Equality for All

The world spins slowly, burning. The fuel is the rage of a people, a thousand peoples, tens of thousands, millions...billions; nations large and small. The zealous feed them, lies in the morning, at noon, in the evening. Like cattle, like sheep, they are herded in, grazed, fed their quota, and sent out. The untruths are satisfying, the feeling of rightness, of fairness, of equality, bred into them.

The great group-think machines indoctrinate the mindless from a young age. And those who cannot be indoctrinated are drugged or ostracized. It is compelling. Many and more fall before and worship. Their knees are sundered, destroyed, flayed as they grovel, shuffling along with arms splayed, their hymns rising in crescendo. It beats against an ill wind, vying for attention, demanding it and more.

Entitled. The are given much are more, but their hunger, their thirst, cannot be sated. They cry out as though in pain, anguish. More, they cry. More! It is given, and still cannot be assuaged.

Burning, forever burning. Nations crumble. Buildings and infrastructure. Businesses and homes. More and more is set to the torch. The blame? The sheep do not take the blame, for they are mindless. It is the shepherd who must be at fault! The sheepdog! But never those who cause the problems, who incite and demonize. They are blameless, demons in angels clothing scrying the heavens for signs and wonders and meanings and spinning their webs and their tales.

They make clear to the zombies what must be done. And mankind consumes itself.

Only in death is every man equal.

Invasion

I am a proud member of the nation of Wakefulness, and like all persons of my nation, I gladly wage a war every evening. It need not necessarily be in the evening, either, but whenever the lethargy takes me. Those moments of tiredness awaken in me a bloodlust. With that, I begin my usual assault upon the nation of Sleep.

That foreign, disgusting country. I cannot remember its exact location, nor is it quite found on a map, but I know where it is. We all do.

My assaults begin with the same fervent passion, with vigor, demanding that the great country open its gates and allow me entrance, passage. However long these assaults take, I usually win out. But only ever for a few mere hours. Maybe not even that. They are cunning, these creatures that command the country of Sleep. Always I find myself back within the realms of Wakefulness. It disgusts me to be there, having lost once again.

Sleep, so overpowering... it always wins. Even in Wakefulness.

Now, Sweet Dreams... That place is impenetrable. None that I know have ever passed through its golden, gilded gates. What lies beyond is mystery. Any assault made there is doomed to failure before it begins. At least with the Country of Sleep, you may win out over it for a few hours.

Remember, my friends: be weary of Sleep. Always weary...

Time Well Spent

It's dawning outside, a sun rising. I see only blackness and find myself nodding off intermittently. Wakefulness is fleeting, grasped barely and holding only the constant thrum of a diesel engine. The vehicle quakes slightly with each turn, each pothole, the rise and ebb of the inline-eight cylinder providing a lullaby.

Cool air sifts in through the sentry hatch while the orange fireballs of lit cigarettes explode into life before sullenly dying out.

Eventually, a lurch, a stop. The ramp drops and darkness still shrouds, save for the stars muffled by early morning clouds. They linger, grasping at a sky soon to banish them. I find myself left behind with a few others. Rotation, he says. I'll get my chance. Chance at what?

Sleep lulls me back. I fight for wakefulness. It's a battle I lose again and again until a slam on the hatch.

My first intake of breath is of the sight of a sun rising into the almost-crisp morning air. Mud walls rise all about. The road is hardpack, well worn from years of use and an unforgiving sun. But my first sight truly isn't the landscape. Before me lays the wreckage of another vehicle, flipped onto a side with fenders missing, tires incognito and a hole in the ground deep enough to have needed an excavator to make.

I'm told where to go. Cradling my rifle, I walk. Already, the heat is starting to become unbearable. It's not even seven in the morning. The locals are coming in force, too. I find myself cursing at them. It appears to be the only language they understand. "Get the fuck back", "Fuck off" -- they're my call words, my watch words, the only saving grace lent to me in a hostile nation. They work, but only when applied with conviction, with faith. My conviction, like my faith so early in my tour, is lacking.

It works, for a time at least.

But like the waves of an ocean, they are always pressing in only to ebb. Then they press on, trying to pass me. They make hand gestures, as though this would make me understand that they're on a tight time schedule and this is the only route they can take to get from A to B.

Hours pass by. Hours of sun, of heat, of locals staring at me. I am an animal in a zoo with no walls, an attraction. They have come to see the Canadian in tan, pretending to be a man. I stare back from behind tinted ballistic sunglasses, swearing, cursing, dehydrated...

Time spent in the LAV in air conditioning guzzling water is well spent but short lived. By three in the afternoon, we finally leave. Nothing happens beyond the IED site. It has barely been a week, but already my hate for a country I know little about is growing...