Order guest list, part of the elite inner circle.

“When we retire they give us a watch but we don’t have time to wind it,” said a blind watchmaker named Evolution.

The Lone Ranger, a civilian from a Special Ops Group, studied a satellite imagery map and pixel data. He was afraid to ask Pablo how to draw coordinates with a vanishing perspective. Knights considered him the Lone Stranger.

“Let us know if you find anything interesting,” said Macintosh, a Scottish bagpipe officer from the Guardian Angels, an invisible flying force. Squeezing hot air from a goatskin he played rational coherent necessity with cause and effect. His tartan was out of kilter. All dressed up and nowhere to go.

The sundial on the wall of honor at Langley’s house approached twelve.

Tick-tock.

Trick or treat.

ART - Adventure, Risk, Transformation - A Memoir