31 May 2006

Bar Story

Stop me if you have heard this one- this guy walks into a bar, and sits down and wonders what the hell he did with his life. He has a couple drinks, scanning the door for a business associate who doesn't show up.

It is the closest bar to the Pentagon, get it? Most of the crowd is associated with the business. Crisp professionals, young career gals, soldiers in mufti and soldiers in cammies. Everybody has been to the show at least once, except the civilians who keep the motors humming.

The guy pays his tab, gets in his car and drives home. The temperature is in the nineties for the first time. It is not summer yet, but the humidity is high and the sweat begins to roll down under his starched shirt.

He picks up the mail as he listens to an account of a massacre and a cover up and he gets a little defensive. How would he have acted if a couple buddies had just been atomized by a roadside explosive, the cruelest of infernal devices. Would he have responded by executing some civilians? You really can't tell who the combatants are.

Even Tom Hank's guys did that on Saving Private Ryan. But the women and the children? What is the nature of the human heart? How do you respond to faceless killers, ruthless ones who will not show themselves, murdering with a remote control device. How do you deal with violent death?

Do you give some back?

So the guy walks down to the pool, wondering if he wasted his life and jumps in the water. It is still cold, though that won't last long in the wilting heat. Here's the kicker, this will slay you: Under the water he can't hear a thing.

Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra

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